A few caches in Pleasanton

I tried this one before, but the coordinates changed the day before, and I didn’t notice. Like An Extra Virgin is near an old olive grove in Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park. This time it was pretty quick to find the ammo can.

Alien Godparents is an anagram of Pleasanton Ridge. I think this cache is the farthest south in the park, and it looks down over Sunol. The cache is an ammo can and I found it almost immediately.

SuperGenius #15–Why Not? is an ammo can cache in Pleasanton Ridge. It was an easy find.

This one was up at eye level in a tree.

The title of this cache made me think I’d find a great view to the east and be able to see the Central Valley. Not so–can’t see much to the east at all. But The Big Valley is right on the edge of a steep drop into Kilkare Canyon. This is a micro cache in a big pile of rocks. Ugh! I finally deciphered the hint.

The cache is hidden in the middle of what looks to be an old fire pit under a rock. It’s a key holder. I turned over a lot of rocks before I found it.

I suppose I was at about the 6 mile mark in my hiking, so the picnic tables at Life Should be a Picnic… were welcome, but I didn’t sit for very long. It was windy and cool being right on the top of the ridge. I searched the obvious hiding spots, but didn’t find it until about the third round of looking.

The micro was hidden under an angled fence post brace with a lot of grass growing up around it. It had to be done by feel, and I just wasn’t getting my fingers far enough under the brace. Finally put on a glove and found it. Note: I ought to get a pair of pigskin gloves so I don’t worry so much about splinters, thorns, and biting spiders (although I don’t think they’d protect against a rattlesnake).

From Life Should be a Picnic…, Antzz was just a quarter mile north. I started the process of recovering this one, and then decided, in the interests of safety, to stop and try again when someone was with me. The Difficulty and Terrain ratings were both 3.5.

Returning from Antzzz towards Life Should be a Picnic, I noticed that Sycamore’s N’ Logs was only about 0.25 miles away (as the crow flies) and there was a convenient break in the fence. So I made the fateful decision to head down the steep, east facing hill, mostly following deer trails. Bad decision! The east side of the hills have the most brush, which means lots of poison oak. I got down quite a ways, and then got boxed in. Since I was running out of daylight, and it was going to be incredibly difficult to backtrack (the hillside was very steep), I just bit the bullet and went through the lightest areas of poison oak. I think I pretty well avoided touching it with my hands or getting it drug across my neck and face, but my clothes sure got it.

I finally broke out of the brush just about 400 feet from the cache. While logs indicate that this has been a hard cache to find, it was not for me at this time of year. Thistles and nettles just weren’t a problem.