A GREAT GEODAY

One of the things that makes some experiences so great is the remembrance of ones that weren’t. A couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted to go up into the Elk River area and try to find some remote geocaches that I hadn’t been able to find on trips the past two or three years. It’s very rugged and remote country and I didn’t want to go alone so I asked a couple of geocaching friends if they’d like to come along. Unfortunately they both were unable to do so. Rain postponed my trip a few days and it was the 17^th before I made it up there. I can’t say it was a total disaster because I managed to not get hurt or damage any equipment (barely) but there were some really close calls. What shows as roads on my National Geographic map were nothing but old overgrown with brush 4 wheeler trails going up and down steep mountains that had deteriorated into washed out stream beds. I came close to turning over a couple of times and there were some places that were so bad I had to walk along side the 4 wheeler with my hand on the throttle to keep it from going over. On top of that I found only two caches. If I had gotten hurt and/or disabled it could have been several days before I might have been found. I vowed to never go into that area alone again.

Friday I planned a similar trip into the Craig mountain area south of Lewiston. Although this area is rugged and fairly remote as well, it isn’t nearly so dangerous as the Elk River area and most of the roads are even navigable by auto. I had been geocaching in the area a few times and had found all the caches except one, but now there were some new ones.

The first cache was called “The Harvesters” (don’t ask me why) and was just a little ways off the main road up a bit of a hill. It took a little searching but I eventually found it under a tree with, of all things, an old skateboard on top of it.

The next cache required considerable travel on several winding roads circling around mountain sides. I had placed waypoints on the map at various forks along the way and then uploaded them to my GPSr which I have mounted on the 4 wheeler. Everything went as planned for a change and I eventually arrived at the destination and after a short hike found “Beanstocker’s Grand View”. The cache was hidden in rocks on a point with a nice panoramic view which included the Snake river far below.

There are many roads in the area that are closed to motorized vehicles. I discovered that the next cache involved one of these. The owner of the cache had placed it by horseback and it had been found only once. I got as close as I could with the 4 wheeler and hiked the rest of the way. It was a 2+ mile hike but it was a beautiful day and didn’t begin getting too warm until I was almost back. The cache was called “Smash Bash” and, as you can see, (bottom right) was an ancient wrecked vehicle. Who knows how or when it got there.

The next two caches were ones that had never been found. The first one was about 1/3^rd of the way down the Eagle Creek road and the other was all the way down the Eagle Creek road and a bit further down the Salmon River. The Eagle Creek road is 11 miles long and drops from 4,700 feet elevation down to 1,100 at the Salmon River. It is so rocky and rough that you would not want to take any vehicle down it other than a 4 wheeler. The first one was just off the road called “Rock and Roll” and after a short search I located it.

As you travel down the Eagle Creek road it gets hotter and hotter even though much of it is in the shade. The road ends at the river in a huge canyon that holds the heat like an oven. I arrived at the river a little after 1:00 pm and I’m sure it was 100 degrees if not more. This cache required a short hike up the foot of the mountain and as soon as I had logged it I found a shady place to park and took a refreshing swim in the river. I ate lunch in the shade and then began the pull back out. I saw two grouse on the way out but the season doesn’t open until the 1^st.

The only cache left was the one that I hadn’t been able to locate in previous trips. I’m afraid it was the same story this time. Whenever I would get within a few miles I would find the road closed. I may have to approach that cache from the Cottonwood side in the future. As it was getting late and I was a little concerned about running out of gas I headed back. When I got back to the truck I had logged 88 miles on the 4 wheeler. It had been a great day with two “First to Finds” , one second to find and a lot of travel in some beautiful country.