Geocaching

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 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

I had departed company with my brother from our day of caching in Briones and as I was driving home I decided to pick up one more cache. This is another of those caches that I have driven by countless times. This is a cute little multi cache. At the posted coordinates you find some writing on the wall and then solve a quick and easy puzzle which gives you the coords to the final location. By the time I found the cache it was quite dark outside so I didn’t even notice the in theme hiding spot until a week or so later when I drove by the area again in daylight. I don’t think I would have ever noticed this object if it weren’t for this geocache, pretty cool.

Official Geocache Page

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.

Official Geocache Page

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.

Official Geocache Page

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.

Official Geocache Page

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

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 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 Geocache Page

This was probably the most challenging cache of the day! It is a four stage cache with the first three stages being virtual caches. The picture to the left is what the virtual caches are. You have to find three of these planes, from the posted puzzle page you get the location to the first plane. From there you take information off the plane itself which tells you how to get to the next plane. Once you have found all three planes there is an easy puzzle to solve (just matching up letters with numbers) which tells you how many feet you are from the final cache location, you are given the bearing.

Now all this bearing stuff was totally foreign to me but luckily Charley had a handle on it. What we didn’t know was that with our GPSr we could project a way point which would have made this cache much much easier. Anyway, Charley figured out where he thought we needed to go and we headed off to find the final cache.

We spent a very very long time looking. After probably half an hour I decided to call home and had my mother go online and read the logs hoping that we could get a hint or something from the logs, that didn’t do us any good. Charley decided to use a lifeline and called up TeamAlamo to get a hint. Unfortunately, the hint that he gave us was wrong. He had told Charley that it was down in the rocks which it is not.

After searching for about an hour we we admitted defeat and we started heading back to the car. As we were heading back to the car though my brother kept looking. We lucked out and my brother finally spotted the cache. The hint given on the cache page helped out a lot here.

I would love to go back to the final virtual and use the project way point feature of the GPS and see where it puts us. The initial area that we were looking in was off by probably about 500 feet.

We were coming back from Trivial Math and headed over to Alameda and I noticed on my GPS that we were driving right past this one. Charley had already done it but he told us to go for it. We couldn’t find legal parking again but Charley said he would stay with car while we went and did this multi-stage virtual cache. This was to be my very first virtual cache, in a virtual you don’t actually have to find a log book or sign anything, it’s usually just seeing something neat or interesting. To verify that you actually saw the owners of the cache usually ask you to email them some information from the area to prove that you saw it.

The first stage of this brought you to “the house that Jack built” Jack being, Jack London who is quite important to Oakland’s history. I had actually never been over to this area of Oakland (I am learning that I haven’t seen a lot of the area that I live in), there was a nice farmers market going on as well. We didn’t really have too much time to stop and smell the roses as Charley was waiting for us though. So my brother and I quickly got the needed information from the first stage and then headed over to stage two. Stage to brings you to a statue of Jack himself, from there we grabbed the info we needed off the plaque at his feet and then headed off to Alameda.

When we got home I emailed the owner of the cache and he verified my info. Virtual caches are a bit odd and I miss not having the hunt of looking for the actual caches. Virtual caches are no longer allowed to be made but the old ones are still available to you on Geocaching.com

Official Geocache Page

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.

Official Geocache Page

This Multi-Cache gave us a lot of trouble. It took us awhile to find the first stage. The posted coordinates were putting us about 30 feet and down a hill from the actual location of the first stage. We did eventually find the first stage though, the posted hint helped us there. From their we noticed that the second stage wasn’t too far away so instead of driving the car a quarter mile or so up the hill my brother and I decided to just walk up there. That may not have been the best idea… The hill is quite steep to the final cache location but whatever, we made it.

When we got to the final location we searched and searched and simply couldn’t find it. We probably looked for at least 20 minutes and just weren’t having any luck. We decided to go back to the car and get Charley and our dad to help in the hunt. Charley had found this cache before so we figured he would be able to point us in the right direction. Unfortunately, Charley couldn’t remember where it was either. All four of us spent at least half an hour looking for the damn thing and we still couldn’t find it. We finally decided to give up and move on.

After our day of caching was over and they had dropped me off at home this DNF was still bugging me. I decided to go to the cache page and see if I could get any more hints or clues from reading the logs. I did get a bit more information and I decided to head back and give it another go.

I found it!

It took me probably another 15 minutes or so to find it but I finally had the cache in hand. Man that felt good! I signed the log book and called it a day and went home.

Official Geocache Page

This was our third find of the day and my very first Multi-Cache. This wasn’t a very good first multi-cache though because it wasn’t your typical multi. Anyway, the listed coordinates take you to the entrance of a building and then you are given directions on how to find where the actual cache is hidden. This cache is another good example of what is great about caching. At the final location there is quite a sight to be had and well worth the visit. The logbook was fairly easy to find, there were two possible place that it could have been for the most part, I started on one, my brother on the other. My brother chose the correct side and found the cache.

If you are ever on the UC Berkeley campus this one is definitely worth the trip to check it out.