A camo-duct taped pill bottle in a bush, a couple of feet off
the trail. OK, so this isn't exactly a thrilling hide. The
interesting thing about it is that, based on the descriptions of
other caches that are already up here (for example,
Free Parking: GCTYK8, and
Secret Passage: GCT8KG), lots of folks don't realize that
this is the real Cheney Trail. Apparently the path that goes
by the "flowery water tank" is unofficial, although maybe the folks
who own the last property on Penny Road are happy that most folks
use it.
BTW: capdude made a good point on 3/10/07 about the size of this
cache, and we generally would agree. We made it smaller because A)
this is pretty close to the house and B) we had concerns about an
ammo can on that side of the trail. There is not much room up or
down the trail from here for a hide without hitting the 1/10 mile
limit. We'll certainly give serious thought to a decon-type
container, though. And we are *really* surprised at how difficult
this seems to be; we didn't think that the camo was *that* good.
Live and learn. If others echo capdude's thoughts, we'll re-do
this.
In any event, Jim found this trail accidentally on the way back
to his car when he first came up here, so we decided to hide a
cache in about the only "cache gap" that we could find on it. If
you park at/near "Free Parking" and take the trail on the ridge,
this is probably best-gotten on the way back. But if you park in
the small pull-out below, as EMC suggests, then hiking up the last
driveway, past the two water tanks, will take you right past the
cache. And you'll see the evidence that this is the real trail: a
swing gate with a walk-through stile, and a State Park-style
trailhead sign with drop-down "Red Flag" warning. Please note:
despite that we saw them on the trails up here, dogs are NOT
allowed on most of the trails in Topanga SP. And bicycles are not
allowed on the Cheney Trail, although they are allowed on many
others in the SP.
Whichever way you choose, hope you like the views of the canyon
below. Take care; the rocks on this trail can be slippery for days
after any rain, as the sun doesn't hit the trail much except from
April to July.
And the title? When Jim first came up here and found this trail,
he marked a possible hide waypoint, and thought that "The Back
Door" would be a good name. Then we realized that there already was
a "Back Door" cache up here. So what's behind a back door?
Well...
Enjoy 
P.S. While we didn't really think that a hint was needed - we've
seen tougher nanos with no hints - apparently we were wrong. Hard
to think of a good hint, except that it's about six feet up, or
maybe a little less than that.