Wounded Sentinel Traditional Cache
ChipnDonna: The most popular cache in my collection with a story of hope as well.
I'm retiring my geocaches in the stretch from Los Trancos Preserve, through Foothills Park, and through Arastradero Preserve. I've got an achy (but not breaky - so far) hip that will severely limit my ability to maintain these caches. So I am cleaning them out and archiving them. Hopefully someone else will repopulate this stretch.
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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This is a small-cache - a water bottle sized container with a log and a few small items near a log.
This cache is located in the Enid W. Pearson Arastradero Preserve, and requires a 1 1/2 mile hike or ride by bike or horse from the parking lot at N37 23.224 W122 10.448. Trail maps are available at the parking lot. From Gate A you will follow Juan Bautista De Anza trail for a short distance and then start to climb along Meadowlark trail all the way to the cache. I'm giving you the trail to follow because I want you to enjoy this new trail created by ACTERRA - Action for a Sustainable Earth- that provides, under 10-year contract with the City of Palo Alto, environmental education, research, and land management on the preserve. You will see signs of 1000s of hours of volunteer work besides the creation of this lovely meandering trail: non-native eucalyptus tree removal, the planting of oak seedlings and native bunchgrasses, and a huge reduction in non-native yellow star thistle across these former ranch lands. As you near the cache site you will approach the "wounded sentinel," a huge ~150 year old blue gum that has been girdled to kill the tree while allowing it to stand as a magnificent perch for the local raptors - hawks and owls. As you stop to rest on this steep uphill section of the trail beneath this sentinel you might think about these tough decisions in stewardship. Do you remove this non-native, leave it undisturbed, or girdle it so it dies slowly? It's been two seasons now since I discovered this wounded sentinel and it still wears a healthy crown... I think I'm rooting for it to survive... Note: During the winter rains, the upper Meadowlark trail may be closed. The cache is not located on the sentinel, so stay away from the PO patch at the base of the tree.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Haqre n ybt gbjneq gur evtug nobhg 10 sg sebz genvy. Pbirerq ol n fznyyre ybt.
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
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