Before leaving Friday morning with the 4 wheeler in tow and bicycle loaded in the back I checked the listing and found that due to road construction the planned camp site might be closed. In that case, new coordinates would be posted at the site. By site, I thought they meant camp site but I wasn’t sure.
There were a couple of caches I wanted to do before I got to the camp site. To my surprise the road into the forest was a very good paved one. The first cache was a roadside at the Middle Point Trailhead and I arrived there a littl
e after 10:30. The second one was a mile and a half hike up the trail to Middle Point Ridge with a 4 terrain rating. I started out on the mountain bike but soon determined that wouldn’t be practical so I returned it to the truck and proceeded on foot. It was a beautiful morning hike up to a ridge top to a seldom visited cache. It had been logged only twice this year and that was in March.
I got back to the truck just after noon and proceeded to the planned camp site which happened to be just where the pavement ended. When I got there I found that a road crew was putting in a new bridge across the creek to the campground and it was closed as suspected. There was a big parking area with rest rooms and a bulletin board across from the campground so I left my truck there and headed out on the 4 wheeler to find some caches. After finding 3 more caches I got back to the truck about 4:30 and found a note on my windshield with coords listed for the new camp site. It just happened to be at the Middle Point Trailhead 4 miles back where I had been that morning. Since I still had plenty of light I decided to try a couple of more that required hikes commencing at the originally planned campsite near where the truck was parked. The first one was a mile hike up a trail so good that I wished I had taken by bicycle. I found it near the trail and to my surprise it had only one log 
which was a year ago. For the next one I had to retrace the mile down the trail and take a left fork. It wasn’t too far but it was a 4 terrain and I eventually abandoned the trail and headed straight up the mountain. It too had only one log which was a year ago. However, all I found was the remains of a container that a bear had destroyed. A bear had crossed the road in front of me earlier on my 4 wheeler journey.
When I got to the campsite Brad Jordan (Quadsinthemudd) with his three little kids, Emily, 8 and 5 year old twins Angus and Wyatt were there along with Dale and Debbie Bashaw (Ogeo and Isplash). A little later Ray Brown (Bluesman63) from
That evening I got some helpful instruction on the use of my new GPSr. The Garmin manuals are very rudimentary and next to useless for learning the real capabilities of the unit.
I cooked my supper on my tailgate and used my truck bed for my sleeping quarters. Since fires weren’t allowed and I couldn’t heat rocks to warm the feet of my sleeping bag as is my usual practice I had purchased a hot water bottle instead. That would have been fine except that the bottle top leaked. Fortunately I discovered it before my sleeping bag got too wet. It just took a lot longer to get my feet warm but once I did I was very comfortable.
The next morning we loaded up and headed to the trailhead leading into the plane crash cache. I started on the 4 wheeler b
ut had to leave it at the head of a road we took because it didn’t allow them. So I piled into Bashaw’s Explorer to complete the trip to the trailhead. We were to meet Leonard Drayton (Dr. D of Absolute) at 9:30 and he wasn’t there yet so we went past the trailhead and picked a cache near the road.
Leonard showed up about the time we got back to the trailhead and we proceeded to the two caches leading to the plane wreck. It wasn’t a real easy hike and I was impressed at how well the kids did. Wyatt was up front with me mo
st of the way going through bushes over rocks and through springs. After getting the two caches we had to bushwhack a couple hundred feet over steep terrain and thick bushes to get down to the wreck. Most of the group seemed a lot more interested in it than I was although Debbie didn’t climb down at all. After a while I climbed back up and started back at my own pace. As it was I didn’t get back to the vehicle till about 1:20 and the rest followed some time later. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving to caches on the mountain most of which required only a little walking. After the group dropped me off at the 4 wheeler I went to get another cache nearby that required a ¾ mile hike up to an old lookout site. I was just the second person to log it.
There were still some remote caches I wanted to get since I had come so far so I decided if I could wangle some food out of someone (I was completely out) I would stay another night. As luck would have it 
Brad’s wife showed up with a couple of pizzas. As host Brad also furnished the Smores although cooking them over a stove rather than a campfire does take something out of it. Ray had come back for the night and a couple of geocachers from
Unfortunately Ray wasn’t an early riser and I knew I had a lot of miles to cover. Even though he had said to wake him I could hear him snoring away at 7:00 so I just pulled out without breakfast. I towed the 4 wheeler the 4 miles to the pavement end and then I had to retrace the 9+ miles on the 4 wheeler I had traveled the day before. At that point I took an ATV trail that was pretty hairy in places. I eventually arrived in a steep gully on a bridge near where the cache was supposed to be located. I was in a deep hole and couldn’t get an accurate reading so I looked for at least a half hour unsuccessfully. Finally I gave up and proceeded down the deteriorating trail where I came upon a girl and her dog. She was heading in the opposite direction and said she was planning to get in 10 miles. I think she was running and walking. It was much too rough and steep to run where we were. At any rate she said the trail did not go to where I was heading but that I needed to return to the start and take the road. On the way out I stopped again at the cache site and this time got lucky and found the cache.
When I got to the road I traveled to the end of it which was about 4 miles. It terminated at Tee Pee Campground. There was a cache near the campground that had not been found in two years. It was supposed to be in a big log that was pretty obvious but I couldn’t find it. Finally I spied it down the hill right out in the open. I guess something had rolled it out. I had my “lunch” there which was one of the three small oatmeal cookies I had. I had already eaten one for my mid morning snack.
The next ca
che called “Uprooted” was the real prize. It required a 1.5 mile hike up a continually climbing trail and it also had not been fo
und in two years. It also had a Jeep Travel Bug in it. I think it was around 1:00 when I found it. The trail was well marked except when I got in the area of the cache. It was located near the top of a ridge.
I had one cache left which I had passed within 1/3 of a mile when I had traveled to the campground. There was supposed to be a road to it but if there was I couldn’t find it. After hiking out to the campground I went back to the closest point to the cache which was a horse camp. I had to bushwhack the 1/3 mile through
dead fall and down over a small stream and up the other side. I thought I had marked the 4 wheeler with my GPSr when I left. I’m still getting used to the unit and I had not marked it. The cache was called “The Big Ammo Can” and you can see why. Bluesman had won it at a Geocaching event. It took me longer than it should have to find my way back to the 4 wheeler since I had not marked it. Pathfinder I’m not.
By the time I got back to where we had camped everyone was long gone. I got home around 6:00 and discovered that you can in fact go all day with fairly strenuous activity on 3 oatmeal cookies with no ill effects. Kathy was still at the farm so I picked up a foot long sub but only ate ¾ of it. It was a fun event and I logged 22 caches. M/W
1 comment:
Naturally I was uneasy when I didn't hear from Mike Saturday evening. But we had agreed that if he stayed in the Blues another night, he would not be able to let me know. I was upset knowing he didn't take extra food. He's still insisting the fasting experience did him good.
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