Leakage from a Cluttered Mind

I did some hunting in the Hayward Hills today. I started with Dear Trail Boogee, parking at a park on Five Canyons Parkway. This was not the recommend access point, but while the hill down to the cache was steep, it wasn’t really difficult. The weeds and brush got a little thick at the end. I found, and retrieved, a basketball which had rolled a couple of hundred yards down the hill from the park, and then found the cache.

I drove over to Oakes Drive off of Fairview and parked at a trail access point. I looked for Oak View but did not find it. After getting back and reading the logs, I believe the coordinates are slightly off, and the hint is misleading. It’s probably under the tree, but not in the tree.

From the same parking place I dropped down into the other side of the ridge from Oak View. Passed a pretty tame deer that seemed to be inside somebody’s deer fence. I was looking for Hey Weird, and it seemed like it’s almost in a back yard. There are no fences because it does drop off rather steeply into the canyon. Luckily I found it fairly quickly and got out of there.

Getting back to the pickup, I realized Woodlands was within 100 feet, so I quickly grabbed it. It’s right at the base of the Woodlands sign, hidden in some landscaping. You can access it from behind the sign which offers concealment.

Then I drove down to near Cal State and looked for a reasonable place to park. Missed a good spot, got on a busy road, and when I turned off to turn around got onto a one-way street that took me for quite a journey. Finally got back, parked, and began looking for The Stinker. Didn’t take long, which is good, because it’s right near a busy road. True to its name, this cache is realistic looking dog poop that’s right out in the open. I made sure to touch it first with a stick.

Trees, Trees, Trees – Ward #3 was just up the canyon a bit. The GPSr was off a little because of tree cover, but by looking in likely spots, it was pretty easy to find.

A little farther up the trail, I came to Across the Creek & Thru the Woods. I completely lost the GPSr as I approached this one. I backed out, got a bearing on it, and just starting looking in good spots. Didn’t take long to find. And I don’t remember the details now. I think it was in a hollow part of a tree, deep down. There was a container easier to reach—may have been a decoy.

Tracy, CA

Green Achers emailed today urging me to log a find on Trust Me. Back in November I went there twice and emailed him about where I looked. He concluded I looked in the right place and the cache was gone. I kept waiting for him to replace it, but he has decided to archive it instead. It was a magnetic micro in a truss of a shade structure along the California Aqueduct.

Pleasanton, CA

Dan, Janet, and I had about 3 hours this afternoon to look for some caches, so the first one we tackled was Beneath, Between, and Behind. I had solved this puzzle cache a couple of weeks ago (right after Christmas), and Dan did just recently. I had been to the location a couple of times and decided I didn’t want to try the retrieval I thought was necessary. It turns out I only checked with the GPSr once, and I was not in the right location. After some discussion, we got that straightened out and moved to the other side of the creek. Dan took a short-cut, and by the time we got there, he had retrieved the cache.

From there, we looked at TNLN, I Don’t Think So #2, but I thought there was still too much water to make the attempt. The description does say don’t attempt soon after a storm.

But, staying in the same genre, we went a ways further and hunted TNLN, I Don’t Think So #4. While Dan and Janet tried one approach, I tried a completely different one, and came up with the cache. The description says it’s in plain sight, but it zeroes out on the east side of Foothill, and there’s nothing there. However, on the west side of Foothill, I could access a large drain pipe. Several feet in, a small pipe comes in from the left (running water at the time) and the cache is glued to the top of that small pipe, in plain sight.

San Ramon, CA

There were some other caches in the area, but I wanted to try some in San Ramon. Our first attempt there was Arch You Glad You’re Married. There was a lot of activity going on (maybe getting ready for a wedding or banquet) so we left after some cursory looking. A fairly short walk brought us to Bring Your Baseball Cap. The grass fields were so wet that they were marked closed, and no one was around. I found the cache in a spot where Dan had already checked. One fence post doesn’t have a cap, and this cache uses the trick of hanging a film cannister from monofilament line. If you don’t feel all around the lip, you’ll miss it.

Barrel of Monkeys, on the Iron Horse Trail, was just a quarter mile away. This one was well camoflaged, but the general location was clear. With three of us looking, it was just a matter of time. Janet spotted it. It’s a camoed cannister hung in a redwood tree about 3 feet off the ground.

From here, it was a short drive over to the San Ramon Medical Center, where we had to climb a short, but steep hill side. Again, the general area was very clear, and we let Dan do the dirty work.