Road to Nowhere? Traditional Cache

This cache has been archived.

AlphaRoaming: Great story and one of my earliest caches, but an exposed location that I'm tired of maintaining. (If anybody wants to adopt it, I could see if I can reactivate it and allow an adoption)

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Hidden : 4/2/2006
Difficulty:
1 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size: micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

Pick this one up on your way into Alviso for a quick history lesson and an idea for a long flat no-cache hike or bike! Cache is best approached from Gold Street. I'm not sure about approaching it from the other direction or from the golf course.

Cache is accessible 24/7, but there are some genuine junkyard dogs on your left, behind a chain-link fence, when walking towards the cache, so a night approach is not for the faint-hearted!

If you just want to grab the cache, you can stop reading now. The history lesson starts here:

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This cache was named for the Talking Heads song from about 20 years ago. It kept going through my head while cycling along the levee trail.

I initially placed this cache along the big levee trail loop that goes out into the bay from Alviso Marina (approx 9 mile loop). It was not approved due to it being a Wildlife Refuge, so just in case you were wondering, like I did, why there's no caches out there...

Here's your history lesson on "Drawbridge": Closest parking to Drawbridge (not the cache!) is Alviso Marina, which is open 8AM to Sunset.

Can you imagine an empty "fixer-upper" in Silicon Valley with great views and a large yard, without real estate agents swarming over it? The abandoned town of Drawbridge is visible to the northeast while hiking or biking the levee loop, with the railroad tracks running through the former town.

I finally went on this trek, several years after reading about it on sjunderbelly.com (See article at: (visit link) )

Very good trail description link here: (visit link)

Also, I found a link that says the Mallard Slough trail offers better views of Drawbridge. It can take you as close as N 37° 27.559 W 121° 58.450 The article is from 1999, so you may want to check the status. If you try the trail, let me know and bring back some pictures! (visit link)

There's a complete history lesson on this site, plus some great links at the bottom of this link: (visit link)

And a few pix I took:
(visit link)
(visit link)

(Note: it is illegal and dangerous to go off of the levee trail. Going to the actual townsite would involve walking along a narrow bridge on a very active railroad line. It may also be seen from Amtrak or the ACE train. Enjoy the view from a distance and be safe.)

Google Earth does a good job of showing the town's location and layout N 37° 28.000 W 121° 58.450

The big loop is best done on a Mountain Bike. I did it on my skinny tire road bike, but the western part of the loop has been recently dug up and is unfriendly to road bikes. The eastern part of the loop, to/from the closest view of Drawbridge is OK for a road bike, as you can see in the "pix I took" above.

If you continue all the way around the loop, counterclockwise back to Alviso, you're bound to find Gilligan's crew and the SS Minnow: (visit link) (Zoom in on Google Earth: N 37 27' 44.20" W 122 00' 54.52"). Maybe the Professor can show you how to make a Short Wave radio from a coconut shell. Say "hi" to Mary Ann for me.

Also, on the right side of the loop, you'll eventually see vast fields of plastic debris deposited by high water flowing out of San Jose, some car tires, and even an old guy living on a hand-made "not yet seaworthy" boat. He was sitting outside in the sun when I passed by and we talked a bit. He told me that he's been there since 1997 when the city towed him out of the now-closed marina. (Zoom in on Google Earth: N 37 26' 07.71" W 121 59' 30.00")

That's all for now. If you find any other interesting info or pictures about Drawbridge or this 9 mile loop, let me know, and I'll include it here for others to enjoy!

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