May the 4th take you Geocaching!

There is a Star Wars themed geocache I've wanted to go after here in the Cincinnati area called Jedi Mind Tricks, The Art of Levitation. Taking advantage of a nice weather forecast for the day... and also that it is Star Wars Day (May the 4th Be with You!), I planned a field trip with the kids to see if we could find this hard to reach geocache.

I was anticipating around a 6 mile round trip hike, on trails I have never visited, so we packed lunch, critter catching nets, binoculars and some extra clothes and set off for the day.

The geocache theme is about the swamps of Degobah, where Luke met Yoda and learned Jedi skills. He had to learn the art of levitation to get his x-wing out of the swamp, and for the geocache, you need to cross a swamp onto an island and then levitate up a tree to find the cache. The fact that you had a few miles to hike and also at least 1/4 mile off-trail navigation to reach the Degobah swamp adds to the adventure. The kids aren't always so keen on these kinds of geocache adventures, so we also had critter catching nets with us, and binoculars and made several stops to look for salamanders and birds.  We were pretty successful on both accounts. Near the start of our hike, a birder passed us and gave us a hot tip about some Blue-winged Warblers a bit further down the trail.  I pulled up my birding app and we listened to the song for this uncommon warbler, and sure enough a few hundred feet down the trail we heard the distinctive zzzzzzziiiip! sound. The kids then spotted one pf the warblers up in a tree and we got a good look at him. Very beautiful warbler and a new bird id for me! We continued to have pretty good success identifying and spotting birds along the trail, with some highlights being Red-headed Woodpeckers, Scarlet Tanagers, and some Wood Thrushes that let us follow them through the underbrush for a good ways.

Scarlet Tanager.. not easy to photo through binoculars

Critter catching got off well too. The heavy rains from yesterday meant that there were tons of vernal puddles and most had tadpoles in them. A few also had larger egg masses that were probably from a salamander species and in one of the pools we found larval stage salamanders, with there little gills flowing out from the sides of their heads. Maybe these were recently hatched from the eggs in the pools. We also caught a few salamanders at a stream bed, and Levin thinks we caught two species, a Northern Dusky and a Northern Ravine Salamander.

With the stops for birding and looking for amphibians, as well as the overall muddy nature of the trails which meant slow going, it was well into the afternoon by the time we reached Degobah Swamp. Levin was immediately critical, "it doesn't look like Degobah swamp at all".

What Levin was expecting

Far from being dark, damp and scary looking, it was a bright cute little pond with a tiny little island off to one side of it. Frogs were hopping along the banks, and Ada spotted a snake as the kids immediately fanned out to catch critters.

What it actually looked like

I prepared to use my Jedi tricks to find this geocache. I had swim trunks on under my hiking pants, and brought a quick dry long sleeve shirt to wear which would hopefully keep me warm in the water. I slowly waded in and pretty quickly started to sink up to my waist in the mud. I was getting deeper and deeper every step, but instead of maintaining my straight path to the island, I noticed a submerged tree to my right. Angling towards that, I was able to get up onto it and balance on it with my two walking sticks. The log went all the way over to the island and let me reach it without sinking into the mud, or getting wet past my knees. Once on the island though, I still had to find the geocache.

The first thing I noticed was what appeared to be shriveled up white balloons in a little mound in the middle of the island. Looking up close, these were old goose eggs. Probably hatched last year, this island would make a nice little goose nest. No geese around this year though, at least not yet. Maybe they didn't survive the migration, or maybe they just haven't made their way back north. The geocache proved harder to find than I thought it would be. There weren't that many places to look, and I also knew it was up in a tree. I even climbed 10 ft up a tree and couldn't spot the geocache. Levin, back on shore, started looking for hints in old logs, and shouting what he found to me. I looked and looked, and finally noticed the geocache, a tiny plastic vial, cable-tied to a branch only a few feet from where I had already climbed up and looked. How did I miss that? Well, it was pretty small, and was not the hanging bison that I was expecting. Still, I probably should have spotted it sooner. I climbed up to it, pencil in my mouth, ready to sign the log, only to find that the log sheet was no longer there. Now Ada came to the rescue, tearing off a strip of paper from her field journal. I then had to balance across the submerged log to get this strip of paper, and it looked like so much fun, the kids decided to come with me to the island. Since the water wasn't that cold, I figured there was no harm in this. Stripping down to underwear we all balanced across the submerged log, Ada holding onto my waist band for balance. Somehow none of us fell in and we all got to enjoy being on this tiny little island. I signed the replacement log and climbed up the tree to put it into the lid-less container. Hopefully it will last a little while, maybe for the next geocacher. Who knows. On our return trip to the shore, Ada and Levin both took little slips into the water, getting wet up to their waists. Nothing too bad though. They were both thrilled about the adventure. Levin even is saying this is his favorite geocaching adventure ever. I am definitely pretty happy about that.

Up in the tree

As an added bonus, Ada found three geocache containers that surely must have fallen out of a geocaher's backpack. Since the last visit to this geocache was a year ago, and the last find nearly two, this stuff was probably sitting here for a while.

The hike back from Degobah was quicker and less eventful. By this point shoes were muddy and we were all less careful about walking around the giant mud puddles. We also were getting tired, low on water, and were wanting to get back home for a yummy dinner of hamburgers on the grill. So there were far fewer stops to look for birds and critters. We did stop to find a few more geocaches along the trail though. All in all, the kids had a great time, and so did I. A good May 4th Adventure.

Blue-grey Gnat-catcher Nest we found on the way back