More Geocaching Fun

I did some more geocaching today, but this time with Nathan.  There was one multi-cache I didn't attempt last week because the description indicated it involved climbing some rocks, and not only does Nathan ejoy that, but depending on how precarious they are, I don't.

First, we headed back to Sawyer Park, where I'd done a different multi last week, to attempt that rock-involved multi.  The trail to get all five stages plus the cache was about a mile, but we lengthened it a bit when I put in the wrong coordinates for the final cache (only off by 200 feet).  The river trail is lovely any time of year, and most of the slippery ice that I had to work to avoid (and work even harder to avoid slipping on when I couldn't avoid it) was gone this week.

Did I manage to catch Sasquatch on camera?

This hole was about the size of a five-gallon bucket, and frozen over.

Cool frost pattern (or freeze/thaw pattern, most likely) on the trail

The scene of the final cache on the multi

When that multi was completed, I searched for nearby caches, and there was a traditional one (just go to the coordinates and start looking, no puzzles, not multiple stages) nearby.  We retraced some of our steps, and then the trail quickly narrowed until it was overgrown (though still a trail) and finally petered out entirely at a big rockslide area.  Unfortunately, I hadn't checked the cache's logs until we were there, and realized that the last few people hadn't found it (in the summer), but we poked around a bit, and found the exact spot that someone took a "found it!" photo (though that could have been a decoy), but no cache for us.  We finally gave up, headed back to the car, and went home for lunch, a change of clothes (both Nathan and I had slipped throughout the morning, and muddied our pants), and to decide where to go next.

Do you see the happy couple on the left?

The scenery at the failed attempt to find the cache.  I didn't mind sitting there while Nathan looked.

No shortage of rocks for Nathan to climb on, much to the detriment of my heart.

At home, Nathan told me he wanted more rocks to climb, so I found a nearby cache with "rockpile" in the name.  It was another multi, but this time only with two stages plus the final cache.  Each of them was on a natural rocky hill, plus we passed a man-made rock pile twice.

Next, we drove less than a mile to re-park the car in a more central location to FOUR more traditional caches.  The first was a miniature version of Fort Rock, which was pretty cool.  This is what makes geocaching awesome.  You barely have to leave the road and it feels like you're in the middle of nowhere, and there are all sorts of interesting sites, and if you had to scour the wilderness for them yourself, it would take forever.  But with geocaching, other people have found the cool sites for you, and you get to go there and do a treasure hunt.  How awesome is that?

This is from inside the "fort."  Nathan's probably 20 feet above the surrounding ground level.

We did three more caches, which were a little less remarkable than the fort rock one, but still enjoyable.

Lastly, we swung by a "park and grab" on the way home, which brings me to a total of 34 geocaches, of which Nathan has "helped" with 24.