Mission Peak

Mission Peak track

I spent a full day in and around Mission Peak. I started at the Stanford Trailhead (Leland Stanford had a winery nearby), and found Eucalyptustream at 9:29 AM, near a small stream and definitely in a Eucalyptus grove. I followed my GPSr into the grove, stopped by a stump to read the description of the cache in my Palm, and then looked where I was standing. Aha! There was the cache.

Inca Gold: Necklace of Tears was next, off the trail a bit. I found it at 9:44 AM.

Next up the trail was another in the series: Inca Gold: Stairway to the Sky which I found at 10:08 AM.

Why? I dunno, but I found it at 10:30 AM, although I started looking in the wrong spot. It was hidden, I thought, under a tree, but a dog just went crazy barking at me.

Climb up the hill some more to find Inca Gold: Last Words at 10:51 AM.

To get to Spawning Ground I hiked off trail a bit to some trees and a small rivulet down below the hang glider launch site. I found it at 11:24 AM.

After hiking up towards Backside of Mission Peak, I took the wrong (lower) trail and had to bushwhack through grass a ways to back up to the cache. I found it at 12:04 PM. The summit of Mission Peak didn’t appear to be very far away, so I decided to not waste the opportunity.

Once I reached the summit, I noticed that Man on a Mission wasn’t very far down the other side. However, it was off trail and down a slope that just kept getting steeper. It gave me some concerns, but actually wasn’t bad. I found it at 12:38 PM.

I backtracked down the Peak Trail, dodged my way through a herd of cows and calves, and found Another way up — 2, Lizard’s Home at 1:18 PM.

On the way down, I side tracked off on the Meadow Trail to find Inca Gold: The Fifth Sun at 2:03 PM.

I guess I could have tried for the remaining Inca Gold cache, which isn’t too far from the parking lot, but I’ll just save it for another day.

I did a quick search for 2 caches along Stanford. Assume Nothing #2 just threw me. It’s well camoflauged. What kind of lover?? is just down the street, and I just didn’t like the location.

I traveled along Mission Blvd. and found Mission District Micro #1 at 3:31 PM wedged under a tile on a fence. Kind of hard to get it wedged back in. Almost knocked off the tile.

Found another one along Mission Blvd. I found Mission District Mini at 3:47 PM.

From there I drove to a park and found Overlooking Fire station No. 4 at 4:06 PM.

I found Happy Birthday JoeSpaz #23 easily at 4:14 PM in another part of the same park.

I drove just a little ways to find TNT Beef Emergency at 4:32 PM. This is the weirdest sign. Can’t figure out its significance. This one was hard to spot, even though it was clear what bush it was in. Caches hanging in foliage are hard, I think.

I found the little entrance gate for this small open space and hunted for “I See Dead People . . . “ I finally found it at 4:50 PM. It was kind of a trashy area and there was some poison oak around. There was a lot of concrete debris, including part of a grave marker, and the cache was hard to spot in the midst of all that junk.

Altogether found 16 caches and must have hiked 12 to 14 miles.