What About Misery??? Mystery Cache
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(other)
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After over a week of Misery I came out to Burdell to log another 
find... Little did I know my misery was just getting started!
To get started on my way to the find, I drove to one of the suggested waypoints for the cache. I unloaded my bike and got ready to hit the trail. I got all geared up so I would hopefully be able to make a solid run and nail down enough caches on the mountain to be able to log this puzzle as find number 600! Helmet? Check! Clipless shoes? Check! I threw on my pack, turned on the GPS and started towards the trail.
In about 30 seconds, my misery started... A sign read "No bikes, except on fire roads." D'oh!! Now what was I going to do? There was no way to enter the park from this area, and it looks like there was no way I would get this one today.
I had definitely been a little gutsy to think I was going to be able to knock out 10 caches on Burdell in the time I was working with initially. Now that I would certainly have to hike in to the intended milestone, there was no way I would make the time crunch.
I abandoned my initial mission and loaded my bike back up on the hitch rack to move my starting point to San Carlos Way. I guess I could at least still get as many as possible today and then tomorrow just hike out the rest. Now that I was ready to finding, picked the next closest cache, unloaded my bike again, and started to peddle up the fire road. First stop was Oak Limb, and after about 15 minutes I called it a DNF. Talk about adding to the misery!!!
Up the hill I went again, and was lucky to catch a break at Two Brick Spring and came up with a quick find. I also got a good little laugh out of this one, and those of you that have been here will understand why. 
I guess the day was turning out to not be so full of misery after all. From here I tasted the Forbidden Fruit (okay I didn't actually physically taste it) and it was another good find. I upped the terrain on this one by climbing a tree to get it.
The next closest cache was Breakin Out The Sweat and it is a butt kicking hike up a steep path. Since I wasn't allowed to ride my bike off the fire road, I ditched it on the path and began walking. Those of you that have came to this cache from below will know it's a tough one, and without hiking boots on it quickly turned into misery. Clipless shoes are not fun to hike in as metal cleats perform very poorly on hardpacked dirt.
As I was hiking up the hill I took a few moments here and there to pause and look at the view behind me as I climbed. In the distance I saw a park ranger driving down the fire road. He happened to stop at the end of the path I was climbing up, and with less than 150 ft to GZ, he called for me to come back down. Misery!!!!
He was inquiring about what I was doing and was concerned because my bike was on the side of this trail. He was certainly nice but had to explain the rules to me very clearly and decided after I told my story of how I parked appropriately to be able to enter the park on fire roads to let me off with a warning. Did you know you can be cited for even walking or carrying your bike off the fire road?
Did I mention he took my information and a description of my bike? Guess if I get 2 flat tires out here (I only carry 1 spare) that I wont take any shortcuts to get back to my car... 
There were no hard feelings and I went on my way as I was not about to hike that hill for a second time today. Next up was The Burdell Cache which was thankfully a find after that whole experience. This time I just left my bike down on the side of the path and locked it to itself. 
I returned to my bike and would pass by a few old finds on the way to the next cache Deer Camp Fire Rd ~ But Where are the Deer? which was another DNF for me! I was not having that good of luck today clearly. I continued up the fire road to size up Calling all Monkeys but I had forgotten my banannas and was by myself so I was not about to attempt this one today.
I passed another potential cache to make sure that I had time to get the final for The Postman Always Rings Twice. I had the coordinates of that multi-cache in my GPS for 5 months so I didn't want to miss out on it today with the diminishing daylight. There was a nice fence that I was able to lock my bike too and hiked about a tenth of mile to this one. Another fun find, looks like this is as far as I would make it today.
On my way back to pick up my bike I took a different path and happened upon a good place to put this new cache I had created. 
Since I was not going to get a find today, I decided to plant a 
that would also be a .
There was a large oak tree at GZ so the GPS coordinates were hard to average, but I used my phone and Magellen explorist 310 to average out a pretty good set I think. I hid the cache so that it looked like it belonged, and hoped that anyone who finds it will pay close attention to how it was placed originally. When I placed the cache I was able to see it while facing the final for The Postman at the same time. Of course being over 528 ft away I only actually saw my cache.
With the sun quickly starting to set it was time to grab my bike and head over to Lost World for the final find of the day. My bike had a few bovine guards, and one even decided to lick my seat and scratch it's head on the frame. I eased them away and got back on the bike and dropped it up trail and quickly grabbed this one without getting lost. 
It was time to go home! I strapped my GoPro on and got a nice video on the way out of the park onto San Andreas Dr. I peddaled up San Marin Dr and made it back to my car before it was too dark.
I may have missed my goal for the day, but I still had fun riding and finding a few caches!
Hope you enjoy my misery too!!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
[Puzzle] - Ernq gur fgbel nf znal gvzrf nf lbh jnag! Gur ahzoref, vgnyvpf naq fzvyvrf unir ab fvtavsvpnapr urer.
[Hide] - Phfgbz, hayvxr nalguvat lbh unir rire frra sebz zr. Ybt vf va n pbaprnyrq 1" ybat pnzb ghor.