Placing a new Power Trail

Geocachers that get to know me learn that I am not a big fan of power trails. Those endless lines of geocaches strung out every 530ft along a rural highway. To be fair, perhaps I have never done them the way that people like them best, with a group of other cachers. I've either done sections of trails on my own, or with my young kids (as an example see this post). However, I like the term "power trail" and like to use it in ways that most geocachers don't. For example, did I just hike a trail with over 1000ft of elevation gain to find  with a cache at the end of it? Power Trail! Maybe if I call enough of these kind of trails "power trails" I can reclaim this phrase to mean something that I like. Oh, it'll never happen, but that doesn't mean I won't try.

I placed what I consider to be my first power trail back in New Mexico, as part of my Organ Saint series. I wanted to bring people up one of the most iconic hikes in the Las Cruces area, the towering Organ Needle. There is already a cache on top, but the trail was devoid of caches. So I placed a series of multi-caches along the trail, where each cache had coordinates to the next. Originally, I was just going to do a multi cache up the trail. But then I got to thinking about how many people try this trail but never make it all the way, and it is quite a few. It is an intimidating hike with 3000+ft elevation climb and rough terrain and no truly maintained route. As such, it is super intimidating to the average cacher, and I wanted anyone who attempts the trail to be able to log finds for however far they make it. And so far, it has worked pretty much as designed. The final has only been found once so far, but the other stages have been found several more times, with the one at the start being found the most.

Ever since moving to Tennessee, I've been wanting to put out another power trail. The terrain around here isn't quite as dramatic, but there are good trails to be had, and one trail, the North Ridge Greenway of Oak Ridge is right behind our house. It's an 8 mile long (one-way) trail that extends along most of the length of the city, and I've gone out on several runs on various sections of it over the last year. One thing that surprised me is that it has relatively few geocaches on it. And the few geocaches it has are not frequently found. It kind of seems like it is not really much of a destination for geocachers, which is a shame, because it is a great trail system next to a great city. But the fact that there weren't many caches on it got me thinking that it would be a great trail for a long multi cache.

When our plans to go camping this weekend fell through I knew I had an opportunity to go for a long run, so I got down to the business of preparing the multi-cache components. The final would be a plastic ammo-box. All other stages would be painted preform tubes with a small strip of write-in-rain paper in them with a short message and coords to the net stage. Once all was assembled the containers and other supplies fit neatly into a small backpack that I could run with. I drove out to the "far end" of the trail on West Outer Drive and started my run. Almost immediately I passed a fellow walking his dog. He happened to be the only person I saw all day on the trail, and he must have thought I looked strange carrying an ammo-container onto the trail with me way past hunting season. I hid that ammo can pretty quickly afterwards, then got into a  groove of running for 1/2-3/4 mile and taking breaks to hide a stage. There are some really nice spots along this trail either by rocky bluffs, clear streams, or ancient looking beech trees. I avoided all these locations for my hides. This multi cache is about the journey along the trail, and I don't want to prevent future caches from placing nice geocaches by any of the better features out here. Plus my preform tubes can be effectively hidden just about anywhere so there was no need to hide them by the coolest sections of the trail.

The hours passed, and the trail tumbled by until finally I popped out on Endicott Lane, and was done with the cache placement. But the run was not ovr yet, I still had to run another mile through neighborhoods and barren woods to get back to my house. It is very cool that we live only a mile from the trailhead. Unfortunately, there is no connector trail to our neighborhood. I needed to carefully pick my way through a section of woods and then come out behind a house that is for sale across the street from ours. So yeah, I guess I was trespassing. Still it was nice to be able to run all the way home where the kids greeted me at the door with cheers. And now there is a new Power Trail in town. I hope some of the local geocachers enjoy it.