Likewise, the cache is NOT under, attached to, or close to the current bridge structure, so don't mess with it. Also, don't annoy the bridge trolls, found in their lair from Monday through Friday. They don't know where the cache is, and they might think you'd make a tasty snack.
Instead, park along Beach Park Blvd. and take a nice stroll along the Bay Trail to the hide. Along the way you may spy members of a large feral cat colony - please don't feed them. What you'll find at the hide is the remains of the first span to be build across the Bay. One further warning: there are holes in the old pavement that conceal potentially ankle-turning cavities - see the log of 2/8/08 - so watch your step as you hunt!
The privately-owned San Francisco Bay Bridge, the first of the name, was opened to traffic in March, 1929. It was a total of 7.04 miles long, with most of the deck only 35 feet above sea level. The central spans, located about where the high rise section of the current bridge is placed, were five steel trusses each 300 feet long, with one vertical lift section. The bridge was famed as the longest in the world when it opened, and also became notorious as the site of the murder of Brooke Hart.
The toll bridge had only one lane each way, and became a choke point as the Bay Area population and traffic grew. The State purchased the span from the San Francisco Bay Toll Bridge Company, and after the current San Mateo-Hayward bridge was opened in 1967, removed the central trusses and most of the eastern approaches. The western approach that you see here was left standing, and was used as a maintenance access to the new bridge and as a public fishing pier, reaching the deeper water beyond the tidal mud flats.
The pier was closed to the public in 1996, while it was used to stage materials for the seismic retrofit of the current bridge. It never reopened, as inspections showed that nearly 70 years of salt water and air had made the structure potentially unsafe. While San Mateo has conducted a feasibility study of restoring the pier, the costs of repairing the rusting steel and deteriorated concrete, plus security concerns from the CHP, mean it may have reached its end.
This cache is a camo job, of a type familiar to most cachers. You want to be up, not down.