Silent Mystery of Felt Lake Traditional Cache
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Silent Mystery of Felt Lake
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(micro)
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The so-called Mystery of Felt Lake happened in 1907. Chester Silent was a graduate student at Stanford who often walked the 3 miles to Felt Lake to go duck hunting. He mysteriously vanished on September 20, 1907. A search was organized, but he wasn't found. Then in early October, two of his school friends were out on Felt Lake and saw another boat floating near shore. They found Silent's body in the boat. The Oct. 3, 1907 edition of the Stanford Daily News said "The back of the skull and the left side of the face were blown off. Doctors examining the body decided that the fatal shotgun blast came from the left side below the face." No firearm was found. Since there was no reason to suspect suicide or foul play, in November the sheriff drained the lake and found Silent’s double-barreled shotgun. "Examination of the gun showed that the right chamber had misfired and the left chamber had discharged. The sheriff theorized that Silent had pulled the right trigger and when the shell misfired, examined the weapon, discharging the left barrel."
Chester (1885-1907) was the son of Judge Charles Silent (1843-1919), a prominent figure in Los Angeles. The community called Chester Place, near USC and now part of Mount St. Mary's College, was originally developed by Judge Silent at the turn of the century and is named for his son Chester.
In Chester's time, Felt Lake was a big pond. Today, it's a reservoir on Stanford land that is used as a source of non-potable water for the campus. When Stanford built their golf course in 1929, the lake was expanded to a capacity of 278 million gallons and turned into a small reservoir to provide the additional water needed to irrigate the course. According to Stanford's History of the Golf Course, the golf course cost $188,000 and enlarging Felt Lake cost $190,000.
The cache is in the part of Arastradero Preserve north of Arastradero Road. There's only one trail on this side, but it's a scenic loop that now has one more cache along the way.
Cache container is not on or under the big fallen tree, and no trespassing is required!
Preserve is open daily, 8am to sunset.
Oct 2008 : Changes to Felt Lake are now underway. Stanford is removing roughly 100 acre-feet of sediment that has settled in the Lake to make room for more water. This will help the steelhead trout migration and allow the university to collect water more efficiently for irrigation uses. The sediment will be spread over the adjacent hills. Feb 2009 : The work seems to be finished and the lake is filling up again.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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