As I recall, I found stage 1 a bit north of where my arrow was usually pointing, but within 20 feet or so. The only problem is that there are a lot of places in that area where a small, well-camouflaged cache can be.
Any soft clues not soft coords?
I never did figure out what the hint on the cache page meant.
In your log you mentioned stinging nettles, scratches, and poison oak. You don't need to go into the nettles or poison oak.
I found stage 2 without a GPSr, by interpolating between points that I'd marked on a Google Earth picture. It was a much easier find than stage 1.