ODF 2011 Centennial - Back to the Burn
(GC2P708)
I noticed this one when it first came out but, being wintertime in the Pacific Northwest, I wasn't overly motivated to go chasing it down due to distance and time constraints, not to mention a couple of little boys that can get on the whiny side once interest is lost in the hunt. Well, after watching it for about a month and seeing only one logged (and failed) attempt to find it I decided I would take a crack at it.
So, after loading up my pack, grabbing a hiking a pole, and filling up my coffee cup, out the door I headed! I figured I would pop in, make quick work of this one, and head across the Wilson River to grab a cache that I had missed last fall.
After driving 45 minutes I arrived at the designated parking area, jumped out of the car and off I went. I followed the River View trail, a part of the new trail system being created and groomed by the Oregon Department of Forestry until my GPS receiver pointed me in a direction perpendicular to the trail I was on. So on to the spur I went. I was following it until I finally realized that this particular spur was curving in such a way as to lead me away from the cache...
It was time to head in to the bush and whack something!
I should point out, that I'm not using my iPhone for this, I'm using my DeLorme PN-40 to get this cache. The GPSr has a good sattelite lock and an estimated accuracy of +-9 feet under this thick canopy. It's rare that this thing gets me way off course or loses a lock once established (short of entering a cave or tunnel).
After cutting cross-country I arrive at ground zero. Ground zero looks just like the pictures posted by Blazingthrewthewoods on his attempt, minus the snow. The GPSr has me spinning around in circles and I'm poking in the brush with my hiking pole hoping to hear the familiar "thunk, thunk" of a .30 cal ammo can find... After an hour of searching, I'm starting to think that that it's not there. Hmmm... time to check the hint.
"Near the hemlock", it says.
Hmmm... only one hemlock that I saw, and it was a scrawny little thing that had blown over years ago and was barely alive. I'm guessing that's not it. Time to widen the search. But, I'm running out of time and need to get home in time to get ready for work. I'll be back once I rethink my strategy...
So I head home, go to work and ponder... Perhaps it was just a typo when the cache owner input the coordinates to geocaching.com. So I do my best to figure out which two numbers were probably transposed... I settled on a pair of digits that placed the cache about 120 feet away from the original coordinate posting. The next morning I was off again.
Well, that didn't work. It didn't take me long to realize that there were absolutely no hemlocks in the new area. As I sit there pondering my next course of action, along comes a Tillamook Forest Center staff member in a Gator-like ATV... Thinking that perhaps I don't actually know what a hemlock is I decide to break down and ask a professional. So after a very brief conversation that confirmed that I was, in fact, correct about what a hemlock looked like and that there were no hemlocks in the area over 8 feet tall, and most of them being freshly planted and less than 18 inches in height, I thanked the Tillamook Forest Center staff member and decided I'd just walk the trails checking out any and all hemlocks I ran in to.
It didn't take too long to nail it down. It's probably the oldest, if not the only, hemlock in the Tillamook forest and is truly a beautiful specimen. It's right off a groomed trail and was only 425 feet from the original coordinates! After about 10 seconds of poking around with my hiking pole I hear the familiar thunk, thunk of a .30 cal ammo can! EUREKA! Another FTF for yours truly!
I quickly signed the log, admired all the kid-oriented SWAG, and snagged the trackable geocoin to move it on. I left wondering if someone had tried hiding this with an iPhone (a definite no-no even if it is your only GPSr).
After getting home I sent a message to the cache maintainer and he posted the new coordinates I gave him. Ten minutes later he'd adjusted them by 120 feet because the original cache hider went out and took several readings on the cache placement after I found it... We'll see who's closer I guess. I'm guessing it will be me.
Cache on!
So, after loading up my pack, grabbing a hiking a pole, and filling up my coffee cup, out the door I headed! I figured I would pop in, make quick work of this one, and head across the Wilson River to grab a cache that I had missed last fall.
After driving 45 minutes I arrived at the designated parking area, jumped out of the car and off I went. I followed the River View trail, a part of the new trail system being created and groomed by the Oregon Department of Forestry until my GPS receiver pointed me in a direction perpendicular to the trail I was on. So on to the spur I went. I was following it until I finally realized that this particular spur was curving in such a way as to lead me away from the cache...
It was time to head in to the bush and whack something!
I should point out, that I'm not using my iPhone for this, I'm using my DeLorme PN-40 to get this cache. The GPSr has a good sattelite lock and an estimated accuracy of +-9 feet under this thick canopy. It's rare that this thing gets me way off course or loses a lock once established (short of entering a cave or tunnel).
After cutting cross-country I arrive at ground zero. Ground zero looks just like the pictures posted by Blazingthrewthewoods on his attempt, minus the snow. The GPSr has me spinning around in circles and I'm poking in the brush with my hiking pole hoping to hear the familiar "thunk, thunk" of a .30 cal ammo can find... After an hour of searching, I'm starting to think that that it's not there. Hmmm... time to check the hint.
"Near the hemlock", it says.
Hmmm... only one hemlock that I saw, and it was a scrawny little thing that had blown over years ago and was barely alive. I'm guessing that's not it. Time to widen the search. But, I'm running out of time and need to get home in time to get ready for work. I'll be back once I rethink my strategy...
So I head home, go to work and ponder... Perhaps it was just a typo when the cache owner input the coordinates to geocaching.com. So I do my best to figure out which two numbers were probably transposed... I settled on a pair of digits that placed the cache about 120 feet away from the original coordinate posting. The next morning I was off again.
Well, that didn't work. It didn't take me long to realize that there were absolutely no hemlocks in the new area. As I sit there pondering my next course of action, along comes a Tillamook Forest Center staff member in a Gator-like ATV... Thinking that perhaps I don't actually know what a hemlock is I decide to break down and ask a professional. So after a very brief conversation that confirmed that I was, in fact, correct about what a hemlock looked like and that there were no hemlocks in the area over 8 feet tall, and most of them being freshly planted and less than 18 inches in height, I thanked the Tillamook Forest Center staff member and decided I'd just walk the trails checking out any and all hemlocks I ran in to.
It didn't take too long to nail it down. It's probably the oldest, if not the only, hemlock in the Tillamook forest and is truly a beautiful specimen. It's right off a groomed trail and was only 425 feet from the original coordinates! After about 10 seconds of poking around with my hiking pole I hear the familiar thunk, thunk of a .30 cal ammo can! EUREKA! Another FTF for yours truly!
I quickly signed the log, admired all the kid-oriented SWAG, and snagged the trackable geocoin to move it on. I left wondering if someone had tried hiding this with an iPhone (a definite no-no even if it is your only GPSr).
After getting home I sent a message to the cache maintainer and he posted the new coordinates I gave him. Ten minutes later he'd adjusted them by 120 feet because the original cache hider went out and took several readings on the cache placement after I found it... We'll see who's closer I guess. I'm guessing it will be me.
Cache on!
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