San Ramon hike

Dan, Janet, and I decided to do a little cache hunting in San Ramon open space today. We left about 10 AM and went looking for the appropriate trail head off of west Bollinger Canyon Road. We took the trail at the end of Paddock Drive.

Bishop’s Paddock is very close to the trail head. We searched around for a while with no luck, and then used the hint to narrow our search. Still couldn’t find it. Then Dan just about stepped on it (10:45 AM). It was on the ground, in the open, obviously not where it was intended. We couldn’t figure out where it should go to match the hint, so we just put it in a nearby secure place. At least I don’t think it’s going to fall out.

Glowing Eyes refers to some deer seen by the cache hider at night, when the cache was hidden. We did see some deer (even a buck) but not at this cache site. Janet found this one at 11:02 AM.

Hey! I Can See My House From Here! was close to a big water tank with a good view out over the valley. I found this one pretty easily.

Mt. Diablo View is a bit of a misnomer, at least from the cache location. It’s sheltered under some large oaks, but there is a good view when you get out from under the trees. After Dan read the hint about the size of what we were looking for, I spotted it quickly at 11:35 AM.

Delta View is full of misdirection. First of all, you can’t see the Sacramento River delta from this location, but you can see a Delta fence sign. We quickly found a film canister tucked under the concrete poured around the fence post, but it was a decoy. I checked one other location under the concrete, but it wasn’t there. So, we started widening our search pattern looking for anything that might hold a micro cache. No luck. Dan finally found it . Finished this one at 11:56 AM.

We backtracked to the car, and drove to It’s Elementary, My Dear Watson. We quickly found the best parking because Dan was familiar with the neighborhood (his friend Scott had lived close by). The general cache location was obvious, but Dan and I got suckered in. I got a bunch of ants all over me from the branches, and while I was brushing them off, Janet found the cache at 12:56 PM.

Then we drove right across Bollinger Canyon and quickly found BMX Dogz. The access is right between a dog park and a BMX track. It was pretty easy to find this time of year, but the logs seem to indicate that in late spring the brush is very thick and loaded with ticks (waiting for the dogs I guess). Finished this one at 1:10 PM.

We crossed the freeway into Bishop Business Park and found 100 Days and Counting at 1:27 PM.

At another part of the business park, I grabbed Hail to Da Bishop at 1:37 PM. It was easy to see, and since I hadn’t found it on a previous hunt, I suspect it wasn’t where it had been.

I took Dan and Janet to Iron Horse Trail -- Part 4, and infamous Team Alamo hide that I’ve looked for 3 or 4 times. We looked, turning over the same rocks, poking into the same holes, and came up just as empty. We decided to leave, but just as Dan passed by something, it caught his eye and with a little effort he had the cache in hand at 2:08 PM.

Livermore, for a change

This morning I went over to Annmarie’s and stayed with Audree during her morning nap. Audree would have taken her nap at our house, but she had a mild cold, and we didn’t want Karen exposed. Before going, I checked for caches in Livermore. Turns out there are three or four--I haven’t been keeping up.

After leaving Annmarie’s, I headed for Just Vasco Too. I think I could have found this one without using the GPSr. The Terraserver satellite image made it pretty clear where it was. Still, using the GPSr made it a quick find at 1:12 PM.

Les is Knott a Moor is in a park just off of North Mines Road. It was a quick find at 1:31 PM. I have found another cache in this park, but it must be archived now.

The final cache I looked for was Rosemary Maybe? which is at the end of Trevarno Road. Dan had tried but not found this one, as had a couple of others who logged DNFs. Of note, DavidT21 and Fisherwoman couldn’t find it. I looked for a long time, but came up with nothing. Since Minicacher was the only finder, I sent him an email asking if it was or was not in the rosemary bushes. I didn’t get a reply by email, but he did log an info item that he stopped by and the cache was still there. I wasn’t doubting that--I just wanted a hint to narrow the possibilities.

MAC event, Castle AFB

Since Karen felt good (only 3 days since her chemo treatment), Dan, Janet, and I went to MAC Presents "Picnic with the Blackbird" put on by the Merced area cachers at the Castle AFB museum. The first thing we did was go through the airplane display (an outdoor museum). I enjoyed all the planes (although I hate to see the dirt and rust accumulating on them), especially the A26 and the B36 (first one I think I’ve ever seen up close).

After that, we ate at the picnic (free)--an excellent tri-tip sandwich, salads, and cookies. Yakked at little bit with other cachers. Super cachers of note included DavidT21 (5950) and bthomas (5616). I finally met (very briefly) Team Tek. After lunch, there was an organized cache poker run. We passed on this because we weren’t sure of the time constraints and just went after some of the nearby caches.

We looked for Yellow tail gunner for a while, but it wasn’t in any of the obvious places we looked, and we weren’t going to waste all our time on hard to find caches. Turns out a large group found its remains later--it had apparently been chewed up by a lawn mower. That group found enough of the old log to sign and they claimed it as a find.

We drove over to a nearby park and hunted Just for Fun. There were a couple of trees where we zeroed out. Janet hunted one and I did the other. She found it.

Veteran’s Park was in the same park. Dan read us the hint as we walked up to it, and it had a key word which led me to an immediate find. It was a log only cache.

Hide and seek is back on the old AFB. It was clearly going to be in some shrubbery next to an empty building, but we couldn’t find it where our GPSrs were pointing. We finally gave up, but then a car full of cachers drove by, asked us if we’d found it, and gave us a good hint. We were looking in the wrong spot--maybe the building threw off the GPSr.

Castle Cache was around some other old, apparently abandoned buildings and in some shrubbery. It didn’t take long and I spotted it.

Then we figured out how to drive to Rock Out. We got there on dirt roads winding around the ball field. This was another one I found quickly.

Testing - Testing was close by. We took dirt roads again to get there, but there was a paved way to there. The site was an old jet engine test stand, although the cache was actually nearby. It was an easy find.

Now we headed north, but still on the old base, to Fire! This was an old fire fighter practice structure. We knew we were looking for a magnetic cache, but it took Janet’s persistence to get it.

I liked the camo on Fuel Cell, even though I walked right up to it. It might have been more difficult if the camo was not broken.

Our final find (Super Bowl ?)was at another nearby park. We walked to a far back corner and then realized that the cache was on the other side of the fence along a canal trail. Dan hopped the fence, and then I spotted the cache and directed him to it.

Pacheco with Dan

Dan and I headed north to highway 4 for a few hours in the afternoon. Number Three was a finely crafted cammo container. When I found it at 2:03 PM, it took a while to figure out how to open it because it was so finely crafted.

We moved the car to a new location and started walking. Hidden Valley Hawks was the next one we found at 2:27 PM. It was an ammo can and easy to spot. We continued hiking up a hill to Playground Madness #5, which we found at 2:46 PM. The coords might have been a little off.

At 3:08 PM we found Trust No One which was up another hill. We didn’t find this one in its hiding place. The lid was close by, but I found the container 20 or 30 ft away. No contents or log book was to be seen. We signed a yellow sticky for a log and rehid the container.

It seemed easier to continue hiking than to return to the car and move it to find California Riding and Hiking Trail #3 (3:39 PM). After this one we returned to the car.

Made a quick look for 9-11 Pin Cache but was uncomfortable because it seemed like we were in someone’s yard, even though the description says not. Ended the day with CCCT: Start Here, which we found at 4:25 PM.