Vasco Caves

One day a while ago I was doing my usual perusal of Google Maps, looking for green areas, trying to find a new park to go to. I saw a green spot called Vasco Caves and thought that was a cool name, so I googled it and found that it is part of the East Bay Regional Parks District (the greatest parks district in the world, I’ve decided), but to my dismay, it’s closed to the public other than periodic organized tours. I had to wait a few months to be able to sign up for a tour (they don’t offer them in the summer, when I made my discovery), but finally I was able to procure a spot and the day arrived. Vasco Caves was a spiritual place for Native Americans and contains some sensitive artifacts, so EBRPD is pretty serious about keeping the location a secret. I mean, you can find it on the map just as I did, but there is no parking lot there and the place is under serious lock-down. So all the tours meet at a nearby park (Brushy Peak, in my case, or Round Valley) and tour participants are shuttled in. You are not allowed to use your cellphone at all while there, nor are you allowed to geotag any photos you take if your fancy camera allows that. I do usually geotag my photos, and one of the two fancy cameras I had with me would have done it, but I was a good girl and turned the GPS off.

I very highly recommend this tour if you live in the Bay Area. Vasco Caves is very beautiful and the rock formations, caves, and artifacts are fascinating. When I first moved to this area, I wanted to learn a bit about the history, so I read The Ohlone Way by Malcolm Margolin, which I absolutely loved. Read this book if you have any interest in the topic. The problem, though, is ever since I read it, I’ve been really extremely angry about the genocide the American government committed against native people, and also about the earlier missionaries who basically committed unwitting genocide. Apparently school kids in this area have a “mission” unit they must all complete where I believe they teach lies and half-lies about how important missions were. The truth is missions were a total and deadly nightmare. I’m going to stop talking about it for now because I’m angry about enough things right now (Donald Trump) and my system can’t take much more anger, but my point is that since reading The Ohlone Way, I’ve been very interested in and very sensitive to the tribal history of this area, and have read some additional books. The naturalist that led my tour was obviously also deeply interested and came prepared with some personal artifacts given to him by native friends and even some traditional tools that he had made himself, one of which I got to use.