A large plastic jar located along the Spring Ridge Trail in the Windy Hills OSP (Open Space Preserve) in Portola Valley. Preserve is open dawn until a half hour after sunset, please only cache during park hours. Park information can be found at:
Park information, trail maps, and directions
If you've ever hiked in this park then you know about its extraordinary views of Silicon Valley. As Catomcat and I enjoyed the ever better views of the valley we joked about the various takes we could do on "valley view" and a new cache series idea was born.
Today we returned to Windy Hill, brimming with excitement and laughing about the possible "valley view" names we would come up with. Our backpacks were stuffed full of caches to hide. We had barely left the parking lot when I spied a potential hiding place. As I was placing a cache there, I suddenly felt a painful jab in the back of my leg. Then another and another. I look down and saw I was being assaulted by a couple of yellow jacket wasps. Forget this spot!
Leg smarting, we continued up the trail. "Oh, look!" I said as I eyeballed a marvelous oak tree. Catomcat then sees a fabulous hiding spot about 6' off the ground, a great cache monkey hide. We've never done one of those. He hoists up my ammo box. Too big. A smaller container might work. We now notice a lizard on our side of the tree and he's definitely not leaving. I wonder why. Suddenly I feel a sting on my wrist, then another on the back of my hand. Ouch! Ants, large, angry ants and they are biting me. We then notice that our tree branch is covered in ants. No wonder the lizard wasn't leaving, he is enjoying his ant buffet. Forget this spot as well! So now we are "O" for 2 on new Cache Hides and 2 for 2 on Bites & Stings.
Our Cache Hides:Bites & Stings ratio subsequently improved but it wasn't a slam dunk; we also both picked up a number of hitchhiking ticks and even came across a 3' snake in our searching for hiding places, fortunately there were no more Bites & Stings!