My first hosted CITO

After visiting Potter's Falls a month ago with my kids, I decided it would be the perfect place to hold a CITO. It is a beautiful natural area, that sees heavy use from locals, so gets trashed with all the stuff you associate with partying kids. I posted the CITO mid-july, hoping to get a dozen or so geocachers to come out so that we could clean up the river along the way to LeMance falls as well. When groundspeak announced its 7 Souvenirs of August, I was hopeful that more folks would come out sto help them collect the souvenirs. As the weeks passed, I received far more notes from localks who couldn't come than who could, and in the end, we were a small crew of geocachers that came to pick up trash, and two of the geocachers were from quite far away in Kentucky, and just happened to spending a weekend nearby and decided to help out. I'm glad they did, with only 7 people, we managed to fill up a dozen contractor bags, and Potters Falls was looking pretty well cleaned up. Unfortunately, we did not have the man power to clean up the route to LeMance Falls, but Lostsole and Geofairy made the trip and managed to clean out one bag's worth of trash on their way out. All in all, despite not getting a big turn out, it was a successful trash pick up, and certainly something I would try to organize again. And after the clean-up, we went swimming (well, my family did, most the geocachers had their own agendas).

A taste of Kentucky

Bourbon and fried chicken... that's what I missed during my excursion north into Kentucky. In fact, if the highway signs are to be believed, I passed right by the birthplace of Colonel Sanders of KFC fame. But not surprisingly, my trip was all to do with geocaching, and nothing to do with actual taste buds. I'll save that for another trip.

With my 2000th geocache milestone approaching I had been looking for an exceptional geocache to find and settled on one in Kentucky, a mere 2 hours drive away, that involved rappelling into a deep cave. I've rappelled to find geocaches before, but never into a cave requiring ascenders to get back out, so it seemed suitably adventurous. But it wouldn't require all day to explore, so I plotted a route through the Daniel Boone National forest to hit up some other interesting locations and geocaches to round out the day.

The drive up interstate 75 early in the morning was foggy and I was a bit worried about rain, which the forecast promised. Even though I would be in a cave, the rappel/descent would be very wet if rainy. Luckily, the rain held off and I had an excellent double yo-yo into the cave. The cave was so impressive, I've posted it in a separate blog post. As I packed up my gear, I checked the time, only quarter to eleven. Lot's of time to check out some other areas. After getting to the car and sorting out all the climbing gear, we were off down scenic highway 192 towards the national forest.

Rock House near the cave entrance

First stop was Buck Creek Cave Cache, a neat cave system just off the highway. However, after spending a bit of times in caves already, and wanting to get onto longer hikes, I opted to not fully explore the cave. But it is still a neat, if not a little trashed, spot. Next stop was a few caches along the Laurel Reservoir along the Sheltowhee trace. I brushwhacked in to find a few caches along the trace (one puzzle and one trad). There were mushrooms everywhere and all different sorts. I really need to get back into mushroom hunting, looks like you can have a lot of fun doing that around here. Near the dam of the reservoir I hunted and found a 5/5 geocache called Slap slam bippity boo. This turned out to eb a fun multi cache, with a tricky boulder problem to reach the final. However, it was hardly what I'd call a difficulty 5 cache, since I could complete the whole cache in an hour. Still, a neat area to explore and well worth a visit.

Laurel Reservoir

Near Slip Slam

All these stops and hikes were starting to make me tired, and the clear blue waters of the Laurel Reservoir almost made me decide to call it a day here and just go swimming. But the "no dogs allowed" signs made me change my mind, and there was one last area I wanted to check out, the Niagra of the South, Cumberland Falls. A 20 minute drive was all it took to reach Cumberland falls, and theya re impressive indeed. But like Niagara Falls, the place was also developed for tourists. Instead of goinbg right up to the falls, I instead drove to the Eagle Falls trailhead, where Sasha and I hiked in to the Earthcache there and took a swim in the cold and clear waters underneath the waterfall. There were a dozen other folks doing the same though, so after cooling off we headed to a more secluded spot along a nearby loop trail (and scored another geocache). Amazingly, no one was on the beautiful loop trail, so Sasha and I had a nice peaceful nature walk.

Cumberland Falls view

Giant stones in the Cumberland River

The swift Cumberland river

Eagle Falls

Sliding rocks above Eagle Falls

Quiet Beauty above Eagle Falls

Sasha gets her cool on

When we got back to the car, I drove us a few minutes up the road to find two other interesting caches, one in a cave behind an abandoned hotel, and an earthcache at a natural sandstone rock bridge. The cave and abandoned hotel was pretty neat, but the rock bridge was pretty unimpressive, being a tiny little hole through a rocky outcropping along the side of the road. After these diversions, it was time to brave the crowds and check out Cumberland falls themselves, up close and personal.

Small cave behind abandoned hotel

My geocaching gameface

I don't know if I'd call these falls the Niagara of the south, Burgess Falls in Tennessee seemed as large and definitely higher. Still, this is an impressive falls and worth some time. Also, it seemed like a perfect last stop for my trip. But hopefully I'll be back sometime, there is still much to explore around here.

One final note: I made what I thought was a thorough tick check on getting home, and scrubbed myself in the shower. But when I went to bed I started getting itchy spots, and discovered the tiniest ticks I have ever seen. Maybe they were seed ticks, or even chiggers, I'm still not sure. My wife helped me pull off a bunch of these, but mostly I found them after itching a red spot. And then the next morning I had red marks all over my body but mostly around my ankles. It looked like poison ivy to me, but maybe was related to the tick-like insects. Either way, I had a few very uncomfortable nights, taking benedryl and slathering hydrocortizone all over myself. A final reminder of my taste of Kentucky.

Caver's Plunge - My 2000th geocache

OK, I haven't done this before but this post is basically just a copy of my geocache online log for Caver's Plunge. You could just go visit that cache and read my log, but here it is blog-O-fied.

With my 2000th find milestone coming up, I wanted to pick a cache that would be really adventurous, and this one caught my eye. Hmm... only a two hour drive... will give me an excuse to use my ascenders... sure let's go for it! And by let's I mean "me". I tried to find a buddy to come with me, but none of the Tennessee geocachers were willing/able to this weekend. I know tackling a cave like this is a little bit sketchy on your own, but I am confident in my rigging and rope-work having spent years on a technical rescue team (we even did cave rescue). I wasn't really alone though, my dog came. She does "sit" and "stay", but not "belay"... we're working on it... And if the worst should happen perhaps she could pull a Lassie, "what is it Lassie? Has little Fugads fallen in a hole?".

We had a hot and humid morning, but it wasn't raining when we parked at the base of the hill. I explored the cave near the parking area first, definitely worth a trip into. I went maybe a 1/4 mile in, but I have a hard time judging distances underground... I didn't make it to the end, but just to a section where the ceiling started to get low, and I opted to turn around rather than delve deeper. I highly recommend anyone visiting Caver's Plunge check this one out first as a warm-up/appetizer. On the approach I made a similar mistake as the last group who came, taking a wrong fork of the road and getting into thick briar. But instead of plowing through, I double-backed and got on the correct road. A short while later I was setting up my rope and getting ready to go in.

I marvel how anyone could find a cave entrance like this! In the lush and dense summer foliage, it is nearly impossible to detect, even when you are right up close to it. I'm sure other seasons make it easier, and I bet real Cavers have other tricks they use for locating caves. Even so, I marvel about it, and am really grateful that you decided to place a cache down there so us non-cavers can have a little fun here. I made my descent very slowly, enjoying the ride down and getting a good look at everything as I went. Once on the bottom, the cache was immediately obvious (not hidden at all). You might have a candidate for a D/T 1/5 here, since the find itself is SOOO easy. And I'm glad it is, the last thing I want to do at the bottom of a cave like this is to stress out about finding a dang micro or something. I added my OMTRS (Organ Mountain Technical Rescue) sticker to the logbook, my team would be proud, then put everything back and started having fun. First I explored the whole cave, up to the piton ladder. I was tempted to clip my etrier into them and look up, but since the CO mentions that it doesn't go anywhere I decided not to risk anything. Still, I love seeing old rusty pitons. I released a few soft-iron TBs a few years ago even. Next I tried my hand at some cave photography (results not that good ;( ). I really wanted to light-write "2000" but couldn't get my digital camera to keep an open shutter, so the best I could get was a curlie-cue. 

I rigged up my ascent and gave what I thought would be a final echoing farewell into this cathedral like cavern. That's the best way I can describe it, cathedral like. Sure it doesn't have long passages, but it has soaring walls, with undulating buttresses, and a ceiling that is almost too far away to see. Every little sound resonates within. Just a special place. I slowly jugged my way out (it's been a while since I've done some ascending) and finally was getting into a good rhythm when I reached the small ledge just underneath the opening. It was here that something came unclipped from my harness and tumbled into the darkness below. "Crap" I thought. After checking all my stuff, I realized it was my mini-tripod. I never really considered leaving it, because going down and back up is just so much fun. ZIP, down I went. The tripod handle got chipped but was otherwise fine. And my return trip was much faster because I got into a rhythm quicker. Double Yo-yo for me today. 

I emerged from the hole in the ground to be met by a tail wagging friend, who quickly licked my face in relief that I hadn't been swallowed up by the earth. I slowly packed up my gear, already missing the coolness of the underground. What a great cache. What a fun yo-yo. How good it is to be alive. Man would I love for this CO to put more caches like this out.... Or simply email me some beta on fun caves to explore.