Grapevine Mountain Traditional Geocache
Team Gecko: Will remove cache ASAP to comply with new ABDSP policy. Sorry for the inconvenience.
-Gecko Dad
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Tired of drive-by micros? Looking for a cross-country desert caching adventure? How about a chance to log a seldom-visited desert summit register and take in panoramic views few visitors to Anza-Borrego ever see? Grapevine Mountain offers these opportunities and a chance to stretch your legs and practice up on your off-trail navigation skills.
Grapevine Mountain is located northeast of Scissors Crossing at the southern end of the Grapevine Hills in Anza Borrego Desert State Park. There are multiple ways to approach the summit and this cache. Jerry Schad, in his “Afoot & Afield in San Diego County”, suggests an eastern approach from Grapevine Canyon. You can read more about this moderate rated hike in his Third Edition, Area D-6, Trip 2 (page 288). Round trip loop distance this way, including a swing by Bitter Spring, is 6 miles with an elevation gain/loss of 2400 feet. Jerry suggests reserving at least 5 hours to complete this route.
An attractive alternative is to start at the Pacific Crest Trail staging area just north of Scissors Crossing at N 33 06.070, W 116 28.430. The only tricky part is catching the trail after it crosses the first wash. Turn left (west) and you will see it starting again along the north bank of this wash. You can follow this stretch of the PCT on its northerly zigzag course for about two miles before branching off at a hairpin junction of the trail and two intersecting washes at N 33 06.731, W 116 28.543. By this point, you will have already gained over 700 feet of easy trail, reducing the cross-country distance to under 1.5 miles and “only” another 900 feet of elevation gain to the summit. In late winter and early spring, there is typically a wonderful variety of wildflowers along the trail.
The north trending of the two washes is a bit easier path featuring schists and other colorful metamorphic rocks. There are multiple places you can climb out of the wash and follow ridges for the ascent to the Grapevine Mountain summit plateau. Here you will find a summit register, three USGS benchmarks, and of course the cache itself. My one-way hiking time from the trailhead to the summit was about 2 hours.
The cache container is a standard NATO ammo box. In addition to logbook and pen, the original contents include:
Rainbow colored beanie-style snake
Mini-beanie blue jay
Triceratops dinosaur Happy Meal Toy
Smiley face lanyard
Sheet of prism gecko stickers
Selection of lizards
California State Park admission pass (good through June 2005)
As with any desert hike, please take – and drink - plenty of water. If hiking alone, let someone know where you will be, when you expect to return, and an emergency contact person/phone number. I find it handy to leave a note with this information, plus the destination coordinates, on my car dashboard so it is visible to the Anza-Borrego State Park rangers. They check up on parked cars fairly regularly.
Enjoy your hike.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Bar uhaqerq srrg gehr abegu bs Tencrivar Zbhagnva Orapuznex Ab. 1. Haqre bireunat bs n ynetr, abegu snpvat obhyqre “frng”.