A good excuse to be a bad cacher... almost

I am getting pretty close to filling my calendar grid (less than a dozen days to fill in) and I've been making an effort to get a cache for those days. One of those days just happened to be February 28th, which also just happened to be my Mom's wedding day. We were visiting her in California for the wedding, which was amazing, and getting a geocache just wasn't in the cards. On the way back from the reception I lamented to my wife about how I didn't have a find on this day and would have to wait until next year to finish the calendar, and I was ok with that. Because, I'm a sane person, and it was my mother's wedding day. But what should happen later that night? My new step father hears about how I wanted to find a geocache today to fill in the date, and invites me on a late night walk with his dog to a park where he knows where a cache is hidden. Who was I to say no? We made the short walk, grabbed a quick find and chatted the whole time. Was he just looking for an easy way to score points with his new wife's son? Well, if he was it worked. Thanks!

The happy couple. My new stepfather caches under the name milosteven

One proud CO

I know I already posted about how receiving a nice log on one of your caches is a wonderful thing, but hey, this is my blog, I'll go ahead and post about it again. My latest geocache, GC5M4M4, was finally published a good three weeks after I originally hid it. I was quite pleased with how it all came together. I originally hid the cache on a quiet trail I had discovered a month ago while out caching with my daughter. At the time there were no caches on the trail, so I decided to place one out there. I had no real idea of what to do with the cache listing other than I wanted it to be a Mystery Cache. I took a bunch of pictures of interesting stuff along the trail hoping to be inspired to come up with something, and when I finally sat down to think about it I struck upon what felt like a great idea. Why not write the cache page as if it is a scientific journal. This isn't really  far-fetched idea for me, since my wife is a scientist and we talk about journal articles from time to time. Scientific articles have a lot of details about them that are conducive to hiding coordinates, plus I could make up some funny filler material and references. I got to work on it and a week later had what I hoped would be a good puzzle cache. And it just got published yesterday, after working out a few glitches with my reviewer. And pretty quickly people were trying to solve it, I could tell since I was watching the coord checker site and refreshing constantly. Some people seemed to be pretty far off track, but some progressed quickly to a solution and sure enough two people had correct solutions by the end of the day. The weather has been quite foul of late, and I didn't really expect people to drive out and then hike to the cache today, but early in the morning I saw the first "Found It" log. And a few more rolled in later in the day., One log in particular really made my heart swell (or was that my ego?). As a CO, logs like this one cause your face to grow a smile a mile wide, and leave it sticking there for hours.

Ambling by Eagle Bluff on the Cumberland Trail

I've been wanting to hike sections of the Cumberland Trail for a while, and have tasted a few short bits, but never a full section. Late last year I even had plans to hike the Obed River with a friend at NIMBioS but those plans fell apart when we realized that the area was in full-hunting-swing. So when I got in touch with another NIMBioS hiker, I jumped at the opportunity to do a long hike with him. We settled on the Eagle Bluff section of the CT since it would have nice ridge-top views throughout the hike. It was also one of the easier sections to get to and shuttle cars to both ends, as well as being a bit shorter. Since this would be our first hike together, it just seemed prudent.

Sunrise at Tank Springs Trailhead

We met at the Bruce Gap trailhead at 7:30, where Jake left his car and we shuttled over to the Tank Springs trailhead a dozen or so miles away. Right off the bat I was taken aback by how light Jake had packed. He had a single nalgene water bottle for him and his two dogs, and a small fanny pack. That's all he needed for a 12 mile hike. Me on the other hand, I had my large daysack with extra clothes, geocaching stuff, 3 litres of water for myself and my dog, hot tea, binoculars, two cameras, emergency blanket, compass, headlamp... By my standards not all that much, but compared to Jake I felt like the over-packed, over-prepared boyscout. I was still fiddling with getting my GPSr turned on and tracking our progress while Jake was rearing to go. And off we went.

The trail starts off at a nice little spring across from an old quarry. There is actually a cool little bit of Civil War history here. The gap, called Big Creek Gap, was one of the few passable gaps in the Cumberland Mountains and was fought over by the Union and Confederate troops who were trying to maintain control of the supply routes to the area. Apparently some of the civil war era earthworks are still present around the old quarry. The trail climbs up slowly to the ridgetop where the earth is weathered away revealing exposed fins of rock. We had nice views out over the valley within half a mile of hiking, and the views continued throughout the day. We also made our first geocaching stop at a cache which had been archived back in 2003, GCC8AD. Amazingly, the cache container was still there, sitting out in plain sight under a small boulder. The tupperware was full with a block of ice, and the plastic fell apart as I banged out the ice. There was no logbook. Jake had never hiked with a geocacher before, but he took it in stride.

Abandoned a dozen years ago, but still findable!

Once we were on top of the ridge, the hiking was really quick. Sure there were some small descents and climbs, but no more significant elevation changes. And the ridgetop was trail was very nicely done. Usually the trail would stay right on top of the narrow exposed rock fins, or it would shoulder around them. The ridge line actually is made up of two distinct ridgelines, separated buy a shallow valley. Often you would be hiking along and suddenly would be adjacent to a steep cliff on one side or another. In short the terrain was wonderful. And with the trees being leafless, we always had pretty good views. The downside is that we were never far from the urban noises below the ridge. The towns of Lafollette, Jacksboro and Caryville spread out along the mountain in the valley below, and the hum of cars and trucks was persistent.

Great looking climbing wall near the shelter

Ammo can geocache tucked under that rock

We reached the one and only still active geocache along this portion of the trail by mid morning. CT Rock Fin is actually one of the older geocaches in the state, placed in September old 2002. Despite its age, it has only been visited by 17 geocachers and many of those were in a group visits. It certainly is a lonely cache, having last been found 2 years ago. But it really isn't that far of a hike. And the trail is superb. One of the nicer hiking trails I've been on. The cache was very well stocked as well. I traded a flashlight for a knife, and grabbed a pathtag from one of the local geocachers, Diggin'UpBones. Jake thought the whole business was pretty funny, but amusing. I actually let him use the GPSr and he made the find as I was looking in the wrong spot. The geocache is placed in a really cool area, not far from a camping shelter. There is a large rock fin with a highly textured wall that looks like it would be awesome for climbing. I can just picture hiking out here with a bunch of climbing gear, spending a few nights at the shelter, and climbing all over the wall. The only water source along the ridgetop is also located here. Sounds to me like a fun trip, but it is not likely to happen in my future.

So far, Jake had been keeping one of his dogs on a leash since she doesn't play well with others. Since we were relaxing by the shelter, I suggested he let her off to see how they would get along. The answer came quickly, not at all. Well, Sasha was well behaved, but Jake's dog, Pasta, pretty viciously attacked Sasha and clamped her jaws down on her ear and scruff. She wasn't letting go either and after a few nervous and terrifying seconds I clenched my fist and beat on her head until she released. Needless to say, she remained leashed the rest of the hike. Luckily, Sasha was not hurt, no tears or punctures, nothing at all. And within a few minutes she was wagging her tail and going over to Pasta again.Too kind for her own good. The dogs not getting along was the second downer of our hike. It would have been nice if they could all have been unleashed and free to run through the woods. But an attack like the one Pasta did is not something to risk again.

One of the many nice rock formations along the trail

Raised rock pathway

Public access walking trail to Eagle Bluff

A few miles further and we passed onto Private Property at Eagle Bluff. Eagle Bluff is a very prominent rock face that is visible from Jacksboro. The land was acquired by an individual who decided to build his cottage right on top of the cliff. It's hard to be mad at someone for doing this, because even though you look at his house and think "how could he build there", you also think "man I wish I lived there". The CT joins the road behind his house fora small stretch. And the owner has actually done something very nice here: instead of closing off his property to all tresspasers, he ahs created a small public use trail to the overlook. It would have made a great spot to have lunch, but it felt a little odd to be so close to someone's house. Their dog even came over to growl at us while we were admiring the view. But our stomachs were rumbling so after hiking a short ways from the house, we found a nice rock outcropping to eat lunch.

Eagle Bluff

Don't you dare swing on that swing!

Devil's Racetrack

A few miles further and I was on familiar ground. I had hiked up to Devil's Racetrack last fall with my wife, daughter and mother-in-law. Earlier in the day, I had made a prediction that we wouldn't see another person until we reached this point, and my prediction came true. As the american flag came into view, I started belting out the star-spangled banner, and only then did I notice a couple relaxing on the rocks nearby. Embarrassing. They soon left and we hung out for a while, collecting the smooth quartz pebbles that fall out of the sandstone matrix of rock. We encountered several more hikers on our way down off the ridge and past the waterfalls. This section of the trail is very pretty, very accessible, and apparently, pretty popular as a dayhike.

Once we got down near the triple falls of Bruce gap, I searched for a letterbox that was supposed to be there. Letterboxing is very similar to geocaching, but not GPS-based. I had written down the clue and felt that I was searching in the right place, but didn't find anything. Jake was not all that interested in searching and was just sitting with his dogs, so after 5 minutes or so of digging in the elaf litter I declared my search over and we got on our way to the waterfalls. They looked even colder than when we were here last, when I went swimming in the inviting pools. Icicles chandeliered the rock walls. And compared to that last visit, there was much less trash along the trail and around the falls. Either someone has been cleaning it up, or the winter rains/floods have swept the area clean. Either way, it was nice to see the area all cleaned up.

Left to right: Pasta, Sasha and Sasha. Yes there are two Sashas. 

The last few miles of the hike to Bruce Gap trailhead were literally along interstate 75. Trucks growled and coughed next to us, as we marched through the unremarkable woodlands towards the car. Parts of trail like this are not the greatest, but are probably unavoidable when doing a long through hike like the CT. You are bound to have to cross major interstates and squeeze between private property and DOT right of ways. And in the grand scheme of the trail, it is only for a few miles. Right at the trailhead, the interstate bridges over a stream and you can hike under the busy road and towards the next section of trail, the New River Segment. Ada and I hiked the start of this trail up to Cross mountain back on October and I hid a geocache there that still hasn't been found, GC5E2TK. I think I'll hide one on the Eagle Bluff Section too. The hikes are just too good, and I enjoy hiding caches too much. It was around 3pm when we reached the car. The 11.7 mile hike had felt like a breeze. Jake really liked the trail and hike as well. I think it's time to tackle one of the harder sections!

Bruce Gap Trailhead

2500! Night cache adventure

Two thousand and five hundred geocaches.. ooph... that is a lot. And when you've been playing this game for almost 4 years, and found this many geocaches, you end up behaving oddly at such milestones. You feel the need to make sure the particular geocache you find on whatever arbitrary milestone, is one that embodies what you like best about the game. At elast, that's what I do. And I recognize how absurd it is. Especially the behavior of not finding geocaches in order to ensure that the one I find for the milestone is something specific. Because does it really matter if that specific geocache is the 2500th, or the 2501st? Yes.... yes it does.

So for this mini milestone, a quarter of the way to 10K, I set my sights on a night cache planted at Tellico Lake, along some trails I've never visited before. I've done a few night caches before, but never one that involved over a mile of hiking. So it felt like something new and fun to try, something worth a little extra effort. I put out a call on the local geocaching Facebook group and found some other cachers interested in meeting up to to it. Even my son was keen on coming, so it was shaping up to be a fun outing. I packed up a ridiculous amount of flashlights, powerful 18-volt ones, tiny finger lights, flashing strobes for the dog to wear. Next I made sure that we'd be warm enough, the forecast was for below freezing temperatures. Everything in order, we drove out as the sun set.

Team JoshShnn and Sasha

We met team Joshshnn at the trailhead and set off immediately. I had met Joshshnn a few weeks earlier at an event and my son really wanted to go caching with them. They are a fun family that likes hiking and exploring the area, as well as caching. They had never done a night cache before, but immediately took the lead on the trail, looking for the reflective tacks that would lead us to the cache. The first few tacks we found were of the wrong type, at least for the geocache. They were placed by hunters perhaps, but gave us a taste of what we might be looking for. We didn't find one of the "proper" tacks until we had hiked for about 1/2 mile. And even after that, the tacks were spaced apart pretty far. so far that you couldn't see the next one until you hiked further along the trail. This was a little different than what I was expecting. The night caches I've done before use the reflective tacks to make a trail, where you follow one, then another along a route. This cache was set up so that you simply followed a good trail, and every once in a while you would see a reflective tack letting you know that you still had more to hike. And the hike was over a mile, so doing it this way makes sense. If you had to place tacks within sight of eachother, it would take many dozens. This way, the CO got away with placing fewer tacks, but still providing a fun night caching adventure.

The cache was a nice big ammo can full of goodies, easily found when reached the right pattern of reflective tacks. The Joshshnn team was nice enough to let Levin "make" the find, and he was pretty happy about the whole thing. The hike home was tough on him though. We were up past his bedtime, it was cold and dark, and he was tired. But like a trooper he kept on going. And me, I'm at 2500 geocaches found, and I'm still going too.