Got a few things done around the house and then headed out to Las Trampas around 11 AM. I planned on making the trip into the devil’s hole area where there were a series of 7 caches I could visit. I expected it to be tough–it was. Lots of elevation change and 7 miles of hiking. Would have been more miles if I had not taken some of the short-cuts on use trails (mostly cow) I knew about.
First one I found was The long or the hard–you choose at 12:47 PM. I approached it from above, but I didn’t follow a main trail all the way to get there. Didn’t take long to find it. It’s a decon container hanging in a tree. At the top of the ridge the views were excellent. I could see most of the tri-valley, the bay from Hayward to San Jose to San Francisco, the delta by Martinez, and Mt. Diablo.
Then I started dropping down into Devils Hole and found Road to Perdition at 1:39 PM. This was a bit of a scramble, but doable. Dropping down some more I came to Belly of the Beast. This has a terrain rating of 4–glad I didn’t slip. Cache was easy to find (at 2:08 PM), but I’m thinking it’s probably out of position. I left it where it was.
Purgatory was all the way down in the hole, hidden among some eucalyptus trees. The GPSr didn’t work very well, so I used the hint and found it at 2:33 PM. Then I started back up the steep hill on a single track trail that obviously doesn’t get much use. Finally got to Den of Iniquity (another terrain rating 4 cache). Found this one at 3:08 PM. Plodded on up the hill to 10-9-8-7-6…Fire! which I found at 3:41 PM. Just a few hundred feet away, I found June 4, 1988 after carefully winding through poison oak. Got this one at 3:57 PM.
All in all, this was a very tough 7 mile hike, but worth it. Very beautiful day, lots of wildflowers, and the vistas from the peaks and ridge tops was great.
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