From reading the previous logs on this geocache I was expecting it to be harder than it was. It did give me some trouble, I was zeroing out on the wrong side of a hill and with all the tree cover my GPS was having a hard time settling down. Once I decided to expand my search area a little bit I found the cache pretty quickly.
This cache is a perfect example of why I love geocaching. The location doesn’t look like anything special now but when I read the history of what used to be here it blew my mind. I had driven past this location countless times back in high school and I had no idea that there was once a tunnel here. The cache itself was very well hidden and due to tree cover my GPS wasn’t much help. Thankfully, with the help of the hint I was able to find the cache.
This was a pretty tricky hide. Due to tree cover my GPS was having a hard time settling down. I resorted to checking out the hint and after that I found it pretty quickly. A very clever hide.
I had tried to do this multi-cache a few weeks back but at the first stage there was a man out on his porch who was looking at me like I had just keyed his car so I didn’t want to linger long. At the location is there is an old time gas burning lamp which is kinda neat. I was able to go back today and there was no one looking like they wanted to beat me up so I was able to get the information for the second location. I made the very short drive up to stage two and quickly had the cache in hand.
This is kind of a tough hide. It is right in front of a store, a burrito place actually, one that I will have to try some day because I love a good burrito. Because of this location dealing with muggles may be an issue. I was fortunate that I was here on a Sunday and the place was closed so there was no one around. I spent a while looking for this one and then when I found it the name finally made sense. A nice clever hide.
This was a very well hidden Geocache! The cache description states that this one may be tough for the vertically challenged so I was looking in trees, looking up under the bridge which is at the location and I just couldn’t find it. My GPS was consistently pointing me to the same general area so I was focused my search in that area. After probably 20-30 minutes just when I was about to call it quits I decided to check the likely spots one last time. This time I finally located the very well hidden geocache! I sure was happy when I found it, it’s never any fun not finding a cache.
After going to the movies I decided to pick up some of the park caches on my way home. There are tons of these geocaches in the Berkeley parks and I had barely gotten any of them. This one I almost had the chance to get a FTF on but Berkeley parks close at 10 and I got the notification at around 10:15 and I decided not to push my luck. This one was very easy for me, I spotted the cache from about 50 feet away. The location of it makes it easy for a stealth grab too.
This is a bit of a strange cache. It is listed as a traditional cache but the cache isn’t located at the listed coordinates so it really is a Mystery cache. The puzzle involves the movement of the sun and Azimuth stuff that I couldn’t make rhyme or reason out of. 
I was able to find out where this one was because I knew that the listed coords were close and in the logs there were pictures of the the bear statues that are at the final location. I used my internet detective skills and was able to find out where those bears are on the campus. I figured I was right and when I arrived on the scene I knew instantly that I was right. The cache itself was easy to find if you read the hint.
I have walked across the UC Berkeley campus countless times and I never had any idea that this location existed. Hidden on the campus is this log cabin of sorts. The building is quite large and very cool looking. Unfortunately, the building wasn’t open so I couldn’t see the inside but the outside was still worth the visit. The cache itself is one of those hides where a normal person could walk past day in day out for years at a time without ever noticing it but a cacher will spot quite quickly.
It was starting to get late and my friend and I were both hungry but we couldn’t resist doing one more cache and this one was right on the way. We were bad boys and entered this park after it was closed, probably not the smartest thing but oh well, we didn’t get caught. Once again this cache really made me regret not bringing my flashlight. By now it was very dark outside and there was no mechanical light out in this park and with it being surrounded by water there wasn’t really any city light to help either. We resorted to using the lights from our cellphones again which works surprisingly well actually. It took us awhile to find this cache but my friend finally spotted it.
I had tried for this one on an earlier date but there were a ton of muggles around because there was a performance of some sort going on so I decided to come back at a later date. Well, that later date was today. Still hanging out with my brother we went out to find this multi-cache. As we were looking for the second stage of this cache we bumped into fellow cacher J5 Crew . It’s always fun running into other Geocachers when you are out on the hunt. The three of us decided to go and look for the final stage together and J5 Crew made the grab quickly.
This cache will give you a nice little work out, you have to go down the hill to get to the first stage, then back up the hill for the second and then back down for the final. We had also parked up at the top so we had to go back up one more time to get to the car.
As I was driving along I saw this one coming up on my right. I pulled over to the side of the road and noticed that it wasn’t that far away and the terrain rating was only a 2.5. I didn’t bother reading the cache description (big mistake) and started making my over to the cache area. It ended up that there was a rather large ravine between myself and the cache. I decided to go for it, getting down the ravine wasn’t too bad, slid a large portion of the way. Getting back up was a different story. There were a few times where instead of going up I ended up going further down the slope. It was very steep and slippery. I finally did make it to the top though, my shoes were full of dirt and my socks were filthy, but I made it.
Once getting up the ravine I still had to find the cache. The cache is hidden in area that is a rather large Redwood Grove (gee what a surprise when you look at the cache name) and it’s quite pretty. While I was there the sun was at a good angle and you could see the sun beams shining through the trees into the meadow in the middle and it was quite the view.
The cache itself is very cleverly camouflaged. I actually picked it up once without even noticing that I was holding the cache. Thankfully when I came back to it a little later I noticed what I hadn’t on the first trip and I spotted it.
It was getting a bit late and I knew it would be getting dark before long but I figured I could squeeze this one in real quick before I headed home. This is a multi stage cache. I found the first stage of the cache super quickly, it was in one of the very first places that I looked. I got the coordinates to the second stage from the first and then headed on over. The batteries in my GPS were just about dead and with all the tree cover I was having a hell of time getting a good lock on ground zero. No matter what I did my GPSr kept on wanting to point me into the poison oak. Although the cache description said that no bushwhacking was required to find the cache my GPS kept telling me that I was going to have to. This cache made me extremely happy that I am not affected by poison oak because I am sure I walked through tons of it.
After looking for about 20 minutes and not having any luck I decided to just start looking all over the area since my GPSr didn’t seem to be helping much. By now it was starting to get dark, I had a few muggles pass by me and they seemed a bit suspicious of me as I looked around.
To make a long story short, my GPSr finally gave me a decent bearing and then I found the cache. It was dark out by the time I was signing the log and of course a muggle came by with his dogs just as I cracked open the ammo box. So I am sitting there with my flashlight, signing the log, ammo box sitting next to me when this muggle comes by with his two dogs. The dogs are barking at me like crazy and their owner is looking at me funny. I tried to be as friendly as I could but boy did I feel exposed.
This was a very disappointing DNF for me. I enjoy Homestar Runner but I must admit that the biggest draw to me to the site is Strong Bad and his emails. Anyway, solving the puzzle for this cache was pretty easy and it turned out that it was very close to my house so I headed on up to grab it.
This cache does something rather clever, it’s a multi stage, and at the first stage of the cache you retrieve a key and then at the final stage you use this key to open the cache. I had to deal with muggles a little bit at the first stage of this cache but it wasn’t a big deal and I quickly had the key in hand. I then headed over to the second stage and this is where things turned sour.
Given the hints from the Official Geocache Page I knew I was most definitely in the right spot and the cache was nowhere to be found. I absolutely scoured the area and it simply wasn’t there. When I got home that evening I contacted the cache owner and they confirmed that it must be gone as well.
This cache has become a bit of a thorn in my side. The cache is still missing a month after I told them that it was gone and worst of all, the cache owners haven’t even bothered to mark the cache as inactive. Just the other day someone went to go and try and pick up this cache but of course they couldn’t because it’s missing. It would take the owners seconds to just mark it as inactive which would stop people from wasting there time. I just find that rude.
This cache is hidden on a very steep hill in El Cerrito, I wish I had brought my camera as the hill is quite impressive. The posted coordinates to this cache were pretty lousy, they were pointing me towards the center divider between the two row of traffic on the street. I spent a good ten minutes looking out there and I wasn’t finding it so I decided to read the hint. The hint showed me that I was definitely in the wrong area so I headed over to the area that the hint described. Without having any real coordinates to work with and the hint area being pretty large I resumed my hunt. I spent a good twenty minutes looking and was just not having any luck. I decided it was time to breakout the Treo and read some logs in Cachemate.
Thankfully, someone in the logs posted a better set of coordinates (N 37° 55.147 W 122° 17.333). Once I entered the new coordinates in my GPS brought me right to the cache. The cache was well hidden but I was able to finally make the grab.
The view from this Geocache is quite impressive and it fun reading the book in the cache which discusses the history of the motorcycle races in the area. After four easy finds this one really put me to the test!
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.
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.
For this Geocache myself, my brother and Charley were all together. Charley has a GPS which can give street navigation so he was playing navigator. There were a few in Oakland that Charley wanted to pickup before we headed of to Alameda. This one was the first one we went for.
This was a pretty simple drive up and grab it cache. Finding the cache proved to be a bit difficult but then I read the hint “Take a seat and pretend you’re waiting for a friend to drop by.” Once I sat down and looked around a bit I spotted the cleverly hidden cache.
We all signed the log and then headed off to the next cache.
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