My career as a gumshoe detective was fun but short-lived, as the Mystery at the Museum promotion ended last week after a month. After a bumpy start, things went smoother and I was able to find all of the clues. Collecting all of the virtual jewels was a bit harder. I mean, they were scattered all over the place! I was finding them in Ramona, Coronado, and Poway! The virtual detective assigned to me was getting pretty impatient, and so for my final assignment, she sent me up to both summits of Twin Peaks in Poway to finish collecting the missing jewels. “I don’t wanna go up there,” I whined. “Can’t I do some park-and-grabs?” She doesn’t speak much, but her virtual face suggested there was going to be a not-so-virtual problem if I didn’t load up a backpack and get moving.
I’ve been up Twin Peaks once before, about 9 years ago, and so the first part of the trail was quick since I already found many of the lower caches. My first stop was ‘Another Star in Poway’ by T.R. Violin (GCPDYD). Hidden in 2005, the cache was in amazingly good shape and a quick find. This cache also marked the position of the trail up to the summit, and after this point the road was winding and steeper. I met an older gentleman coming down the trail and he warned me that the back side of the trail was much steeper than the front face. I had a cache to grab a few hundred feet down the back side and getting down there was almost as treacherous as climbing back up. It was worth it though because the cache I found (‘Snakes Alive!’ by Habu (GC2PQHX)) had only been found once in the last two years.
The final cache of the day was actually a repeat. The cache was named ‘Merry Christmas 2009 – Twin Peaks’ (GC226A1) and I had originally found the cache back in January of 2011 with my two oldest daughters. I remember that cache well because we had just moved to California, and I had just started caching so it represented one of very first geocaching adventures. I also remember being a little skittish about the exposure required to get to GZ, but it seemed so trivial this time. Goes to show you what a decade of SoCal hiking experience will do. I’m still skittish about heights, but at least it is a little less embarrassing now. It was cool to find the original logbook and our nearly nine year old entry. It looked like my daughter actually wrote the log, which was cool. I hung out in this quiet little spot for awhile, enjoying the shade and the view. It also seemed like a good place to hang out from the law because after completing the search for the jewels, the virtual detective told me I had to find 35 MORE caches to successfully return them to the safe. Wait, what? Return the jewels? Nobody said nuttin’ ‘bout returning the ice, see. I’s gots ‘em now and dat gumshoe’s gonna have ta catch me if she wants ta send me ta da Big House…
