South of the Coleman Road bridge, the outflow from Almaden Lake merges with Guadalupe Creek to form the mighty Guadalupe River. People from other parts of the country would laugh at what we call a river, but in the winter, it can turn into a raging torrent. Just ask long-time residents of downtown San Jose and Alviso. Running alongside the Guadalupe River is the Guadalupe River Trail. At this time, it starts near Chynoweth, goes south around the percolation ponds under Hwy 85, and joins the Alamitos Creek Trail at Almaden Lake Park. On the Guadalupe River between the Almaden Light Rail Station and the Santa Clara Valley Water District Headquarters is a small dam, the Alamitos drop structure, built in the 1930's. In 1999, a $1.5 million fish ladder was built next to the drop structure so salmon and steelhead could make their way to upstream spawning grounds. Salmon die after spawning, so for them, this ladder is their stairway to heaven. If you come during the wet months, you just might see fish jumping up the ladder. Salmon and steelhead are protected, so you can't fish for them. The resident fish in the Guadalupe watershed contain mercury, so don't eat them.
I put a cache near the fish ladder using a time-honored geocache hide method. Experienced geocachers should have no troubles finding it. Hopefully muggles won't find it. It's a sign-only cache. Bring your own pencil. The waterproof container holding the logsheet can be slipped out of its outer cover, which you don't have to remove from its location. Be discreet. The cache is very close to the busy trail.
3/24/07 update: the cover material "matured," so it started to fall apart. The cache container is now naked. Since it is so small, it will be harder to find, so I bumped the difficulty level up a half notch.
Don't be surprised if you have more than 1 cache here. When I couldn't find one, I added another, but the original may still be there.
Update: 2/26/11: yes there are 2 caches here. One is the backup for the other in case it gets muggled. If you find both, keep them separate.
Just one cache there now.
Update: 2/17/23: there's a new homeless camp next to the cache site, so I moved it about 120 feet north. It's a new container and logsheet. Bring your own pen. It's farther from the fish ladder, but you can still see it.