http://cougval.blogspot.com/2012/10/center-of-geocaching-triad.html
They came and got me around 7:50 and I had all of my stuff ready from the night before. I had to wait for a bit because their kids stayed longer than anticipated at their house while they had coffee. I stood out on the porch ready and waiting. They rolled up around 7:50. We all knew this would be a short day because Bob had to go bowling around 5. I put my stuff in the car and we were on our way.
We drove down I-5 trying to avoid back tracking. I turned my GPS on and my query failed. We had to go by their GPS's. This was the second time my query has failed to load. Last time was when I was in Mossyrock with our new caching friends last spring. I wasn't too bent out of shape because I knew we would not stop for the ones I needed.
We got to the first available one and found out we couldn't access it from Hwy 12 but through Mossyrock and Swofford Pond. We had to bail on that. However, I got an excellent shot of the dam.
Bob was kind of irritated because we were wasting precious geocaching time. We've never been here, how were we suppose to know? We moved onto the next closest according to their GPS. We drove past several of them I didn't have yet. It made me sad a little on the inside.
Andy's Birthday Cache (GC2GA79) has hurt our feelings once. We drove up there and found out the gate was closed about a year ago. We were hoping it didn't disappoint us again. This time the gate was open so we continued on. We got up to the top and BAM, Mount Rainier right in your face! I took a few pictures and went to find the cache. Ugh, we couldn't find it. We checked every root ball and every stump. We failed and the cache beat us yet again. It was disappointing driving all the way up this hill and it wasn't there. However it wasn't a total bust, we got to see Mount Rainier and a side we don't normally see.
We made our way towards Bear's Den and Last of the Mochicans. We grabbed a few caches along that road before we arrived at the Goat Creek Trailhead. That included a strangely named one, Windows Up, Windows Down, no window's were actually involved in retrieving the cache, Riffe Lake Deep Woods, which was not correctly rated and one more cache by the Tupp's family.
And now the part we've been waiting for...for a year! No fire warnings! Yes! We followed NF2750 and came across a large black truck in the middle of the road. Luckily, there was a spot to manuver around him because he wasn't going to move for anyone. We drove around him slowly with the window down, just to find out why he was in the middle of the road and clearly saw us behind him and he didn't move, "excuse me, is there something in the road?" Bev asked. He looked down, then looked at us and said, "nah, just eating my candy." Really!? You wouldn't move out of the way because you're too busy eating candy in the middle of nowhere? Okay?
From the Gifford Pinchot National Forest website:
"Goat Creek Trail is 5.5 miles long and begins in old growth Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar. After 0.5 miles the trail passes underneath spectacular waterfalls, then follows Goat Creek. It crosses a small creek twice as it climbs to views of the forest below. The trail wanders near open meadows and rock cliffs before it meets with Goat Mountain Trail #217 south of Vanson Peak."
We got to the end of the road and parked in the tiny area designated for vehicles. We put on our orange, you never know during hunting season, our walking poles, cameras and GPS's. It was a short hike to Bear's Den, Kenny's cache. He had told Bev a little bit about it before we went this morning. We got to the den and started looking around. We sorta started looking in the wrong area but eventually figured it out by process of elimination...the GPS's weren't going to help us, too much bouncing around. I retrieved it from the "ledge" and threw it down towards Bev, I thought it would stop rolling once it got to the trail but it kept going, and going, so glad it stopped on the log. We dug through it and signed the log. We got a picture at the bear's den.
We had a half a mile to go until we got to the Goat Creek waterfall. I was pretty excited about this. We crossed over two small creeks along the way, over several roots and had to step around several muddy areas.
We went up the last hill and around the corner...there it was, a waterfall you can walk behind. I was stoked. The area was so pretty. I took a few pictures and then we went and found the cache. Then we took more pictures. It's not everyday you get to see something this awesome.
It was quicker on our way back to the car. I'm pretty sure I will probably come back here and bring some others to see this. I may even continue on towards Vanson Peak and or Deadman's Lake to grab those ones and make a day out of it.
We didn't have a lot of time to venture towards Randle so we drove west to Morton and stopped by Bev's hamburger place. We found out that it was also called Spiffy's and the famous one along I-5 at exit 68 owns the one in Morton. The food was pretty good and I would probably come here again.
After a late lunch, early dinner, we grabbed four more along Hwy 7 towards Elbe. They were all pretty easy and the last one, Plunderous Porkers gave us a runaround. I eventually got the GPS to settle down and tell me where it was. It was part of the Angry Bird series by K2D2.
From there, we just went home. Bob had to get ready for bowling. They dropped me off and I ate dinner and logged my finds. Until the next adventure!
Next Adventure: Carving Pumpkins and Game Night
No comments:
Post a Comment