Sunday stroll

7 Nov 2004 1:30PM: Livermore, CA
Joaquin’s Watering Hole. This is a two stage cache and I had already solved the coordinates for the second stage, but I let them also figure them out for a double check. It was just a short walk to the second stage coordinates. This was a well hidden micro that I had been unable to find on two previous visits. This time I was more inquisitive, exploring locations by touch as well as sight. This paid off, and I located the film canister.

Then we drove to the ridge before getting to the Del Valle entrance kiosk, and I let Dan and Janet find Updraft, which I had found on October 30. They found it easily. There is a great view from the peak, but it was fairly hazy today.

From basically the same parking area, we embarked on a loop trip that took us to two more caches. First we headed for The Old Tree which, if you chose to drive in and pay the entrance fee, would be fairly close to the boat launch parking. We, however, took a fairly direct cross country route that included fire road, single track, cow path, and bushwhack (except there really weren’t any bushes to whack through). We dropped steeply down right on to this cache, and I wouldn’t want to try to climb back up. So, we walked out to the parking lot by the lake and then followed the lakeside trail to the next cache.

This was Blue Briefcase. This included a climb up from the lake to the Ridge Trail. These plastic briefcases sure don’t seal as well as an ammo can (like at The Old Tree). The contents were damp. By this time, a beautiful sunset was developing and we were still a couple of miles from the car. The cache had a travel bug which I took (light_my_way_2). It was a small working flash light, so we felt prepared for darkness. Actually, we made it just fine. The sunset had completely faded, but we had plenty of light.