Another Day of Looking for Things in the Woods

         Frank and I took another drive this morning to search for more of those things hidden in the woods… geocaches. We left shortly after sunrise with Frank taking on the driving obligations.

        We hadn’t planned a long day, just a few caches with-in 10-15 miles of my house. The majority of them were hidden in North Park. This is the largest park in Alleghany County’s park system. There are over 3000 acres in the park along with a large lake. The park was built in the early 30’s with help from the C.C.C.

        Our first stop should have been a rather easy find. It was a “guardrail cache”. It was hidden on, in or around a guardrail. We searched from one end to the other without seeing it. We looked in the near-by trees and under rocks. Eventually, Frank found it right where we originally looked. Why we didn’t see it, I don’t know. Let’s just say it was early and we weren’t quite into the game yet… Yeah, that will work!

        Our next find was what is called a Multi-Cache. You are given clues and with them you have to figure out where the final cache is hidden. We had both figured out where it was. It was another guard rail cache, hidden in the end of the rails. An easy find, once we had figured out the location.

        In the park, we had to walk up an old dirt road to get to the next cache. Watching our GPS’s as we neared the site, the arrows pointed to the left so we headed into the weeds. The grass wasn’t too high but our pant bottoms got soaked from the dew.

        Our GPS’s showed different spots so I went in one direction and Frank went in another. I searched the “usual” spots without any luck then I heard Frank yell. He had found it, further up the hill. Once I joined him I found it easily. It was hidden under the roots of a large tree. (One of the “usual” spots!) We signed the log and returned it to its hiding spot, a little bit better hidden than when we found it.

        Our next “find” took us for another jaunt into the woods. The beginning was a nice wide path which took us through a nice fairly level section of the park. While we walked we kept an eye on our GPS’s, watching as the distance lowered. Once we were within 30 or 40 feet our geosenses kicked in.

        Geosense is when your experience at finding caches helps you in locating other hides. You compare the site you’re at, to all those other sites you’ve been to and start going over the possibilities. Usually, this works pretty well! You notice small paths in the weeds, you start looking at all the different spots where a cache could be hidden, such as under logs, rocks, trees or guardrails. The Geocaching.com site also tells you how big the cache is and how difficult it is to be found, along with what the terrain is like. This gives you an idea of what you’re looking for also. There is sometimes a hint included with the description, these can be REAL important!

        This find was in what is called a bison tube. It is a small cylindrical container, just large enough to hold a rolled up piece of paper for a log. It was hung on the trunk of a large pine tree.

        The next find was about a ½ mile away, over the top of a large hill and down the other side. Being the wimps we are, we opted for taking the truck rather than walking. It was a good decision!

        We found a trail that was about a ¼ mile away and started down the hillside. Nearing ground zero, (GZ) we started looking around. This one was easy, as long as you were standing in the right spot. It was out in the open, behind a log. We signed, re-hid and then climbed back up the hill.

        The final cache of the day was another Multi-cache. We went to the location specified and had to locate a plaque with some numbers on it. The numbers were used to figure out where we had to go to find the final hide.  After a little basic arithmetic, we quickly figured out that the cache was a ¼ mile away. We grabbed our hiking staffs, our cameras and holding our GPS’s, started down the trail.

        I have been on this trail many times and I’ve always considered it to be one of my favorite spots to hike in North Park. It descends into a valley and follows a stream. It is a nice quiet trail with a few tough sections and you rarely see anyone on it. The sounds of the stream makes a nice background for your hike.

        We passed through the ruins of an old park shelter and then crossed the stream. We passed cliffs where Native Americans used to camp. We saw lots of fallen trees, evidence of the storms we have recently experienced. We passed above a stone wall that was probably built by the C.C.C. when they were working on the park in the 30’s, along with a few old dirt roads which were no longer passable.

        At the bottom of a steep hill we came to GZ, it was somewhere between the stream and a steep cliff. We started searching. Frank made the find, hidden in the cliffside.

        We signed the log, I dropped off a TB and then re-hid the cache and started back up the trail to the truck. Nearing the top of the hill, the truck mere feet away, I realized that I had left my GPS at the cache site. Frank waited as I hoofed it down and back again. Twenty minutes, not bad. I was drenched with sweat. The cache was a bit tougher than it should have been, due to my own forgetfulness!

        We were back at my house before 11, not bad for one of our expeditions!  It was a good morning; we found all of the caches we set out to find and had a good time doing them. The morning was exceptionally nice, a perfect day for geocaching and hanging out with a friend. We also managed to get some exercise in the process. We’ll probably both be taking some Tylenol tonight, but you know... it was worth it!