Ever since January 2022 I've been on a bit of an obsession: knocking off peaks from the Sierra Club's list of ninety prominent peaks of the Bay Area: the Nifty Ninety. To that end, I made that a public list of caches nearest the 90 peaks, and started hunting down the ones I hadn't already found. I've found it a great way to see all of the Bay Area's splendor, from all corners of the region. As of this placement I have found 82 of the 90 peaks, and placed or found 74 caches from that public list.
Now that I've caught the virus, I'm attempting to pass it on to others. 
With modern GC challenge cache rules, I can't make a suitable challenge around these caches, so instead I've placed this Encouragement Cache! It started with the Tier 1 Encouragement Cache, then Tier 2, now we're upping it to Tier 3.
You are encouraged but not required to have found 50 of the associated Nifty 90 caches on that list before logging this one. Or you can log it anyway, I can only encourage you to qualify. 
D is 4.5 stars if you've been suitably encouraged, and for the puzzle. 2.0 stars for the puzzle and the find alone. I've marked the terrain as 4.5 to encompass the amount of terrain you'll need to pick up 50 of the Nifties, though the real T rating is 3.5 or 4.0 depending upon your trailhead.
To increase the encouragement, I have posted a table of all loggers (found, signed, and qualified: Gold Star ⭐!), plus the top 20 that have qualified or are halfway there (greyed out if not yet signed, light pink for top 20 not yet qualified). To create the list I did a search for the "usual suspects"; if I've forgotten you or someone else, please let me know and I'll add them to the list. Here's that table, including ourselves for encouragement.
| cacher |
found |
owned |
total |
cacher |
found |
owned |
total |
| ⭐ In The Vault ⭐ |
90 |
0 |
90 |
⭐ 1️⃣ jellis |
67 |
3 |
70 |
| ⭐ Cats4us ⭐ |
89 |
1 |
90 |
⭐ aliasmom |
69 |
1 |
70 |
| ⭐ 7Nails ⭐ |
90 |
0 |
90 |
⭐ Blackavar1 |
55 |
5 |
60 |
| ⭐ bluewarble |
89 |
0 |
89 |
⭐ J5 Crew |
46 |
4 |
50 |
| ⭐ tiptop3 |
87 |
0 |
87 |
㏇ penguinphloppers ⭐ |
80 |
10 |
90 |
| ⭐ 1️⃣ nozy nabor |
86 |
0 |
86 |
Dr. Flonase |
84 |
1 |
85 |
| ⭐ 1️⃣ DavidT21 & Fisherwoman |
81 |
1 |
82 |
KendraH |
81 |
0 |
81 |
| ⭐ atc |
81 |
0 |
81 |
chrisfawcett1 |
66 |
0 |
66 |
| ⭐ camper248 |
75 |
0 |
75 |
mblatch |
63 |
0 |
63 |
| ⭐ not2b |
70 |
1 |
71 |
ⓢ geojammers |
45 |
0 |
45 |
Updated 2/14/2026
OK, now the puzzle and find. I've learned from a previous Encouragement Cache that either folks don't read 
or they just log anyway, which is fine. But to add a slight bit more of a hurdle to those that might otherwise stumble upon a traditional, I've included a simple in theme puzzle to solve before the coordinates are provided. To solve the puzzle, enter the name of the nearby Nifty 90 peak (seven letters) found at decode.vivid.sights into the provided Certitude. If successful, the coordinates and a hide hint will be provided.
You can validate your puzzle solution with
certitude.
Good luck and go get 'em!
PS: At least one more to go.
Congratulations to nozy nabor, jellis, and DavidT21 & Fisherwoman for the FTF!
Update 4/11/2023: two new caches closer to peaks have been swapped into the master list. GCA73HB replaces GC45X39 on San Pedro Mountain; GC9TPFR replaces GC2V1Y8 on St. Joseph's Hill. Previous finders of the original cache will not lose credit for that find on this table.
Update 05/17/2023: I've gone through and made an official list of accepted archived caches near peaks and updated the table to reflect finds for those caches. Numbers may have changed accordingly.
Update 11/24/2023: The Tier 4 cache has been published!
Update 11/02/2024: Congratulations to In The Vault and Cats4us for being the first two to complete the full Nifty 90 cache collection set!!! ⭐ Double Gold Star!!! ⭐
Update 01/27/2025:: Congratulations to (ahem) penguinphloppers for being the third to complete the full Nifty 90 cache collection set! ⭐ Gold Star! ⭐
Update 06/19/2025:: Congratulations to 7Nails for being the fourth to complete the full Nifty 90 cache collection set! ⭐ Gold Star! ⭐