Geocaching

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I made this cache much, much harder than it could have been. The way that I approached the cache I seriously could have used a machete. If you happen to read this before you go to try and find this cache take my advice and stay above the cache for as long as you possibly can, if you do that you will only have to do a tiny bit of bushwhacking. At the time of writing this log this is the oldest cache that I have found, this cache was hidden on 1/20/2001 making it quite old.

Official Geocache Page

When I arrived at the general area I was a bit worried that muggles were going to be a problem because there were a ton of people around. Once I headed off down the trail to the cache though my fears were quickly eliminated. I headed down the wrong trail at first but quickly noticed my error and backtracked to the right one. Once I arrived at ground zero I was able to quickly locate the cache.

Official Geocache Page

After doing a couple other caches I decided to grab a few more on my way home. This cache brings you to a stunning house in Berkeley, one that I have driven by countless times in the past. Now, thanks to this cache I know a little something about the place. There are tons of amazing houses in the area so if you like architecture you will love this cache. After figuring out the simple puzzle at stage one of this multi-cache I headed over to the final. I was a bit saddened when I noticed what kind of hide it was, they aren’t my favorite. It was dark outside by this time as well which made searching a bit more difficult. Thankfully I found the cache fairly quickly.

Official Geocache Page

I had a huge dinner and was feeling rather fat and I had just bought some new hiking boots so I decided I’d put them to the test and work off some of my huge meal. My ultimate goal was to do No Escape!! which I knew was a monster hike but this one was on the way so I of course couldn’t skip it. When I arrived at ground zero I thought the geocache had been destroyed. There were lots of little trinkets around made into a shrine of sorts. I thought someone had taken all the geojunk from the cache and made the little shrine. Thankfully I was wrong and I found the cleverly hidden cache in good shape.

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This cache is located in downtown Orinda right near the movie theater. I was there on a Saturday afternoon and I was expecting to have to deal with a bunch of muggles but the area was surprisingly empty. With the help of the hint this is a very quick find.

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I screwed up on this one. This is a multi cache with a simple puzzle that you need to decipher from a plaque at stage one. I made a silly mistake and screwed up which sent me to the wrong spot for the final stage. As I was looking in the wrong area I had a woman tell me that I was on private property (I really don’t think I was) so when I got back to my car I took a second look at the cache and noticed my error. I backtracked over to the final stage and was able to locate it quickly.

Official Geocache Page

This geocache was hidden by my brother which meant that I had to see if I could find it. It was actually a pretty easy find but a very clever one. Very neat little spot where it was hidden and an unexpected object at the geocache location.

Official Geocache Page

This cache annoyed me. There is only reason for this, the cache is marked as a traditional cache but it is in fact a multistage puzzle cache. My brother and I must have wasted about 10-15 minutes looking around for a cache that wasn’t there. We finally broke down and looked at the hint and it was then that we noticed that the cache was a puzzle. We solved the puzzle and then much later in the day came back and grabbed it as we were headed out of the park. It was quite an adventure getting to the cache and it could easily be rated higher than two stars for terrain in my opinion. I dropped of the Jeep travel bug that I had found in this cache and now I am afraid that may have been a bad idea because this cache doesn’t seem to get visited very often.

Official Geocache Page

The hardest part of finding this cache was finding the right trail to take to get to it. My brother finally did spot the correct one and we made our way to the cache. Fairly easy find once we got there. Unfortunately we didn’t see any newts while we were there.

Official Geocache Page

This puzzle was pretty easy to solve as it’s pretty straightforward as to what you need to do. Finding the cache was whole different story. I really did not like this hide. The cache container is tiny, hidden in an area that is covered with trees so you have poor GPS reception and there is no hint. My brother finally did track down the container and the hide itself was pretty uninspired and from the looks of it an animal or something had moved it. Oh well, we found it and we logged it.

Official Geocache Page

This was a pretty simple grab for me, it was pretty much in the first place that I looked. I did really enjoy walking along the trail though, I had no idea that it was here and it’s such a beautiful area.

Official Geocache Page

This one was made a lot harder because of an event at the Greek Theater which made my approach to the cache much, much more difficult. Thankfully I already did the hard climb when I picked up June’s Cache so from there I just made the relatively easy hike over to this one. There were some security guards and muggles hanging around within eyeshot of the geocache so I had to wait for an opening to find the cache.

Official Geocache Page

Due to an event happening at the Greek Theater in Berkeley this cache was a lot harder than it could have been. I couldn’t park at the spot closer to the cache with the easier approach. I had to park down below it and then climb up a pretty steep hill up to the cache. As the first cache of the day it definitely got me sweating right off the bat. During Cal games this area becomes known as “Tightwad Hill” because you can watch the games for free up here. There was another cache close by so I headed over to it after finding this cleverly hidden geoacache.

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This is a pretty simple park and grab. When I found the cache my heart sank a bit. It appeared to be filled with really gross brown water. when I actually opened it up though, ready to pour out the water and hoping I could salvage anything that may be inside I found that the container actually had an inner compartment and the brown water was just a trick.

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I made it to the end of the Bailey Walk series! I went from just about ready to go home to walking a full mile to do this series of caches. It was worth it though, this is a very fun and challenging series. This was a pretty good hide, the hint states that it is magnetic and there was a quite bit of metal to hide a magnetic cache too. The hider picked a very clever spot to hide it but I did eventually find it.

If you are ever in the area I would highly suggest doing this series of caches, they are quite fun and provide a nice challenge without being overly hard.

Official Geocache Page

Continuing down the Bailey Walk I came up to the is geocache, the fifth in the series. I got pretty lucky with this one, it was in one of the very first places that I looked! The hides in this series continue to be unique and fun. They are a good balance of challenging while still not being really hard.

Official Geocache Page

Another clever geocache on the Bailey Walk. This cache probably would have been a lot harder for me to find if I hadn’t had an identical container sitting on my computer desk at the time of finding this one. They sure make good containers. Since I recognized the container for what it really was I spotted this one super quickly.

Official Geocache Page

This was probably my least favorite hide in the Bailey Walk series. I just don’t like having to look in trees for something hanging, I find it annoying. Thankfully this one didn’t take too long to find. I do like that each of the hides in this series have been different and unique though.

Official Geocache Page

The second geocache in the Bailey walk series. I found this cleverly hidden cache pretty quickly. The Bailey walk series was off to a good start in my mind. The first two caches were cleverly hidden and were a challenge without being overly hard.

Official Geocache Page

This one was super easy for me. I walked up to the area, which was in a parking lot, and I spotted the cache when I was still a good 10 feet away. Sometimes it’s nice when that happens, especially when you are in a parking lot.