Although the weather report was for showers all afternoon, today was the only day our friend Alastair had free to get out for a day of caching—so off we set at 6:50 to pick him up. Unfortunately, in the dark near his house I managed to not see a... curb? Something that made a very angry sound when our wheel hit it. And then the tire went flat. Great start to the day. We texted Alastair, and David got going with the jack and the spare tire, and Alastair showed up to help, and by 7:30 we were in his Prius and on our way. (Our trusty car stayed at Alastair's nursing its spare.) Relatively minor impediment, in the end. Yay.
Our destination was Almaden Quicksilver County Park in Santa Clara County, a site of historic interest: the first mining area in California, launched in the 1820s, the goal being mercury ("quicksilver"), important during the gold rush because mercury is used in the gold extraction process, but actively mined until 1976. It's named after a mercury mine in Almadén, Spain—the name Almadén itself from the Arabic meaning "the mine."
Over the course of the day we found 32 caches, did not find 2, and bailed on 2, which we simply couldn't figure out. Three of those we found were from 2004 and 2005, venerable old ammo cans; and one was an FTF (first to find), a bitch of a puzzle cache that David worked hard on solving, though in the end someone else (in a group of solvers) was the lucky one. But we found it first, ha!
Ultimately, the predicted dry morning was wet, and the predicted afternoon of showers proved nice and dry—gray, cool in the 40s, but dry! Perfect weather for an 11-mile hike. Here are some pictures from the day. (Click to see large.)
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Our first quest was in a lovely creekbed,
but after slipping and sliding around
for a while, we decided we just weren't
finding what we needed to...
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Still, we saw some beauty, so that was good
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Even an abandoned wreck of a car door
was beautiful (what it was doing here is
a complete mystery)
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Inky caps
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We saw a few old mining relics
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This was a trestle that they sent the ore out on
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San Cristobal Tunnel 1866—sealed up now
but we peered inside and tried to imagine
what-all went on in there
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Our trail late in the day
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Looking out over Santa Clara
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Geocaching does involve bushwhacking...
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And climbing...
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And creepy decorations...
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Alastair hanging out in a tree
being cool
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