Levin was out from school today so I took both kids on an explore east of Tellico Plains, in the Cherokee National Forest. I visited this area once when I tackled the cache, Wildcat Creek, with a group of Chattanooga area cachers. I had noted two earthcaches highlighting waterfalls not far from where we were, and was hoping that we would have time to visit them after that cache, but we didn't, so I made a mental note to return to the area some day. That day was today, with warm summer temps, and two kids eager for some adventure.
We started at Baby Falls, or Brain Dead Falls, as the earthcache calls it. There was a nice little picnic area that we utilized first, eating a hearty lunch of beanie-weenies, for which I even brought our camp stove. With beans stuck to our ribs, we changed into swim wear and headed down to the waterfall and swimming hole. It turned out to be a great spot for us to hang out and play, with smooth slabs with shallow running water on them for the kids to frolic in, and a deep pool for swimming. The pool underneath the waterfall was too turbulent for the kids, but off on one bank was a calm and deep pool that was perfect for us. We played for a good long time. Another group of bathers were also there and were jumping off the waterfall, and I was just waiting for a good opportunity to do it myself. These same folks told me that they had heard that this was a dangerous waterfall to jump in due to some tricky underwash currents, but I'm not sure if any of them actually believed it. Then again, the CO for this earthcache stated that they think folks who jump off here are braindead, so maybe there is some truth to it. Anyhow, my opportunity came when the kids were shivering cold and deciuded they needed to sunbathe for a while to warm up. I made sure they were good and settled, then scampered over to the waterfall to take the plunge. Definitely worth it! I did it three more times.
After spending a couple hours here, I convinced the kids that we should check out the other waterfall, Bald River Falls, only a stone's throw down the road. This waterfall is much bigger, but did not appear to ahve as friendly a swimming hole, nor was it getting as much warming sunshine. Still, we took the use trail down to the bottom and were quickly in the water again. This time, the kids focused more on catching critters. There was a nice sandy bar near the rock face, only 12" deep or so, and the kids were able to catch crayfish, a minnow and a salamander (or maybe it was a newt, hard to say). So it was different kind of fun here.
After another hour, it was time to get going. The earthcaches themselves didn't have much by way of geology lessons. Seems like there is an overabundance of waterfall earthcaches around these parts. Don't get me wrong, they bring you to great locations. But the geology lessons are very repetitive. How high, how wide, what classification, how was it formed.... Only the last question makes you think much and even for that one most of the waterfalls around here seem to have formed in about the same way. But I had fun, and the kids had fun, so that is all that really matters.
A little while back, I wrote about how I am often unable to resist the urge of geocaching, when traveling, (link). Well, the time for traveling came again, this time for my brother's wedding in San Francisco. Going geocaching was not forefront for this trip, in fact it was very low on our list of things to do. But I knew I wasn't going to be able to resist the urge, so i made a little plan. This time, I created a bookmark list of only a handful of geocaches that seemed worth visiting. There would be no sorry little park and grabs, just caches that would be interesting. A few virtual caches in Sonoma, a few highly favorited caches, some puzzles I had solved, an unusual D/T combination. No extraordinary caches, but no duds either.
For most of our trip, I kept this plan to grab a few geocaches way in the back of my mind. The days leading up to the wedding were full of fun activities, and the best kind of family stress. You know, stressing over making cupcakes for the wedding, stressing over the rehearsal and whether everyone knew their roles, stressing over getting flowers and making arrangements, stressing over kids getting sick right before the big event, stressing out about playing the violin for your brother and his bride to walk down the aisle to, despite not having played in years. That kind of thing. It was a fun, and intense few days. And the opportunity for finding a few geocaches came up nicely.
The first opportunity was on the day of the wedding, and basically owed itself to my getting up early. Not super early, the sun as already rising, but before the kids were up, or anyone else in the Big house we were staying at had stirred. I had an excuse to be going out too, we needed more milk. So I grabbed my kit, mumbled to my sleeping wife that I was going out to find a cache at a nearby wildlife refuge, and I would pick up milk on my way back. And off I went. The cache I was targeting was a challenge cache called, A Century of Abandonment. It had an unusual D/T combination of 4.5/3.5 but was also a challenge cache that would be hard for most cachers to accomplish. The challenge is to find caches that have been abandoned (not found) for a year or more, and to accumulate over 100 years of these kinds of finds. I wouldn't say abandoned caches are rare, every area has got some, but they are pretty uncommon. And for the most part, you have to seek these caches out because they are not in places that get visits frequently, if they were they wouldn't be abandoned. Some are way off the beaten track in some area that really has no big draw for geocachers or really anyone. Many are difficult caches that are nearly impossible to solve, or ones that are placed in such difficult terrain that hardly any one has the skills needed to go after them. And lucky for me, and also partly thanks to sites like www.lonelycachproject.com, I seek out these abandoned caches. I've been doing it for years, mostly in New Mexico, but where I live in Tennessee. It took maybe an hour to go through my finds, but I was able to get a list together of caches that would qualify me for this challenge. And I would be only the 8th person to find this cache in about a year, which for the geocacher-rich area of the San Francisco Bay, is saying something.
It was still nice and cool as I pulled up to a trailhead for a a trail system leading out into an estuary along the Bay. To say it was a wildlife refuge is misleading, it is in fact partially protected as an area where waste water treatment flows out. But it has been managed well by the city or county to attract shorebirds and other wildlife and had a nice trail system. I made the hike out, about a mile, watching the shorebirds and various sparrows flit about. The cache was an easy one to find, simply a magnetic nano on a sign. And there were more than 7 signatures on the log sheet, as folks have signed the cache without qualifying in the hopes of some day meeting the criteria. But it was a nice feeling to be out early in the morning, watching wildlife and finding a cache. It was a nice escape from the hectic family fuss, and a moment to relax a bit before the stressful events of the day to come.
I did continue on the trail a bit further to find the step-brother cache to this one, a 50 year abandonment challenge, then turned back to head on to my car and get some milk. I got back to the Big house just in time for the kids clamoring for their breakfast, with milk in my hands.
After the wedding cam another opportunity to find a cache, this time with the whole family. My new sister-in-law had invited everyone to picnic in Bartholomew park, and our picnic spot happened to be right next to a geocache. It was a regular sized one too, which was good because I wanted to drop off a travel bug that I brought with me from Tennessee.
Note: The small tin is not the cache, just something my daughter traded for from the cache.
The next day, while driving north to Santa Rosa, I dragged the whole family on a small detour to grab a puzzle cache I had solved. It was only a short detour and it gave the kids some toys to play with while at the enxt family event, and let me drop my last travel bug.
So a week long family trip netted me 4 interesting caches, all without interfering with the wedding activities. Not too shabby. I scratched the itch without driving anyone crazy!
My most recent geocache was recently routed by a bear. At least, I think it was a bear. I hid it while out with my kids on July 30th, so it had been out in the wild for a out a week. It had already been found by 3 letterboxers (before it was even published on Geocaching.com) and I was getting good feedback. Seems like the letterboxer community appreciated our idea. The first geocachers to find it went on Saturday and reported that it had been torn apart by something. They found the stamp, logbook and toys scattered all around the area, and teeth marks in the containers. The geocachers had spare ziploc baggies and replaced stuff as well as possible. Luckily, nothing was wet, so the animal must have attacked recently.
As chance would have it, we were planning on driving back up to Fontana Lake again, this time with my wife, so I would be able to check on the cache and make repairs. As we walked up to the cache from the road pull off, the dog was definitely smelling something interesting in the area. The cache was definitely messed up, but since I used a large metal mailbox as an outer container, it probably would have been ok for some time. The animal must have smelled something inside the cache, and then pulled off some of the rotted logs I had used to hide the mailbox. It then opened up the mailbox and bit into the peanut-butter container that held the logbook and stamp. Peanut-butter container... that is what I think is the key detail here. I had washed the peanut butter container pretty well and couldn't smell anything from it. I had painted it, and replaced the gasket to make it seal better and used it as a container. I've done this before, and seen it done with good success in other places. But I'm guessing that there was still some lingering peanut butter smell, and that is what clued in this animal. Judging from the teeth puncture marks on the peanut butter jar, it had to be something larger than a raccoon or possum. And a coyote or large cat is highly unlikely. Plus, the cache is located on the Southern boundary of the Smoky Mountain national Park, which is know for having a healthy black bear population.So all evidence points to bear.
What was really cool to see was the teeth marks on the stamp I had carved. The bear had obviously chewed on the stamp, cracking the wooden backing and putting teeth marks into the rubber. I tested out the stamp on my letterboxing book, and it still looked ok. I brought with me a container to replace this one... another peanut butter jar. I've got my fingers crossed that it will survive longer than the first one. One small bit of irony, one of my popular caches in New Mexico is themed around what you should do when caching in bear country, Bear Necessities.
Today was the day to meet up with some cachers and tackle a geocache at, Wildcat Creek, GC1TXZ4. Up until last month, it only had 8 finds over 5 years, and it wasn't uncommon for it to go years without a find. The cache involves a short but treacherous scramble up Wildcat creek, with mostly unavoidable deep pools, waterfalls, and slick as snot rocks. What's not to love! A cacher from the Chattanooga area had organized a group hunt of the cache and I quickly signed up, since everything about this cache was right up my alley. Rugged terrain, swimming holes, rarely found cache in remote wilderness setting. I'm all in. A few weeks before our scheduled trip, a few local cachers, Lullabye and Kaput attempted the cache but didn't find it. However they returned a few days later and made the find. I actually received an email from Kaput telling me that this cache was right up my alley, so I was pretty psyched to be going.
The cache is located south of GSMNP, in a part of the Appalachians we had never visited before. Since it was my first time to the area, I carefully picked out a route to hit some interesting geocaches on my drive down, as well as have some bonus geocaches for afterwards. One cache that particularly interested me was Cadet's Paradise, another terrain 5 cache involving a swim across an abandoned quarry, climb up a cliff, and delving into a cave. If I had enough time, I could hit it up on my return trip.
My morning caching took me along the Tellico "lake". I made stops at Fort Loudon, and the Tanasi Village memorial, and hit up the oldest cache in Monroe County. I especially liked the earthcache GC19560 which took you to a Cherokee memorial showing the eight different clans and also the burial site for Cherokee Warrior/Chief. The caching made for a longer drive to Tellico Plains, I took over 3 hours, but was definitely worth the extra time. I felt like I got to see a bit of the area on my way down.
Cherokee Memorial
I ended up arriving at the Tellico Plains visitor center slightly ahead of the other cachers, which gave me time to find the cache there. i was just rehiding it when the geocachers pulled up. We had a nice picnic lunch, but I had little appetite, I was rearing to go. We piled into 3 cars and made the short drive up the into the foothills and to the start of our adventure. The parking area is right on the Tellico water and it looked so inviting that I couldn't help but make a bee-line down to it. I recall Nate, the group organizer, mentioning that there was a better crossing a tenth of a mile up the road, but I was already in the water by then. I wasted no time, finding a pool deep enough to submerge in. Sufficiently cooled off, I turned my attention to actually crossing the river. It was not easy going. While the river depth was manageable at 1-2 ft, the bedrock beneath the water tilted at crazy angles, and was almost impossible to see beneath the rippling waters. It was very slow going. And we couldn't just cross the river and walk up the far riverbank, there was no walk-able bank there, just rocky cliffs or dense vegetation. It didn't take long for us to realize we should have headed the advice ont he cache page and walk up the road before making the crossing, but by then most of the group had committed themselves into the water. Oh well, next time we'll know. Since it took extra time for everyone to cross, I had some time to put on my goggles and look for hellbenders. No luck on that giant salamander, but I did spot many shiny minnows.
Crossing the Tellico
Once we reached the Wildcat Creek, it looked like it would be easier going. The creek was shallower, had much less water flowing, and it almost looked like we could walk right up it. This quickly turned out not to be the case. once again the footing was treacherous. Either the rocks were slimy and impossible to get a grip on, or you couldn't see them and just had to guess how deep your foot would go in the creek before hitting something. But it really didn't seem to matter that we were going slowly. We had planned for this sub-mile hike to take us hours, might as well enjoy every minute of it.
Typical conditions up Wildcat Creek
As we progressed upstream, a funny noise came down the canyon. It sounded like a two-stroke gas engine. I couldn't believe someone would have a little motor up in here, but as we rounded a corner, we came across the most kitted out prospectors I've ever seen. A man had a full face mask attached to a hose and air-compressor, and was going under the water with a bucket to pull up sediment, where his partner, a lady, was sifting it through some contraption. Hoses and PVC abounded, and they even had a modified white-water kayak which served as a hub for the equipment. Quite the operation! They must have thought us as strange a bunch, a large group of rolicking and wet geocachers, some of us vainly trying to keep cameras/backpacks dry, tumbling over rocks, and climbing up the nearby waterfall. I wonder which of us was odder?
Destitute Falls
After the waterfall, the going remained slow and wet and fun. We discovered some deep "tubes" in the rock, in which a person could nestle right down into. We swam, and stumbled and cursed our way up to GZ. Finding the cache thankfully easy, since there were a dozen of us spread out over the hillside. I was searching WAY off the wrong spot when someone yelled that it was found. We signed the log, posed for pictures and took a break before making the return trip. After a 2.5 hour trip in, folks were looking a little less enthusiastic about the treacherous return. No one got seriously hurt, but it seemed like everyone took some good falls, and several people had minor cuts. The cache certainly earns its terrain rating. It also earns all the favorites it receives. It is a wonderful adventure and day out in the wild. I'm very grateful that I was able to join this group of excellent cachers to this most excellent cache.
Group shot with the cache in hand
Compilation Video
While most of the other geocachers prepared to have a celebratory watermelon back at the Tellico Plains Visitor Center, I was already thinking about my next cache. There seemed to be enough time in the day for me to visit Cadet's Paradise. And I was already wet. And when would I get another chance? So instead of being social, I said my goodbyes and hopped into my car, speeding off towards Sweetwater. When I arrived at the suggested parking for the quarry, I was a little confused. The suggested parking was at a speedway, and there was a race on tonight. I decided not to park there, but instead look for the path that led to the quarry. I drove slowly along the highway (no one was behind me don't worry) and then up County Rd 296. I spotted a couple gated tracks that might have led to the quarry, but all of them were posted with NO TRESSPASSING signs. Hmm, this wouldn't be the first quarry cache I've done that "encourages" tresspassing. After a bit of mulling my options, I opted to park off of Highway 68 and then bushwhack through the woods to the quarry. This is how I justify my actions in my head, if I don't actually see a NO TRESSPASSING sign while bushwhacking in, I can plead ignorance, right? Pretty weak, but it is exactly what I did. Never mind the barbed wire fences I had to cross, or the poison ivy covered slope. The closer I got the worse I felt, but I was already there and close, so I kept going. Eventually the quarry came into view, as I came out on top of the cliffs along the southern shore. I took a little pause here to sight where the cache was supposed to be, then I put all my kit into my "waterproof"ziploc baggies, stuffed that into my camelback and took the 20+ foot plunge into the turquoise water.
The view from my approach of the quarry
The water was fairly warm, not having a constant flow through, and being cooked in the sun. It wasn't too warm though, and made for pleasant swimming. There is something creepy about swimming across a really deep quarry though. The water is so clear, but so deep, it feeds your imagination about what could be lurking way down at the very depths. Bah, imagination, why do you try to get me in trouble so. I focused instead on the cliff I was swimming towards, and how I would climb up into the cave. From previous logs, it sounded like there were more than one cave and that I would have to climb up to the "harder" one. However, there seemed to be more than two caves as well. One really close to the water, one high up but in a spot where climbing looked pretty reasonable, and a third that was even higher up, but looked very difficult to climb. I swam over to option 3 first, and it was a dead vertical climb for 20' or so. There were some holds, but not really big jugs, and the rock was loose and crumbly. I made a few moves up onto it anyways, establishing myself at a position just above the waterline. The next moves looked hard, like 5.10 hard, and I decided right then that I would not be going up this way, so I let myself fall back into the water. By swimming back a short ways, it looked like this cave might be accessed from a ledge coming down from the top. I hoped that because it could be reached from the top, the cache wasn't hidden here, so as to force you to make the swim or bring rappelling gear. So off I went to cave location #2.
This spot was much easier to climb, just a few moves on good holds. The climbing was a little challenging because my wet feet seemed to skate right off the holds. Something about the water and quarry dust made for a slick mud, not conducive to climbing. A short ways up though and I reached the vegetated ledge which angled me over to a rope hanging from a large tree at the entrance to the cave. I was soon up at the entrance and breaking out my flashlight to go in.
The first thing I notice on entering the cave was other footprints. Shoe prints actually. Perhaps someone had been here recently, but then shoe prints could survive in the cave for a while, so maybe it wasn't all that recent. The cave floor was slippery and muddy, and the cave itself branched out in 3 different directions. One hole on the right hand side looked like you could crawl into, but there was no way I was going to. A little ways back though was a largish chamber and it was behind a shelf in the back of this chamber that I found what I thought was the cache, a plastic Tupperware. Psyched at how easy that had been I took it out to the entrance to open it up, only to find that the container held nothing more than a clean red rag. What? Could this really be the cache? It seemed like it must be. Who else would leave a perfectly functioning Tupperware container deep inside this cave. But the contents were boggling. Just a red rag. Perhaps some kids had stumbled across the cache and taken the contents, leaving only the red rag? That seemed likely to me, but it also seemed plausible that I hadn't found the correct cache. Maybe this is just some random junk left by said kid. I decided to go back in and explore the cave further.
What I found
I was able to negotiate a passageway beyond the large chamber and scoot my way back pretty far. This passage had some natural light coming in from a crack along a seam on the floor, and I am guessing that on the other side of the crack is the 1st cave I tried to climb to. It must be a shallow cave if one at all. There was no way through though, so I just kept crawling along until I got to a spot tight enough that I didn't want to go any further. I looked all over the cave for something that might be the cache, but found nothing. Coming back out to the large chamber, I decided I had two options. One, leave a piece of paper and my name in the Tupperware here, or head out and hope that the last and very small cave is the one with the cache. I ended up leaving my paper and mark here. The last cave just didn't seem likely at all given the description of the cache and previous logs. And the longer I was in this quarry, the more nervous I was becoming about tresspassing. I could hear cars and trucks crunching up gravel, nearby, and was hoping that this was from the speedway, but fearing that it was someone coming down a road to the quarry. in my mind, someone had reported my car parked along the highway as suspicious, and the state police were staking it out, or maybe even sending a partol car here into the quarry to catch me red handed. I had visions of having to call up my wife from the back-seat of a police car, in handcuffs, and explain to her how I wouldn't be home for dinner because I had been arrested. Arrested for going after a geocache. Damn it, geocaching shouldn't make you paranoid. I hastily left my mark on a piece of paper (using mud, because despite my preparedness, I had left the pen in the car), put the Tupperware back in its hiding spot and made my way out of that cave.
Leaving my mark
Once out of the cave, I paused and listened. Was there someone across the quarry waiting to catch me? It looked clear, but I kept hearing cars crunching on gravel. I could also hear the announcers from the speedway quite clearly. They were raffling off prizes. I waited, sweating for some sign that someone was there, but no one was, so I quickly, but carefully worked myself out to a ledge, jumped into the water, and started swimming. I swam along the cliff and past the first and lowest cave. It didn't look that interesting to explore anyways. I landed at a steep bouldery ramp that I could climb up to the toip of the cliffs but avoid having to go near where the road came down to the quarry. Relieved to be back in the cover of shrubbery, I climbed myself up and out, then whacked through forest down the steep poison ivy covered hill to where I had parked my car. Before emerging from the woods near my car though, I paused once again. Was there a patrol car waiting behind mine? There was a house across the highway from my car, and someone was out in the yard. Were they keeping watch on my car, ready to call the police the moment I came out of the woods, looking dirty and scared? I waited a few minutes, sweating and oblivious to the insects buzzing around my head. The man in his yard turned, walked up his porch and disappeared into his house. I took out my car keys. I put away my goggles so it wouldn't be so obvious I was elicitely swimming in the nearby quarry. Then I made my move, emerging slowly and, what I hoped for any observer, calmly. I went straight to the door, opened it up, threw my camelback down on the far seat, sat down, turned the ignition, checked mirrors for cars, and accelerated off. My heart rate didn't slow down until a mile down the road.
Sometimes it is hard to not think about geocaching, especially when travelling. We recently took a long weekend trip to Maryland to visit my Sister-In-law and her family, who just moved. We made the long drive on Interstate 81, through much of Virginia, then skirted around DC and over to Maryland near Annapolis. There are a lot of interesting places along the 9 hour drive. DC itself is home to a huge abundance of old virtual caches among all the monuments there. Someday it would be fun to check those out. But the trip was not about geocaching, it was about hanging out with family, so I tried to keep myself from thinking about where there may or may not be geocaches nearby. We did end up walking past one geocache location in their neighborhood, but I only was able to search for about 30 seconds and couldn't find the cache. I guess the fact that I was thinking about geocaching at all meant that my attempt at resisting the urge to cache was failing. I did end up penning my name to a geocache, a park and grab in a shopping plaza that I grabbed while running some errands before our Chesapeake Bay crabbing adventure. And this is really what is at issue with my geocaching habit. The one geocache I find while traveling to Maryland to visit family has just about no redeeming qualities at all. It was not in an interesting place (shopping center), it was not a clever hide (magnetic nano on a bench), it did not entice me to do anything interesting (park and grab while out running errands). Really what was the point of it? Was the point simply to say I found a cache while on a trip? To have some stat about getting a cache in another state, even though I already have found caches in Maryland? Does finding it benefit me in any way? I don't have a good answer to any of these questions, because the bottom line is, I don't have a good reason for finding this cache. I simply feel this urge to find geocaches, wherever I am. Just knowing that there is one nearby is enough to make me want to have a look. There are times that I can get over this urge, especially if I end up visiting the location and it is really unappealing for some reason. But for the most part, this urge remains strong in me. Is this something I should fret over?
Since I started geocaching I've kept track of two stats that most cachers do not bother with. Miles hiked and elevation climbed in pursuit of geocaches. I was prompted to do this by a local challenge cache GC1G1N4, located in the Organ mountains. The challenge was to accumulate 100,000 ft of vertical elevation gain from geocaching hikes. This challenge is well thought out, with caveats for what can count as elevation gain on a hike, and how to keep your records. Since I was new to geocaching, it was easy enough to set up a spreadsheet and every time I went on a hike, I would note the miles hiked and elevation gains. I reached 100,000 ft of elevation gain in a bit less than 2 years of geocaching, but even after completing this challenge I have kept up my spreadsheet. There is no driving reason for me to do so, but once in the habit, I find that I enjoy looking back and seeing how far I've hiked, and how much I've climbed while hunting geocaches. Since moving to Tennessee, my elevation gains have been quite a bit less. Except for the Smokies, most of the hikes around here do not involve large elevation changes, the topography just isn't the same as out west. But my mileage has stayed pretty consistent, especially with the hikes I've been doing on the Cumberland Trail.
This past weekend, I visited the Laurel-Snow Pocket Wilderness, which is also part of the Cumberland Trail. The hike was another gem of the Cumberland Plateau, with waterfalls, rocky bluffs, and swimming holes. There are also a bunch of geocaches, like some older traditional ammo can hides and some more recent earthcaches highlighting some of the areas nicest geologic features. I planned my hike to visit all the areas highlights, which meant a long hiking day and two steep climbs. Normally this would be a pretty tough hike on a hot and humid summer day, but I wore my swim suit and cooled off in every swimming hole I cam to (almost) so it made the hike pretty manageable. The trade-off for keeping cool by swimming was some serious chaffing, but I only felt the pains of that later after the hike was done. This hike involved two big climbs and the total elevation gain for the day was 1571', putting my grand total of elevation gain at 201,357'. A little over 3 years since I passed 100,000' I have now doubled that achievement. It is a good feeling, knowing that I am still getting out and doing long and strenous hikes. I sincerely hope that I will reach 300,000 ft in another few years. As long as I keep hiking and geocaching, this will happen. On another note, I am very close to another distant milestone, I currently have logged 984 miles hiking and jogging in the pursuit of geocaches. Heck, if I could go on one more marathon hike I could be at 1,000 miles.
I've been eyeing a hike to Virgin Falls for a while now, and after hearing some local geocachers talk about how incredible the hike is, I decided it was going to be the location for my next solo day hike. I got an early start, hitting the road before sun-up and pulled into the trailhead while it was still early and cool. There were a couple other cars parked there, from weekend backpackers, but I was the first dayhiker. Off we went (the dog and I) down the trail. The trail towards Virgin Falls has quite a few geocaches to find along the way, most of them regular sized traditional, but a few earthcaches and virtuals thrown in as well.
I found the first two caches easily, then struck out on the third one which was placed after a stream crossing. I then reached a fork in the trail and opted for going up to the Caney Overlook. Going up to the overlook used to be a loop trail that connected back with the main trail near Big Laurel Falls, but is now only an out-and-back since the second half of the loop is not maintained. I wanted to make it a loop hike anyways, I hate backtracking, so I searched for the old trail, and followed some kind of trail for a while, passing an exquisite campsite before starting a steep descent back into the gorge below. I lost the trail quickly and ended up just cross-country traveling. Luckily, I didn't cliff out and managed to get into a streambed that would take me down to the falls.
While rock hopping down the streambed and chanced upon a tall cairn marking the entrance to a cave. Actually two entrances. I only had a tiny LED flashlight with me, but that was enough for me to poke my head in and get a little look. I bet the cave exploration here is amazing, and wet. A stream was flowing down through one of the cave entrances and I'm sure any exploration would get you totally soaked. In the other entrance, I crawled under a low passage and into a large chamber that had a skylight window on one end and a drizzling waterfall on the other. In here I spotted a cave salamander, which made my day, since they are just about the coolest salamanders I've ever seen.
Only a short distance further and I was at Big Laurel Falls, which was pretty amazing. The water flew out over a giant sandstone rock house. The shelter behind the waterfall was large enough to camp several groups, and had a large flat sandy area that looks perfect for it. Camping underneath the waterfall would be especially novel and cool, but I bet it would also be kind of loud and damp, not to mention dark. I hung out here for a while, gathering info for the earthcache and looking for a traditional that was really hard to find. Not only was the signal poor near the waterfall, but the area was festooned with stinging nettle and poison ivy, and I was in shorts and a tee-shirt. Eventually I gave up looking for the geocache and continued on my hike.
The next feature along my hike was the Sheep Cave, another karstic feature. First I came upon the gigantic sinkhole near the cave. I spotted a faint path leading into the sinkhole and decided to check it out. It was steep, muddy and treacherous. A few tattered hand-lines helped me get down (and back up) and once at the bottom I took out my flashlight and entered a cave. ONce again I wandered only a short distance down the passageway. This time no salamanders. This cave had a much cooler feel to it though, being positioned at the bottom of a sinkhole.
After climbing my way up and out I hiked up to the "actual" sheep cave, a nice horizontal tunnel leading directly into the hillside, and flowing almost wall to wall with a small stream. Nature's drainage tunnel! The water, after exiting the cave, went over a series of cliffs and down into the sinkhole where I had just been. I explored into the tunnel a bit, but again, not very far. After the Sheep's cave it was only a short ways over to the prime attraction, Virgin Falls, and it was there I ran into some other people for the first time all day. Two groups of backpackers had camped at the falls and were packing up as I arrived. I stayed out of there way and found a good place to eat lunch while gazing out over the waterfall. The waterfall is quite large, with a 100+ foot drop. What makes it special is that at the top, it comes out of a cave similar to the Sheep's Cave, and at the bottom it disappears into a sink. There is no stream to follow above or below the waterfall, it just is there, a massive flow of water coming out of the ground and then plunging back under again.
The traditional geocache here is an older one (2001) and has been visited by some notable geocachers, including Jeremy Irish (one of the founders of geocaching.com) and Moun10Bike (creator of the geocoin). I got a special thrill out of seeing there names on a logbook.
After a nice break, I started my return trip, which is mostly on the trail you come out on. However, I quickly found a detour that led me down to the Caney River, and a superb campsite and swimming hole. I couldn't resist the siren call of the rope swing and soon I was swinging and plunging in the water repeatedly. Sasha even joined in for a bit.
Feeling refreshed I decided to pick up some camp trash that was there before resuming my walk. I am always ashamed of people that would leave camp trash in such wonderful areas, but usuaklly I don't have a trash bag to carry out. This time I did. I began to see more day hikers on my way out, and told anyone that would listen to go down to the Caney and take a swim. I don't think anyone did, Virgin Falls makes for a much nicer destination. I had several more geocaches to find on my way back, so I marched along happily, trying to find them all. I found the one by Big Laurel Falls, which seemed almost like a miracle. Then I found an easy one and was on my way to the enxt when a rain storm started up all of a sudden. I happened to be near a rock shelter so I decided to wait it out. The shelter also happenned to be <100 ft from a geocache, but my GPSr was pointing me to the top of the cliff and uphill. I searched in the rock shelter while waiting, thinking it might be down there, but never found anything. After the rain let up, I went to the top and searched some more, but had to finally give up and call this one a DNF. I found out alter when I got home that it was indeed in the rock shelter and I jsut hadn't been looking in the right spot. GPS signal bounce can be a real pain on cliff-hides. After giving up and hiking for a bit, I realized I had left my bag of trash back at the rock shelter, so I quickly returned to get it. This would not be the last time I did that. The next and last cache of my hike,w as the one at the stream crossing that I had failed to find in the morning. I put down my gear and made another thorough search, but failed to find it again. And once again, after giving up and hiking on, I realized I had left the trashbag behind. I briefly contemplated leaving it, since it was at least further out of the natural area, and someone would surely carry it out. BUt that just seemed lame, why carry out a bag of trash for miles only to elave it a few miles from the parking area. So I went back to get the trash, and the funny thing is, after picking up the trash, I found the geocache there. It only took 3 tries!
The rest of the hike was uneventful, and I was back at the car around 4pm. Total mileage was a bit over 12 miles, I had poked my head into several caves, swam in the Caney River, scrambled around 3 waterfalls, found several salamanders.. all in all a good day out. Oh right, I also found 2 virtuals, 2 earthcaches and a handful of nice old traditional caches. And I still had time for a few bonus caches on the drive home, like the notable Sunset Rock Earthcache at cliffy rock overlooking the Cumberland Plateau out to the west.
