I took the direct route to this cache which made it a bit more challenging. I parked on S Park Dr. which takes you to about 500 feet away from the cache. Of course, those 500 feet are straight up! It wasn’t too bad and I could use the exercise. Once I finally did make it up to the top I was treated to some gorgeous views and I was able to quickly find the cache.
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.
There is quite a hike up to this cache up a very steep hill. Thankfully it’s not too long but it will definitely get your calves burning. Finding the cache is simple enough especially with the clue. The best part about this cache was getting down from the big hill. I squatted down with one foot under my body and my other leg out in front of me and slid the whole way down. It was quite fun!
I didn’t exactly find this one. This one was hid by my brother and since I made the hike out to the cache he let me take credit for the find. It’s a very clever puzzle though so you should check it out. We were more than delighted when we got to the area and found that it was perfect for hiding a cache, the way that this puzzle works he couldn’t just choose his location so he was happy that this location worked out.
This hide was a lot harder for me because the cache description says that it’s hidden on the right side of the trail but from the direction I came it was on the left side of the trail. Thankfully the coords were pretty good and after a little bit of bushwhacking I was able to find the cache.
Having never walked on this trail before it was a very cool place to go. Finding the cache was pretty simple but it was worth the walk to see this beautiful area.
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.
Caching has brought me to a few of these rock parks and I really like them. It’s fun climbing all over them and exploring. This one had a particularly nice view of the San Francisco bay as well. There was one thing I really didn’t like about this cache though. The area that the actual cache was hidden in was covered in thorny blackberry vines. I was just wearing shorts and a T-shirt but I decided to brave it and dive into the thick of it. My GPSr was having a hard time in the area so it was jumping around quite a bit which wasn’t making me very happy. I ended up trying to navigate my way through the blackberry vines for a good 15-20 minutes. Thankfully, I was able to do it all without drawing any blood. My GPSr started pointing me to a place I hadn’t explored very thoroughly so I went and investigated. It was then that I noticed a likely hiding and spot and as luck would have it there it was.
I carefully made my way out of the blackberry jungle and was happy to be back up on top of the rock.
When I arrived at this little park in the Berkeley hills that I didn’t even know existed there really wasn’t any parking. There was some parking on the street but the curb was red. Looking around though I noticed that there were at least a half dozen cars parked in the red. I figured I wouldn’t be there for very long and if everyone else is parking in the red I might as well as well. I made my way over to the cache site, there were some young muggles hanging out nearby which at first I thought was going to make my search difficult but as it turned out I was hidden from view down a hill.
This was a tough hide. I was sticking my hands in all sorts of places that I wouldn’t have stuck my hand in prior to starting caching, I had my trusty flashlight looking in all the nooks and crannies. In fact, I was so caught up in looking that I didn’t even notice the family of muggles who had snuck up on me. Here I was sticking my head in between rocks, shining my flashlight around, I figured I must have looked a bit funny so I took the time to explain to them what I was doing. They ended up being a very nice couple who had just moved to the area and we chatted for a bit.
They left and I resumed my hunt. I finally spotted it shortly after they left, this was a tough one. As I was leaving the park I saw the couple so I called out and told them I found it and the man gave me a thumbs up. I was a little surprised when I got back out of the park and I could see my car. Every other car that had been parked illegally was now gone so there was my car, parked right in the middle of a red zone. I felt kind of bad but I wasn’t there for very long and I got away without getting a ticket.
By the time I was done finding The Proposal the sun was starting to go down and from what I have read about the Albany Bulb is that it can get a bit sketchy at night. I had done all the caches out on the bulb so my timing was perfect. I did notice that I had missed one on my way in though so I figured I’d have time for one more.
This one quite close to the parking area, so a nice easy walk, and it’s not far from the main trail. I was pretty beat by this time, I had been out exploring the bulb for a few hours by now so I was happy to find that this one close to the trail and there was a nice “chair” right near the cache. I found the cache quite easily and I was then able to sit down and watch the sun set. It was a very nice ending to a great day of caching.
There is still one cache out on the bulb that I haven’t found yet so I will be going back. I hope to bring my camera the next time and get some pictures of the area, it’s really a neat place.
This was a fun little multi cache out on the bulb. The first stage was pretty close to Stay on Target and walking from it to this one you get to see a really cool art piece which I have posted on the left. Unfortunately, all I had was the crappy camera on my Treo to take pictures with but it’s better than nothing.
The first stage of the cache is to find a rock that has the old Geocaching.com logo painted on it. This rock also has some digits painted on it and with the information on the cache page you can figure out where the second and final stage of the cache is. This area is really neat, there are lots paintings and stuff and it has a very carnival like feel to it. One of my favorites was the Wheel of Life which I took a picture of.
The coordinates bring you over to the other side of the bulb. I don’t know if it was just the route that I took or if you any route you take is going to be like this but I had to work my way over some pretty rough terrain, making my way across very large rocks and stuff, it was actually quite fun but this may not be a cache for little ones. The final stage is also near a prominent landmark on the Albany bulb, the Castle!
I found my way over to the final coords and was a little stumped at first trying to find the cache but then I remembered the hint and spotted it. I signed the log, sat down for a bit and enjoyed the view and then headed on over to find The Proposal
After my first failed attempt at this cache I contacted the owner. I told him that I had found the red hand, read the hint and followed it’s instructions and had zero luck finding the cache. In the general vicinity of the cache there is a rock with a red hand painted on it so I asked the owner if he could give me a radius from the hand to check within. The owner responded and told me that I should find the cache within a 10 foot radius of the cache. Armed with this information I called up a couple friends and we made our way back to the cache site and tried again.
When you get to the cache site a ten foot radius from the red hand really doesn’t leave a whole lot of places to hide something as big as this cache is (an ammo box). The two most likely suspects are two bushes. We scoured those two areas and didn’t find a damn thing. Between the three of us we must have covered every square inch within twenty feet of the red hand. We finally gave up, convinced that the cache is no longer there.
I contacted the cache owner when I got home later that night and the cache has now been disabled. I really hope that it’s gone and we weren’t blind. I’d hate to send the owner of the cache over there and have him find it.
This cache makes me very happy that I am not allergic to poison oak. This cache is hidden in a park in El Cerrito that seems to be crawling with poison oak. I found nice easy parking for this cache and noticed that there were three caches all within easy walking distance from the parking. This cache happened to be the closest so I went for it first. I followed trails most of the way but decided it would be quicker to do a bit of bushwhacking to get to the cache area.
I made my way to the cache area and in the hints they make mention of a red hand (It’s painted on a rock) so I knew I was definitely in the right area. This cache is a regular sized cache, in fact it’s an ammo box, so it’s fairly good sized and shouldn’t be too hard to miss. I spent a good 45 minutes scouring the area. I looked all around ground zero, extending my search 50 feet out in all directions from where it should have been. I tramped through tons of poison oak, fell on my ass a couple times and generally just got very frustrated. I finally gave up, I was pretty sure the cache was missing but you never can be sure. I will be back though! This cache will not defeat me!
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!
It was starting to get a bit late and we had done quite a few that Charley had done in the past so we let Charley pick the next one. There was one that he had tried in the past and it had defeated him so we all packed into the car again and headed across Berkeley to this cache, Off The Grid. This is a multi-cache and Charley couldn’t find the first stage the time he had gone.
When we arrived at the location we all hopped out of the car and looked for the first stage. My brother showed Charley up and found the first cache location in a matter of seconds. With the first stage completed we headed over to the second stage and it too was quickly located. The second stage wasn’t hid to well so we re-hid it a bit better after signing the log.
The Geocache was in a part of Berkeley I had never visited before and it was quite nice. Some really great views and a beautiful neighborhood.
What’s Your Angle was the third cache of the day for us. The hike up from Selinka & Pistol Lost Their Marbles was a serious one. Lots of steep hills and just a long way to go. We did finally make it though. Finding this one was probably the hardest of the bunch, but my friend from Illinois finally made the grab.
Of the three we did that day I remember this one the least. I think I was just utterly wiped out from the hike up and I wasn’t the one who found it.
After signing the log and exchanging some items we made our way up to the third and final cache of the day, Resurrection of Pokey
What’s Your Angle is no longer an active cache. It was archived on April 4, 2004
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