Frogs have seen better times; since Steinbeck wrote the famous frog scene in Cannery Row over ninety-five percent of native California wetlands have disappeared. If this wetlands preserve seems unusual for California, it wasn't once upon a time.
Bring something appropriate to pond life with you to swap -- a frog, fish, duck, or other freshwater beastie, outdoor paraphernalia, and geocaching supplies are all suggested items. The initial contents are a little weighted towards kid-stuff; more grown-up items are welcome.
Terrain is very easy, although wet at various times of the year and wetter in some areas than others. Wear boots on general principle. Very, very occasionally this area will flood and the cache will be inaccessible. Total walking distance, depending on how you approach each step, should be about a mile and a half. The preserve is popular with joggers, so you may have to use some urban cache stealth skills, but is generally calm and quiet during non-jogging hours.
The three parts to this multicache are all cache containers. They are all likely to get wet at various times; every effort has been made to provide waterproofing for the coordinates sheets in the cache containers for parts 1 and 2; however, in the event they're illegible, cachers should note that the cache containers themselves have the coordinates for the next stop written on them! Just keep turning them over until you find them! These are in waterproof ink and have been submersion-tested.
The coordinates above will take you to part one, Duck Blind. The cache is a small camouflaged plastic container within 12 feet of the trail. PLEASE MAKE SURE THE DEVICE FASTENING THE CACHE TO THE GROUND IS FIRMLY REPLACED IF YOU PULL IT OUT!
Inside the container for Part 1 is a bilingual mini-geocache letter and the coordinates for Part 2, Frog Crossing. The cache container at part 2 is about five inches by four inches, irregular, and is completely flat on one side. You can reach it without leaving the trail.
Inside the container for Part 2 is another bilingual mini-geocache letter and the coordinates for Part 3, Swamp Rat. Note since we replaced the cache, these coordinates are not quite as firm (our EPE was showing a little off the second time we hid it) but should be plus or minus .001 in each coordinate direction. This final stop is a small (7.62 mm) ammo can.
To log this cache, you must find all three containers and sign the logbook in the third (final) container. If you post a No-Find, please specify which part of the multi-cache you couldn't find. PLEASE DON'T POST SPOILERS in your on-line logs! Or at least encrypt them...
Please be careful of the fragility of the area around you; you need not tromp on anything fragile nor go anywhere dangerous to yourself or the critters and plants. We've taken care to make the cache containers non-toxic.
This one is meant to be a tougher find. Hints encrypted below are elliptical; the spoiler photos are more literal. If you want to do it the easy way, the photos are there, but it will be more fun if you hold off and try it the hard way first. The difficulty rating is a cumulative rating for all three containers assuming you use no hints. Take off a half star for each hint you use! If you get stuck and need more hints, please email us.
Initial Frogmentation Contents were stolen with the cache, and had lots of cool pond items. The new cache has some nice things, but nothing pond-like. If you would like to help re-stock the ''theme'' of this cache, we'd appreciate it if you could bring something frog-like, pond-y, or aquatic for the cache!
UPDATE 3/2/03: we have put out a new cache container to replace the stolen one, and put it in a slightly different location (but coordinates at Part 2 will still lead you to Part 3).
And remember -- no tengas miedo, es un juego.