Geocaching

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Now this is what I call a micro park, this park is maybe twenty foot square but it’s got a nice bench in beautiful little neighborhood. This hide was a bit hard for me to find, I figured I knew where it would be but it just had to be in one of the last places that I looked.

Official Geocache Page

When I first arrived at the cache site I was a bit mortified, there was ivy everywhere and I ivy hides are never pleasant. Thankfully the cache wasn’t hidden in the ivy and I was able to find it pretty quickly.

Official Geocache Page

This was a very fun cache as the final location contains a very cool surprise. The coords were a bit off for me but when you arrive on site it will become pretty obvious where the likely hiding spot is. This cache made me very happy that I have auto routing on my GPS because getting back here without it would be quite the challenge!

Official Geocache Page

I made this cache much, much harder than it could have been. The way that I approached the cache I seriously could have used a machete. If you happen to read this before you go to try and find this cache take my advice and stay above the cache for as long as you possibly can, if you do that you will only have to do a tiny bit of bushwhacking. At the time of writing this log this is the oldest cache that I have found, this cache was hidden on 1/20/2001 making it quite old.

Official Geocache Page

I took the direct route to this cache which made it a bit more challenging. I parked on S Park Dr. which takes you to about 500 feet away from the cache. Of course, those 500 feet are straight up! It wasn’t too bad and I could use the exercise. Once I finally did make it up to the top I was treated to some gorgeous views and I was able to quickly find the cache.

Official Geocache Page

When I arrived at the general area I was a bit worried that muggles were going to be a problem because there were a ton of people around. Once I headed off down the trail to the cache though my fears were quickly eliminated. I headed down the wrong trail at first but quickly noticed my error and backtracked to the right one. Once I arrived at ground zero I was able to quickly locate the cache.

Official Geocache Page

From reading the previous logs on this geocache I was expecting it to be harder than it was. It did give me some trouble, I was zeroing out on the wrong side of a hill and with all the tree cover my GPS was having a hard time settling down. Once I decided to expand my search area a little bit I found the cache pretty quickly.

Official Geocache Page

This was a very challenging puzzle for me but one that I enjoyed a lot. I had to resort to some help from some of my fellow geocachers to get pointed in the right direction. This geocache brings with it a bit of sadness, the hider of this cache, Motogrll, was killed in a motorcycle accident a while back and it always makes me think of my own mortality a bit when I find one of her caches. This is an offset cache, solving the puzzle brought you to something that gave you the final coords which were nearby. At some point the offset went missing and people had to resort to asking previous finders the final location. To help people out I created a page where you can enter the coordinates that you get when you solve the puzzle and it will give you the final location. You can find this page right here

Official Geocache Page

My last cache of the night. Pretty simple cache but like most of the other Bzerk Park caches it showed me yet another Berkeley park that I had no idea even existed. I was really hoping to see some monkeys but no such luck

Official Geocache Page

After doing a couple other caches I decided to grab a few more on my way home. This cache brings you to a stunning house in Berkeley, one that I have driven by countless times in the past. Now, thanks to this cache I know a little something about the place. There are tons of amazing houses in the area so if you like architecture you will love this cache. After figuring out the simple puzzle at stage one of this multi-cache I headed over to the final. I was a bit saddened when I noticed what kind of hide it was, they aren’t my favorite. It was dark outside by this time as well which made searching a bit more difficult. Thankfully I found the cache fairly quickly.

Official Geocache Page

As I mentioned in my previous log I over ate during dinner and wanted to burn some of that food off. This cache I had read about but was avoiding because I knew it was going to be a monster hike. I set off shortly before sunset and started the long uphill hike up to the cache. I have lived in Berkeley for a number of years and since I have started geocaching I have found so many new and interesting areas and this is one of them. I had no idea there were all these hiking trails here and the views from up here are magnificent. It wasn’t an easy hike at all, all of the uphill trekking will get your calves burning. I had several people comment to me who were on their way down saying things like “don’t worry, the view is worth it” or “it’s a lot easier on the way down”. I finally did make it to the cache site and had very good timing as I got there just as the sun was setting and the view was beautiful.

Official Geocache Page

I had a huge dinner and was feeling rather fat and I had just bought some new hiking boots so I decided I’d put them to the test and work off some of my huge meal. My ultimate goal was to do No Escape!! which I knew was a monster hike but this one was on the way so I of course couldn’t skip it. When I arrived at ground zero I thought the geocache had been destroyed. There were lots of little trinkets around made into a shrine of sorts. I thought someone had taken all the geojunk from the cache and made the little shrine. Thankfully I was wrong and I found the cleverly hidden cache in good shape.

Official Geocache Page

The hardest part of this cache for me was figuring out where to park. Once I changed my approach and found the right place to park this was a pretty easy grab. Get to cross one more Bart cache of my list, still got a quite a few left to do!

Official Geocache Page

The coords for this geocache were a bit off for me but with the help of the hint I was able to find it without too much trouble. The cache location has a pretty interesting history as well.

Official Geocache Page

This cache is located in downtown Orinda right near the movie theater. I was there on a Saturday afternoon and I was expecting to have to deal with a bunch of muggles but the area was surprisingly empty. With the help of the hint this is a very quick find.

Official Geocache Page

I screwed up on this one. This is a multi cache with a simple puzzle that you need to decipher from a plaque at stage one. I made a silly mistake and screwed up which sent me to the wrong spot for the final stage. As I was looking in the wrong area I had a woman tell me that I was on private property (I really don’t think I was) so when I got back to my car I took a second look at the cache and noticed my error. I backtracked over to the final stage and was able to locate it quickly.

Official Geocache Page

This geocache was hidden by my brother which meant that I had to see if I could find it. It was actually a pretty easy find but a very clever one. Very neat little spot where it was hidden and an unexpected object at the geocache location.

Official Geocache Page

This cache is located in a very popular park in Moraga. I got unlucky because there was a big event going on at the park which meant that there were a ton of muggles around. I did get lucky though and was able to quickly find the cache without too many people around looking at me wondering what the heck I was doing. I had to wait a little bit to put the cache back waiting for the coast to be clear.

Official Geocache Page

Pretty boring cache here. It is near a nice trail head but you need a permit to hike on it. Quick find though.

Official Geocache Page

This cache was hidden by my brothers father in law and boy did it give me trouble. Due to all the trees in the area my GPS couldn’t make up its mind and kept pointing me to different areas to search. The hint is that the cache is magnetized but there is a ton of different metal objects around so it didn’t help too much. I actually had my first experience dealing with the cops on this cache. I had parked my car on the side of the road, which was legal, but the cop told me that it probably wasn’t a good idea because it was on a blind turn so he asked me to move it. The bad thing was is that I was trespassing in an area that I knew that I shouldn’t have been in when the cop pulled up. Thankfully he was very cool about it. He had heard of geocaching and didn’t really hassle me at all. After he left I was about to give up but decided to do one last sweep and that is when I found the geocache.