Geocaching

Official Geocache Page

I decided to go on a bit of a drive after finding Digits of Pi it was a beautiful night and I always like going up into the Berkeley hills and enjoying the view. I drove myself up to the Lawrence Hall of Science and sat and looked out of the city for awhile and then noticed that there was a cache just a few hundred feet away.

I decided to go for it, it was a Virtual cache so it shouldn’t be too hard. I drove the short distance over to the where I needed to go. This Geocache requires you to read a plaque and get some information off of it and then go over to the object that the plaque is talking about and get some information off the object itself.

Now, I had driven by this object literally thousands of times and while I had seen it sitting there (it’s hard to miss) I really had no idea what the heck it was. Because of this cache I now know what it is, it’s things like that which really make me love this sport. It gets me out and about, I get to see lots of cool new things and I also get to learn about things that I used to just dismiss completely. The exercise doesn’t hurt either!

Official Geocache Page

This was the first five star difficulty geocache that I ever attempted. The difficulty on this one isn’t really finding it (which proved to be a bit of a challenge), it’s figuring out where it is. I highly suggest you click the above link and read the puzzle. I know that it gave me a headache. I read the cache page over and over trying to figure it out. I followed all the links and downloaded the stuff I needed to solve the puzzle and I got down to work.

Man, this was hard, I really couldn’t figure out what I was doing. This kind of advanced math was always a bit beyond me. I decided to read the puzzle page one more time and then I got an idea. I decided to think outside of the box. Once I made that step things slowly started to fall into place and I finally came up with an answer that I believed to be correct.

It turned out that the final location wasn’t far from my house and even though it was getting a bit late (around 10PM) I knew the area wouldn’t be crowded and I figured I wouldn’t be bothered by anyone so I decided to give it a go. When I arrived at the area in question I knew I was on the right track. There were pictures posted on the cache page and I immediately recognized one of them. I looked around for a bit, not having any luck, but then I found the area that I knew the cache was located in. After searching for a bit I finally found the very cleverly hidden cache!

I about had a heart attack as I was putting the cache back in it’s hiding place. It was late and dark and I always feel a bit sketchy being around places like this, poking around in bushes and shining my flashlight on things. Even though I know I am not doing anything wrong and I am not a criminal I also realize that people seeing me won’t think that way. Anyway, as I was placing the cache back the sprinklers turned on. The sound of the water rushing into the pipes scared the crap out of me and I may have even screamed like a little girl a bit.

This was one of the most rewarding finds I have had, I really enjoyed it and felt quite proud of myself when I found it.

Official Geocache Page

This was one of those caches I just had a sixth sense about. As I was driving up to the Bart station, watching my GPS to get a general area of where it would be so I would where to park my car I said to myself “I bet the cache is hidden right there.” I parked my car and followed my GPS to cache. The GPS led me right to where I had thought it would and I reached my hand to where I was expecting to find the cache there it was! I love when that happens.

I signed the log and decided it was time to head home and call it a day.

Official Geocache Page

After nearly pulling my hair out at Up the Down Staircase I headed home defeated and decided to pick this one up as it was on the way. I was able to find nice easy parking and headed down into the well hidden, but very nice little park here. This cache was super easy for me to find. My GPS led me directly to the spot and I didn’t even break stride walking up to the cache. The logbook was a bit damp and needed some maintenance but it was still signable so I did so.

While I was here I had spoken to my brother about Up the Down Staircase and I decided to head back and look again.

Official Geocache Page

Ugh, this was one of the most frustrating caches I have had found. I had to run out to Sears to pick up a weight bench that I had ordered and I decided I would bring my GPS along with so I could do some caching on the way home. I noticed that there was this cache right in the parking lot of the mall so I drove on over and went to pick it up. At the time that I went looking for it, it was listed as a 2 star difficulty, it has since been upped to a 3 star which is a good thing because this definitely wasn’t a 2 star difficulty.

I looked and looked and just wasn’t having any luck. As the name would suggest you are looking around a staircase, so there are plenty of little nooks and crannies to look in. I scoured the area and then, as I was walking up the stairs I noticed something. Relieved that I had finally located it I take the cache and open it up… DAMMIT!! it’s a decoy cache, the first one of those I had ever found.

I had been looking for at least a half hour at this point and decided to call my brother, unfortunately he missed my call. I spent another ten minutes or so looking and then finally gave up and headed to Hey, there’s a park down here!.

When I got to Hey, there’s a park down here! I pulled out my Treo to read the details of the cache and noticed that I had my message from my brother. I called him back and he gave me another hint to find this one. I went and quickly grabbed “Hey, there’s a park down here!” and then turned around and headed back to “Up the Down Staircase”. Armed with my brothers hint I resumed my search. After about twenty minutes I was utterly frustrated. As a two star hide this shouldn’t have been so damn hard. I finally called my brother and asked him for a very blunt “hint” he pretty much told me where it was and I found the damn thing.

I was very happy to finally find it and just move on. This was frustrating.

Official Geocache Page

At the end of a very long day of caching my brother and I were headed back to my place and we decided to go for just one more. This cache is very close to my house and I had tried to get it a week or so earlier but there was a scary looking homeless guy in the area so I decided to come back another time.

The cache is located in a nice little park in Berkeley that I had seen before but never really explored. The actual area that the cache is in has a few picnic tables, is well shaded with lots of trees and is generally just a nice little area.

When we arrived at the cache site this time there was absolutely no one around so we were free to look around unhindered. We commenced the hunt and I was able to quickly make the grab. We both signed the log and then headed home, I was utterly wiped out and starving!

Official Geocache Page

We finally decided it was about time to call it a day and left Alameda and headed back to Berkeley. We dropped Charley off at his car at the Bart station and said our goodbyes. My brother had noticed that we had driven right past a cache when we pulled into the parking lot and we decided, hell why not, lets do one more.

This was another one of those semi pointless caches, there really isn’t anything worth seeing here and it’s hid like many, many other caches. Thankfully it didn’t take us long to find it. We walked right up to it and found it.

Official Geocache Page

This was one of the funnest caches we did of the day. This is another candcfamily who have proven themselves to be some of the most creative geocache hiders in our area. FTF, for you people out there wondering, mean First To Find. Lots of people like to be the first person to find a cache and if you look at the cache page it looks like no one has found the cache.

We made out way over to the cache location and this was actually a pretty easy one. My GPSr pointed me to just the right spot and I was able to make the grab in no time. In keeping with the theme this cache has a very unique log book and I was able to make it so that we were the first people to sign it!

Spoiler/Hint ▼

Official Geocache Page

We were headed over to a different cache and I noticed that we were practically driving right by this one so we decided to swing by real quick and get it. This wasn’t the most exciting cache of the day, it’s in a convenience store parking lot, but it was at least nice and easy. The muggle factor could be very high on this one though if you ever try and get it, we got luck in that there wasn’t really anyone around.

When I got home that night and I was logging my finds I noticed that this one had gone inactive. This was the second time this had happened to me, it happened to me back on Redwood Trailhead as well. Anyway, I contacted the owner and told him that his cache was actually still there and that we had found it. My brother was the one to make the actual find and he said that it was rather exposed so when he put it back he hid it a bit better.

We didn’t stop and have a snack but we did find a missing cache

Official Geocache Page

This was a nice short little mystery cache. The posted coordinated bring your to a rather large sculpture, I wish I had brought my camera for this one because the sculpture was quite large and impressive. By looking at the sculpture you will be able to answer the question “which came first?”. My brother saw the sculpture and then quickly figured out the puzzle before I was even sure what we were looking for. With the answer in hand we pulled over quickly and worked out the final coordinates.

The final location was very close so we went on over and started looking. From what the actual final location was we figured it would be a very easy quick find but that proved to not be the case. We looked and looked, Charley who had found this one previously was waiting in the car. When he saw that we were taking a really long time finding one that should be easy to find he came out and tried to help. In the end it turned out that the cache was no longer there, it had been muggled.

When we got home that night I emailed the owner and she confirmed a couple days later that it was gone.

Official Geocache Page

Yet another puzzle that I didn’t look at before we headed out, there sure were a lot of those today. This was one that my brother had solved and looking at it I think I could figure it out, it all appears to be chess based, I just haven’t bothered to do so. Near the actual cache location there was a little spot to pull the car over, I don’t think it was legal parking though. Just in case it wasn’t legal I decided to hang back in the car. Wasn’t too big of a deal, my brother walked right up to the cache and found it in practically the first place he looked.

The cache itself was pretty funny, I won’t spoil the surprise for you though.

Official Geocache Page

This cache was a bit different from anything I had ever seen before. This was another candcfamily cache and one of the more interesting ones we did today. The name of the cache probably tells you how it works. They posted some coordinates that were with two miles of the actual cache location and then allowed readers of Geocaching.com to ask them questions to help narrow down where the cache is.

I hadn’t looked at the puzzle before we left but Charley had. From the questions that had been asked Charley was able to draw up a map of a few blocks where the cache was known to be located. We also had a hint that told us that the cache was near a large landmark that was made out of earth and rock. Armed with Charley’s map we started driving up and down the blocks, we had gone up and down a few times, looking for something that fit the hints description when I looked over and saw it. I brought it to everyone’s attention and they agreed that it definitely had potential. We parked the car and started looking, remember, we had no GPS coordinates to work off, we were flying by the seat of our pants. Surprisingly, my brother made the find not too long after we started looking. He got a bit lucky with the find but he found it.

This was one of the more rewarding caches of the day and it was a real team effort between the three of us to find it.

Official Geocache Page

This was a short little multi fairly close to µ $ that we decided to hit up. This one was a bit tricky at first. The first stage is to find a brass plaque which you have to get information off of that will give you the final coords. My GPS was bringing me to a place that was the logical place for a plaque to be found but we couldn’t find one anywhere. We searched all around and just couldn’t find it. I followed my GPS again and it brought me to the first place we looked and I decided to have a second look, AHA! there it is.

With the plaque in hand we quickly figured out the location of the second stage and before I knew it, my brother had it in hand. We all signed the log and headed off to the next cache.

Official Geocache Page

This was a puzzle that I had just briefly looked at about week before we went out caching. There is a caching family who goes by candcfamily over at Geocaching.com who make some of the most creative puzzles around, they also make some of the most difficult ones. Anyway, I saw this one briefly as I was checking out some of their puzzles but never sat down and tried to figure it out.

My brother had figured this one out though, he noticed something a bit odd about this cache when he went to look at in GSAK and that was enough to get him started on solving it. I have since gone back and looked at the puzzle and it’s actually not too hard once you know what to look for.

So, my brother and I believe Charley had figured this one out so we headed on over to pick it up. I found out something weird about my GPSr (a Garmin Legend C) on this cache. They were giving me the corrected coordinates and I was trying to enter them into my GPS. No matter what I would do the GPS would reject them. Because this cache uses an unusual character (mu) in the name my GPS was showing it as having no name. Once I gave the cache a name in my GPSr it was able to save the corrected coords.

So we got to the final location and commenced the hunt. Man, this one was tough, we looked and looked and we just couldn’t find it. I was about ready to give up when Charley finally made the find. It was a quite the spot and I don’t know if I would have ever found it on my own.

Official Geocache Page

Before we went out caching Charley had emailed my brother and I suggesting that we use this cache as a center point to make a pocket query. When I went to make the query I noticed that it was a puzzle cache and figured I would take a look at it and see if I could figure it out. When I first saw the puzzle I thought I was going to be in for a hard time. The puzzle is baseball themed and I don’t follow baseball at all. I read the puzzle though and I quickly came up with a theory on how it worked. I started doing the research and sure enough my theory was panning out. It wasn’t long before I cracked it.

Charley and my brother had both cracked the puzzle as well. What was kind of funny is that although the posted coordinates for this cache were nice and central to Alameda island the final coordinates after you solved the puzzle weren’t so this ended up being the furthest out cache that we found of the day.

Official Geocache Page

This wasn’t one that we were going to go after but we noticed that it was just down the street from the one that we were headed to and we couldn’t resist. Charley had already found this one so he stayed in the car and my brother and I headed out. As we followed our GPS it quickly became apparent to us approximately where it was going to be hidden and when we got to the final coords it didn’t take long for us to find it. Clever container, not one that I had seen used before.

My brother and I signed the log and then quickly headed back to the car for some more.

Official Geocache Page

This was yet another puzzle I hadn’t looked at before we got to the cache location. This time though no one had figured it out before we got there. The puzzle is a letter scramble where you have to unscramble the following letter “atiodruhezroesneplnyoln”, the letters spell more than one word. Neither my brother nor Charley had been able to crack it but the coordinates posted are the correct ones and the scramble just is more like a hint I guess.

Anyway, when we got up to the cache site my brother broke out his ninja caching skill and walked right up to and found it. It was a very clever cache, it’s effect was just somewhat dampened by the fact that we had seen one similar to it just a bit earlier.

Official Geocache Page

This was a nice little walk up cache that showed me my first benchmark. I had never seen one before and I still haven’t logged this one as I am not sure how to do it but it was neat to see one. This cache is very exposed, it’s right on a busy street and there are houses not far away so stealth was a bit required to make the find. We didn’t notice any of the people in the houses looking at us, so hopefully we were discreet.

My brother and I were looking at a large metal object at the final location (we hadn’t read the hint) and Charley was looking on the pole. Needless to say, Charley made the grab.

Official Benchmark Page

This was my very first benchmark find. I actually didn’t even know that these existed prior to finding this one. The only reason that I did find this one was because the Sweet Caroline cache brings you here. They are pretty cool, I don’t know if I will ever go out of my way to find them but I don’t mind running across them.

Official Geocache Page

This was yet another puzzle cache that I didn’t even look at before we headed out so I was mostly along for the ride. I did look at the puzzle when we got home though and was able to quickly figure it out. I don’t like taking credit for puzzle caches that I haven’t solved personally, it’s a little bit like cheating.

When we arrived at the location Charley was already waiting for us, he had already found it and signed the log. My brother and I started looking and it wasn’t long before I found it. We both signed the log and then headed back to the car.