Aound and About Rickett's Glen

Day One

There is a variety of geocaching know as the "multi-stage" cache hunt, wherein the target coordinates from the cache page direct you to a first-stage "find." This find, in turn, contains a clue or perhaps a new set of coordinates and directs you to stage two, and so on.

What it amounts to is a marvellous walk through areas which I had not known existed in Rickett's Glen State Park . But it took me three weekends to get it done!

Occasional caching buddy "Cachier" and I set out for stage one, one fine fall day. It begins at Mountain Springs Lake, which has a certain irony, because this beautiful spot is the site of my first cache find way back in June, a cache which was placed by *drum roll* Cachier!

That is he, standing on the dam one must traverse to get around the lake, which, if one wants to find stage one, one must!

Unfortunately these are the only pictures of day one. We found the thing, but it took quite a while, and we were a bit rushed. Too many miles, too little time.

Day Two

Day two took me to the woods alone in search of stage two, a week later. A GPS device will only show you the most direct (as the crow flies) route to a destination, but there is no guarantee that this is the right route, or even possible to traverse.

So... after a few false starts through some delightful but frustrating and rather mushy woods, I finally felt I was on the right trail.

Note that signs of winter had made an appearance.

That open area which you can barely see through the trees below, and more plainly in the picture at left, is shown on the maps as a "dry lake." We'll see more of it on the way back.

Never, ever, forget to look closely, downwards and sometimes upwards...

...for the real beauty in the woods.

This sign, which reminded me of MASH, did not help me find stage two, because I missed it on the way up. But it sure did help me figure the lay of the land on the way back! Here's the other side of that "dry lake."