Eight miles of hiking on Saturday and ten caches found
Saturday morning I drove up the Boulder Creek Road to meet TrailGators, duganrm, and Toby's Gang for the strenuous hike to the Three Sisters waterfall area where T.R. Violin placed his "3 Sisters Photo cache." The trail down from the "Three Sisters Waterfalls - Boulder Creek" cache was very steep in places -- and treacherous. And after we got down to the bottom, we had to ascend again to get to the cache. We climbed over and around huge boulders as we made our way up the creek bed.
It was a beautiful area and I stopped frequently to take pictures.
After we found the cache, we walked up to the pool at the very top. The edge of the pool disappears as the water makes a thirty-foot drop.
We took pictures of our little group near one of the several pools.
Before we got to the very steep trail, we revisited this unusual rock Toby's Gang noticed on the hike in.
TrailGators used another one of his Gatorade bottles to place a cache nearby, "Shipwrecked."
It was a strenuous hike back up the trail. T.R.'s Terrain rating of '4' for his cache was certainly accurate. When we finally made it back to the vehicles, I thought we were going to do a few "Park and Grabs," so I followed duganrm as we meandered around the mountain roads, finally emerging onto Highway 79 not too far away from the "Coins in the Cleft" cache I found a few weeks ago.
After TrailGators found that one, we headed off again, eventually finding our way to parking in a cul-de-sac where I was informed the hike would only be about three miles.
Huh!? Hike? Three miles!?
After hiking more than four miles in the morning, I thought our hiking was over for the day. Oh well. We were in search of two of the "Manny" caches that were placed a few years ago, "Too Manny Rocks and "The Lost Treasure of Manny A. Cacher.
These two were located on the remains of an old toll road used by gold miners back in the last century. We saw two mine shafts, some old vehicles, and the remains of the mine buildings as we walked steadily down the trail.
In the recent devastating fires that raged through this area, the glass in the old truck reached such a temperature that it melted.
When we got to the last cache, "The Lost Treasure of Manny A. Cacher," we were sure in for a surprise. Duganrm opened the container and couldn't believe the moldy mess inside.
Actually, if we had carefully reviewed the Past Logs, we would have seen that last year some cachers found all the swag strewn around on the ground. They put everything back in the container, but since everything was wet, and there was still water in the ammo can, it had all spring, summer, and fall to develop into a real science experiement.
We spent the next several minutes removing all the objects, then Toby's Gang put leaves and dirt and some rocks in the container and shook it all around in an attempt to clean off some of the mold. He emptied that out and then put more dried leaves in the container to absorb the rest of the moisture. Then he put a rock in the container for the logbook to rest on.
He carried the heavy bag of wet and moldy stuff all the way back up to the vehicles, a distance of two miles.
It was getting late, but TrailGators was only three finds away from 1300 caches, so we decided to get those and even succeeded in getting a few more, including the other two "Manny" caches and the elusive "Vector YMCA" which P.T. and I DNF'd last May. When we got there, I looked down at the cache location, now illuminated by our flashlight beams, and couldn't figure out how our search back then had been centered more than 30 feet away. Odd, very odd . . .
When I finally left "the guys," it was 7:00 p.m. I had a 45-mile drive through the mountains to get home. When I got home, I was really tired, but I had lots of work to do because the Event in Temecula Valley was the next day. New PQs had to be run to have fresh data for that. I didn't think I would get the ten caches we found logged before heading off to bed that night, but I did. I hope my logs were worthy of the caches and the adventures we encountered during our searches.
It was a beautiful area and I stopped frequently to take pictures.
After we found the cache, we walked up to the pool at the very top. The edge of the pool disappears as the water makes a thirty-foot drop.
We took pictures of our little group near one of the several pools.
Before we got to the very steep trail, we revisited this unusual rock Toby's Gang noticed on the hike in.
TrailGators used another one of his Gatorade bottles to place a cache nearby, "Shipwrecked."
It was a strenuous hike back up the trail. T.R.'s Terrain rating of '4' for his cache was certainly accurate. When we finally made it back to the vehicles, I thought we were going to do a few "Park and Grabs," so I followed duganrm as we meandered around the mountain roads, finally emerging onto Highway 79 not too far away from the "Coins in the Cleft" cache I found a few weeks ago.
After TrailGators found that one, we headed off again, eventually finding our way to parking in a cul-de-sac where I was informed the hike would only be about three miles.
Huh!? Hike? Three miles!?
After hiking more than four miles in the morning, I thought our hiking was over for the day. Oh well. We were in search of two of the "Manny" caches that were placed a few years ago, "Too Manny Rocks and "The Lost Treasure of Manny A. Cacher.
These two were located on the remains of an old toll road used by gold miners back in the last century. We saw two mine shafts, some old vehicles, and the remains of the mine buildings as we walked steadily down the trail.
In the recent devastating fires that raged through this area, the glass in the old truck reached such a temperature that it melted.
When we got to the last cache, "The Lost Treasure of Manny A. Cacher," we were sure in for a surprise. Duganrm opened the container and couldn't believe the moldy mess inside.
Actually, if we had carefully reviewed the Past Logs, we would have seen that last year some cachers found all the swag strewn around on the ground. They put everything back in the container, but since everything was wet, and there was still water in the ammo can, it had all spring, summer, and fall to develop into a real science experiement.
We spent the next several minutes removing all the objects, then Toby's Gang put leaves and dirt and some rocks in the container and shook it all around in an attempt to clean off some of the mold. He emptied that out and then put more dried leaves in the container to absorb the rest of the moisture. Then he put a rock in the container for the logbook to rest on.
He carried the heavy bag of wet and moldy stuff all the way back up to the vehicles, a distance of two miles.
It was getting late, but TrailGators was only three finds away from 1300 caches, so we decided to get those and even succeeded in getting a few more, including the other two "Manny" caches and the elusive "Vector YMCA" which P.T. and I DNF'd last May. When we got there, I looked down at the cache location, now illuminated by our flashlight beams, and couldn't figure out how our search back then had been centered more than 30 feet away. Odd, very odd . . .
When I finally left "the guys," it was 7:00 p.m. I had a 45-mile drive through the mountains to get home. When I got home, I was really tired, but I had lots of work to do because the Event in Temecula Valley was the next day. New PQs had to be run to have fresh data for that. I didn't think I would get the ten caches we found logged before heading off to bed that night, but I did. I hope my logs were worthy of the caches and the adventures we encountered during our searches.
posted by Miragee at
8:27:00 PM
10-Day Forecast
1 Comments:
Sounds like you had a great caching day, and beautiful countryside to enjoy. I love the way geocaching takes you to scenic and historic places, a more memorable find than the actual cache. I got my geocaching blog up and running, and told my husband we had to go find at least one cache this last weekend so I could see if the stats bar on the blog changed, and it did! (thanks)
Love your pictures, thanks for sharing. downychick/aka susan at patchwork reflections
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downychick, at 9:07 AM
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