St. Hart's 'Hood #1: Hike the Border Traditional Cache

This cache has been archived.

St. Hart: In our 11th month of Geocaching, we published our first 7 Hides in St. Hart's 'Hood on St. Hart's Day (XLIV), Feb. 11, 2012 (St. Hart's Day is usually the Sat. closest to Feb. 14) — 2 near our house in the Hollywood Riviera and 4 on this very nearby PVE/Torrance boundary trail + 1 near adult-daughter St.Hart-team-member Erika's house in Providence, RI (St. Hart's PVD 'Hood). Each of the 7 honored a different great cache we had found in our first year of geocaching by trying to mimic their construction and placement. Since then we have published dozens more caches, incl. 5 more in PVD, and lost a few, resurrected a few, and replaced a few with new hides — but our first 7 Hides will hold a special place in our hart.

At that time, I regarded this cache honoring RRagan, late 1960's Purdue Computer Sciences grad-school friend and our geo-mentor, as my cleverest and finest construction job and Hide, hence our #1 — but nature has badly deteriorated the host and compromised the cache. I replaced it a couple times and fixed it even more often, but I feel each incarnation was inferior to the former. Now, almost exactly 10 years since publication, I respectfully ARCHIVE it rather than aggravate the poor condition of the host or settle for even lesser...

St. Hart's 'Hood #1: Hike the Border had a great 10-year run (262 Finds, 37 Fav points) and its demise is sad for us, but certainly not a tragedy! Maybe we'll resurrect it somewhere else, sometime.

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Hidden : 2/11/2012
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size: micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

Overview:  Hollywood Riviera section of Torrance. Slightly off a fire road / hiking trail. Terrain could be moderately easy, but is not wheelchair-accessible, and probably requires hardy shoes & fair balance. You should not need a TOTT for extraction, and please replace as you find it.

    Kudos to the "Midnight Strike Team" for FTF: Foon, NakoTacoPatrol, BenH57, & Imanxman The Motorman (< 70 minutes after midnite !!!!)
We are starting to populate our neighborhood, the Hollywood Riviera -- that part of Torrance with the Redondo Beach address on the north slope of PV – with geocaches because there are virtually none hidden here. [As of St. Patrick's Day 2012, we have built up a 16-cache (17 now) power series along this 2-mile trail.] In doing so, some of our first hides will honor other geocachers we have met in this, our rookie year of GC, by mimicking some of their most clever or unique cache hides and camo. This cache is our first hide and is a tip of the hat to RRagan, a friend from grad school in the late 60's, whom we visited in Mountain View the day after buying our GPSr in March 2011 and who surprised us by by being a veteran geocacher himself as well as a great mentor. The 13 geocaches he led us to find (some his, some he had not previously found himself) on our first day of geocaching are still our one-day record. The original version of this cache mimicked a great one RRagan created and led us to, but our camo device has been repeatedly comprised — for now, it's sorta similar but less constructed and more "natural."

This cache is near a fire-road, which is also a popular hiking trail, between the top of the Riviera and PVE. It is accessible from either city (there are virtually zero through streets connecting them), but much more easily from the south (PVE side). The coordinates will get you close and then your geosense will go to work to find this unique camo. It is essentially between the two cities. The cache is probably not reachable from the trail or pavement.

From the PVE side, parking is available at the NE end of Via Cardelina. There is good parking on the Riviera side just west of 4222 Paseo De Las Tortugas, but you have a tricky hill to go up from there to the trail. Opposite 4233 is a slightly challenging trail up the hill.  (The truly athletic will sprint up this trail in 15 seconds, or up the steep hillside concrete spillways in less.)  Start hiking west from either access point.

This is not a muggle-free area; you might or might not be shielded from the houses not too far away, plus there are occasional fellow hikers. So be stealthy, behave non-suspiciously, act like you're a restive resting hiker, or whatever it takes.

Log-only bison tube; bring your own writing utensil. Please be sure to replace the camo and the container so the container is out of sight.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

1. Qba'g gerr hc gur jebat onex. 2. Juvpu fvqr qbrf zbff tebj ba?

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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