I got an email a few weeks ago from Mc3cats asking me to come to his 3000th cache event at the Ring of Fire. I was stoked. I went to the cache page and put, you bet I'll be there. We put it on the calender. The day got closer and closer and was pretty upset that it might be raining at the event. I was really hoping it wouldn't. He added a few updates about the event over the course of three weeks. Some cacher complained that having an event there would ruin the terrain. It didn't matter because over 250 other cachers have gone down there since 2004. The gate would be open for the event so we wouldn't have to hike the 2 miles in. And since the storm someone went in with a chainsaw and cut the trees that fell across the road.
I got up at 8:30 and got ready to go. I made my sandwich, got some chips and a pop and put it in my orange Scooby Doo lunch box. I put some pants on knowing the terrain would be wicked (I really don't want any new scrapes and scratches on my legs) I wore my hiking shoes because of the good tread on them, no slipping for me and Underarmor, t-shirt, sweatshirt and my Frog Toggs jacket. I grabbed my hat just in case. My backpack of caching stuff came with me and now I was just waiting for Derek to drive up. We were gonna drive Bob's truck but decided against it because it might be too much of a beast and take up a lot of room at the cache site. Derek got there, I threw my stuff in the car and we were off to pick up Bob. We grabbed Bob and his stuff and we were on our way to Montesano. We were suppose to meet people at the Thriftway in town at 11ish. The weather was so disappointing. We had almost two weeks of awesome weather and it pooped out on us on the day I wished the sun would come out.
We got to the Montesano parking area and met up with some people I've never seen before and Art (Omnispirit). We talked for a bit before the Kent group showed up, Terrible T's, Mc3cats, Tobias and Petronella. They went inside the store to get some food before we head up the road towards Wynoochie Lake. Mc3cats had to get three on our way up before we got to the actual event. We followed them on the way up and grabbed the three that he needed. The last time I went up this road it was gravel and that was back in July 2000, when I went camping with some people in high school. It was great to see it paved. We made it to the appropriate gated road, the gate was open for us and the event, and followed the SUV down the road. It had lots of potholes, mud puddles and we had to swerve to avoid downed trees. We came to a part of the road where someone barely chain sawed the trees wide enough for a car to drive through.
We turned around the last curve and saw all the vehicles. We were about a half hour late to the noonish meeting listed on the cache page. We parked the car and got out and walked to where all the people were. Apparently, some people got here earlier and already went down to the train. We chatted to the people waiting to go down. Some ate food and some just hung out. I grabbed my sandwich and chips and ate before we went down. Tallgirl84, who is from the Aberdeen area, definitely had the redneck thing going on. She was dressed in Army cammo pants, boots, had a zip up jacket on for a while and underneath was a tank top, which she went down in after cramming her zip up in her back pack. That didn't top it off yet. She had a tall boy Hurricane High Gravity beer before heading down the hill. He gathered everyone and we all headed down the less steep route. We all wore gloves because the ropes would rip up your hands. I flew down the hill with no problems. Once I got down to the bottom, I was in awe. What pretty scenery next to the river.
Looking south.
Looking north.
I started walking around since I had no idea where Derek or Bob was or when they would come down. So I just continued taking pictures until I followed everyone to the cache. I signed my name on the cache and saw Bob right behind me. So I had him sign the book too.
The log book.
We took a few pictures of Bob and I with the train and Bob's sign for his 5700th cache at the Ring of Fire. I can't believe he is that far along, but then again Bob is crazy and gets every cache in the area and then some. Some of our trips we usually grab over 50 each time and that adds up.
We saw Derek come down the hill behind someone so I told him he better sign his name before they put the cache back. We spent some time looking at the train from all the points of view and of course taking pictures.
Train wreck facing north.
Bob and Derek train wreck looking west.
My train pose.
Climbing back up the hill to the cars.
We took in as much as we could while it rained on us down at the train wreck. We were one of the last group of people to climb back up the hill. I flew up the hill after lagging behind taking pictures. Tallgirl84 and KickerV were the last ones to come back up and after she made it to the top she cracked open another beer. Wow, talk about defeating the purpose of being active. It falls into the same category as working hard and then smoking afterwards. Oh well. Mc3cats got everyone together, had a few words and we went right into the raffle drawing. About 12 people won a chance to grab something out of the bag. Bob and I had our numbers called and got to grab a prize out of the bag. We both grabbed a micro cache. Then the whole group got together and took a picture to celebrate Mc3cats 3000th find as well as other cachers celebrating milestones.
The Ring of Fire gang.
We spent the rest of the time caching as we headed back towards Montesano. I believe we grabbed 24 of them on the way home. There were a couple park and grabs we did with other cachers so our Cooperation Challenge list got bigger. I was very thankful we were caching with other people because Derek parked too close to the side of the road and it was quite soft. When I opened the door and got out for the cache, I said to myself, uh oh...
I grabbed the cache, signed it, got back in the car and we were stuck...crap.
Luckily, Omnispirit, the Dutchgoers and Wingriders1998 were there to help pull us out of the ditch.
I really hope this situation never has to happen again. We continued caching. We found a cache in a glove, we went to one called Lunch Break and it took all of us (8 pairs of eyes) to miss it. We must have been there for a half hour looking for a 1.5/1.5. My gps kept taking me to this one spot. I had to look one more time before we gave up. I went down there and got tangled in a sticker bush. I bent down to release it from my pant leg and happened to look up and there it was. "Found it!" Everyone was relieved. Val was the hero. :)
We continued down the road grabbing the ones off the side of the road. We got in to Montesano and grabbed two more before calling it quits for the day. We were hungry and tired and needed to dry off.
I would totally go again. The train wreck was that cool.
N 47° 19.785 W 123° 38.595.
N 47° 19.785 W 123° 38.595.
http://coord.info/GCJYHZ
Next adventure: Monopoly Series, Mt. St. Helens
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