Rock Cave in Curly Reeds Traditional Cache
Team Castro Valley: The cache is gone and a lot of homeless are in the area. I'll let this one go.
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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A medium-sized cache in hills near downtown Hayward
This cache is in a neat terraced area above Foothill Blvd. with lots of eucalyptus and flat, wide paths. This land was supposed to become an extension of highway 238, but that never happened and the land remained unused and undeveloped. It is there for a casual stroll near but removed from the hustle and bustle of the city close by.
The best access is via the small parking lot at the entrance to Carlos Bee Park off Grove Way 37 41.050 X 122 04.935. You can also get there by parking in the Safeway lot and going up the hill on the side nearest the tennis courts of the apartment complex 37 40.907 X 122 04.878. Parking at Carlos Bee Park will take you past the play structure and up a small hill to the way up the bigger hill (2nd set of coords above). The old road up the hill is now fenced off (wasn't twenty years ago) and that is the trailhead for hilltop access now. These coords are calculations made from decimal-format coords from Google Earth.
This cache is around past the back of the open-topped water tank; go around it on the left side (right side is blocked by a fence) and continue NNW (roughly) along the hill top trails. You will descend a terrace level near the cache.
There is an alternate route: Gary Drive dead-ends off Grove Way going uphill. Come through the end and hike around (roughly SE). Feel free to ignore signs here at Gary-end, I have seen dog-walkers and hikers use this as a trailhead all the time.
This cache is a 5" by 6" plastic jar with camo that contains a disposable camera for you to take a shot of yourself with! Please leave the camera in the cache and let me know when all the film is used so I can retrieve it and develop the photos to see who came and found the cache! In my six months of caching, I have only ran into other cachers twice in 167 finds. To me, the geocaching community remains largely unknown, so smile for the camera!
Update 5/26/09: I have developed the photos from the disposable camera. They turned out better than I would've expected for something sitting outside in a jar for almost a year! See photo gallery. If you recognize yourself or someone else in a photo, please send me an email so I can add your user-name to the photo. Thanks! Might have to put another camera for the next year's-worth of cache finders...
Please replace cache as you found it so it's not obvious.
I have three other caches nearby, so make a loop and get 'em all!
Happy caching!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
haqre ynetr ebpx jrfg snpr