Enumclaw Plateau Trail

The night before I asked Ben if he wanted to go geocaching.  The next step was to find out where to go.  I've been most places but have found some here and there away from home.  He mentioned the Enumclaw area.  I sent him a screenshot of what my map looked like and we went from there.  We decided to do the Enumclaw Plateau Trail to the north of town by benandjayme, two local cachers.  I saw this publish back in March and Bob and Bev went and got it without me because I had to work when they decided to go.  Now it was added to the very long list of caches to do.  I figured this would be a great series to do with Ben.

I got up around 7:15 and got all my stuff ready.  I was out the door by 7:50 and on my way to Bonney Lake to meet him at his house.  I got stuck behind a bus and a huge truck hauling gravel pulled out in front of me just before I got to Roy.  I was rather annoyed.  I finally got some road behind me and was on my way up the 410 highway just before 9.  Ben slept all the way until I got there.  While he got ready I took a very short nap.  We went upstairs and had some scrambled eggs before we made our way to Enumclaw.  We took my car because his was being strange today.  I set the GPS to the parking coord that was given.  We decided to access the north end of the trail and work our way south.  I didn't realize we would be doing a lot of gathering as we went.

There were traditionals along with a multi (and waypoints), a letterbox and a puzzle bonus cache at the end after you collect all of the letters and numbers.  We should have read everything before we went.  However, it all worked out in the end.

The first one, Birch Grove-EPT, was a small lock n lock container.  I had to change my batteries because I was getting bogus readings.  Ben searched until I had the GPS ready again.  We walked past the container at least 8 times before going, oh...here it is, duh!  Haha.  The next one Bridging Watercress Creek-EPT, took us across a small single lane bridge over a pretty wide creek.

We climbed up the bank on the other side to a very large rock.  Ben checked one hole and I checked the other.  My hole contained the cache.

When we got to Horizontal Tree-EPT, you could tell how many people have walked down to where the cache was tucked away.  I had Ben go find this one to give him some practice for upcoming caching trips in the future.  He had no trouble with it.

Ben found and signed Guarding the Trail-EPT, one of the two magnetic caches of the day.  It started getting warm outside.

As we trudged on to the next cache, I studied what to expect from the next cache, Teensy Weensy-EPT.  The last cacher could not find it.  I looked further into the logs and it looked like it was there, just very tricky to find.  We were game.  We looked in all the obvious places and then started expanding the search.  I looked up and eventually saw something that didn't really belong but it blended in very well.  I could see how people could miss this one.  I think this was the cache that Ben used my forehead to write our names on the log, haha!

Arboreal-EPT was a little more than a tenth of a mile down the trail.  When we arrived we totally looked past it.  I looked up and it was on the back of the tree right in front of us.  I should have brought glasses with me because I overlooked a lot of them this afternoon.

We moved onto the next cache along the rural trail.  Posted Coords-EPT was actually at a post and of course I looked on the backside of it and Ben found the hole to the right that it was hidden inside of.  We made our marks and walked to the next cache.

When we arrived to Off the Beaten Path-EPT, it was obvious of where the cache was hidden.  Someone had piled sticks on top of it, lame.  We pulled it out of its spot, signed the log, gathered the clue and put it back.  This time we stuck leaves on top of it to make it a little harder for the next cacher to find.

The next cache was sure fun and memorable.  City Limits-EPT was definitely awarded a favorite point.  Funny thing is, if I was prepared I would have picked up all the cans along the trail today.  I collect aluminum cans and recycle them when I get a few hundred pounds.  I use the money to go on a vacation during the summer months.  But when I got to the cache site with Ben, I was curious to see what we would find laying around.  One of the hints was you can see Rainier from here.  Yes, you could see Mount Rainier from the trail most of the day but from here the trees hid it from our view.  The only other logical thing would be is if it was a Rainier beer can.  I saw the can, Ben picked it up and shook it.  You could hear the bison tube rattling around inside.  We both thought it was pretty awesome.  We got the tube out, signed our names and had some photo fun with it.

Endgame-EPT was the last traditional on our journey heading south.  I saw the stump, tipped it over and didn't see anything.  Ben saw my error and made the find.  It was a bison tube attached to a screw on the stump.  After signing our names and putting it back where we found it, I looked ahead to the letterbox, the multi and the puzzle bonus cache.  We should have read them before we started in on the traditionals.  We could have gathered the waypoints for the multi and the letterbox so we didn't have to back track.  We only back tracked on the letterbox but it worked out for the multi and the puzzle cache.

We just drove to the finals after we figured out where they were.  The math for the multi for some reason was wrong so I had to do it twice.  Duh. 

Before we left the area, we grabbed Up the Creek, which was a magnet attached to the guardrail near a small creek over a very busy road.  The road eventually takes you up to the state parks, where I was last June for the state parks kick off celebration.

We parked the car at the south end and walked to the multi final.  Ben found the cache.

We plugged the coordinates to the bonus cache after retrieving our last letter and number.  It was less than a quarter mile south of where we were.  We took the short little walk and grabbed the bonus puzzle cache.

We were hungry after our few hours on the trail.  Ben suggested we eat our sandwiches at Ellenson Park.  We hoped they had benches or picnic tables.   We enjoyed our food, kicked the soccer ball around and played PIG.  We took the soccer ball and kicked it at various points on the play structure.  Officially it was a tie but I said I won.  Haha.  We stopped by one of my favorite locations in Enumclaw to grab one more cache, Ski Graveyard.  I was here in January with Bob and Bev and loved the location.  The cache wasn't all that exciting but a find is a find.

We went back to Bonney Lake, hung out and ate some dinner.  I had to leave and go back home because I worked in the morning.  I had a great time and here's to more in the near future!

Next Adventure:  Taking the Camper Apart

An Eatonville Traveling Cache

I got an email from 1nascarnut about a day or so ago explaining a cache that I had to go find near Eatonville.

Hi cougarcach24,
I wanted to let you know that I placed a traveling cache sorta in your neck of the woods a couple days ago. Nobody has claimed it yet and most won't know about it unless they are following it because the listed coords still show in California. Traveling, Little Known Parks Finder, GC6ADF, is the cache and it's in Dogwood Park between Eatonville and NW Trek. My last post has the coords where it's located. I wanted to let someone know about it so it can start moving again. BTW, Kaydekay and I are riding the Yelm-Tenino and Chehalis-Western trails again tomorrow in hopes of finishing your Asphalt Adventures series.

Happy Caching! 

1nascarnut

Wow, what an awesome cacher! I wouldn't have known about it unless someone shared the info. I needed to go find this cache before it moved again in a couple days. It wasn't that far from home so I asked Bev if she wanted to go get it before it disappeared. She said let's do it! this cache was around a few months ago in the Snoqualmie area back during the Ape Cache event. I didn't hear about it until the end of the day and by that time I was ready to go home after a very long day. I was hoping it would either stick around or some how make it to my neck of the woods. Bev picked me up and we drove towards Eatonville. We arrived and Mount Rainier was BAM right in your face in all its glory. We retrieved the cache, dug through the contents,
wrote down the trackables, signed the log, took a pic and put it back. This is the first traveling cache I have found so far.

 
We drove into town to grab one Bev had the coordinates for, Penultimate Drafts, one I have looked at several times but never solved. She said it was at K2D2's house. We found it quickly on the side of the fence. Bev pulled the cache out and a bunch of bugs fell out. She squeaked. I laughed. 

We took another pic of Mount Rainier on our way out. We headed home and logged our finds.
 
Next Adventure: Enumclaw Plateau Trail

Geocaching in Space

Throughout the last two weeks or so I've been getting emails to my inbox from Geocaching.com and one of them mentioned about geocaching in space.  Bev had also heard some stuff at a GeoCafe event from Ben and Jayme.  She mentioned it to me and we decided if we wanted to go or not.  It would be on a Wednesday in Seattle at the Pacific Science Center.  There will also be over a thousand events world wide and we were going to go to the coolest one.  Each event commemorates the launch of a Geocaching Travel Bug® as it journeys to the International Space Station. Astronaut Rick Mastracchio will use the Travel Bug as a tool to teach students back on Earth about geography and science. He's scheduled to launch from Kazakhstan in the early morning of November 7, which will be November 6 in much of the rest of the world.  There is a geocache on the ISS (GC1BE91) which was FTF'd on November 17, 2013 by Rick.

On our way to Vancouver for some caching, we decided we did want to go and we ordered our free tickets while driving down I-5.  We were official and now we just had to wait for the day to get here.

That afternoon I went and grabbed Bev around 2:00 and we headed north to Seattle.  I had to stop by the ATM for some money for parking.  We got to Seattle without any trouble or bad traffic.  I've been this way so many times in the last year I didn't even need to use my GPS.  We parked at the parking lot closest to EMP just because I know how to get in and out of there fairly easy.  I paid for parking and we started looking for caches in the area.  I took her to the one at PBS first.  It was part of the Dinosaur Train series which is a kids show played on PBS.  We had no trouble finding this one.  It did change since I was here last.

I took her to the next one, Under the Needle, near the fountain in front of the Key Arena.  I was hoping it was still there because it is a tricky one to grab and put back with all the people wandering around nearby.  I couldn't remember which bench it was exactly but we found it quickly.  We took a few pictures before we walked to the next cache.

We walked around Key Arena and grabbed Stormy Normy, a micro cache on the side of the building roughly shoulder height.  We found it quickly and we were not seen by any muggles.

One Degree:  Sciuchetti was the next available traditional cache a few blocks from where we were.  We had a nice pleasant walk to the parking garage.  This wasn't the first time we've found one on the top floor of the parking structure.  This one was underneath a lamp skirt and it had a great view of the Sound to the southwest.  We walked back down and we both decided that it was dinner time.  I told Bev about Dick's, which is just down the street, on Queen Anne, from where we were.  She was like, sure, let's go for it.

She couldn't believe how cheap everything was.  I told her there were many locations near Seattle and one in Spokane, we frequented that one a lot while we were in high school, she wondered why she's never been to one before.  I ordered two cheeseburgers, she got one, we shared the french fries and she had a root-beer and I had a coke.  It hit the spot.  She was very excited that the fries were homemade.  We finished up and walked back to the Seattle Center.  I took her inside the Armory, to look at a piece of the Berlin Wall and to just hang out until it was time to get in line.  We figured it would be okay to jump in line around 5, just because we didn't know how many people are actually coming to the event.

We made our way over to the Science Center and instantly we saw a couple that we've seen before.  It was the Dutchgoers.  I haven't interacted with them since the Ring of Fire cache event in Montesano May 2012.  We chatted with them for a while since they wouldn't let us in until 6 p.m. sharp.  A Magellan rep joined us a while later.  While hanging out by the entrance, when the Magellan guy, Jeff's phone went off. He asks, you all wanna go for the FTF that just published? We followed him and made it to GZ and saw a group of people hanging out signing the log. I don't know if it's a co-FTF or not but it was fun to find a new one in Seattle at the coolest event in town! On the return, we noticed a group of people on our way to the FTF, by the rock wall.  I wondered if this was one of the puzzle caches.  Sure enough it was, we grabbed Word Freak to add to our collection of found caches for the evening.  We got back in line and we were at the front.  We told more stories until it was time to be let into the Science Center.

We walked through the outside part of the center and into the laser dome area.  I reminisced about all the times I came here while in Girl Scouts.  We would come here every year and spend the night inside for our Camp-In.  The one thing I remembered were the chicken sandwiches and Ding Dongs they gave us for dinner and camping in sleeping bags near the Planetarium.  We walked into the building and immediately signed the logbook and saw the caching in space patches. I didn't have anymore cash on me so Bev bought me a patch along with hers.

We wandered the area and noticed a coloring station.  We sat down and colored a signal hat.  Many other people joined in.  We ended up talking to Ohjoy for a bit while we waited for the laser show to begin.

Picture from Jim_Carson's log.

We talked to a few more people we knew, used the restroom and made our way to the laser dome to watch the show.  We found some seats and that's where we remained through the entire thing.  The guy sitting next to Bev started singing the songs from the laser show, hilarious! 

The itinerary for the evening:

6:00-Social time and exhibits

6:40-Event welcome

6:45-Google hangout with the owner of the TB going into space

6:55-Space themed laser show

7:25- Intermission

7:35-Geocaching videos in laser dome

7:50-Geocaching Co-Founder, Jeremy Irish

8:00-Google hangout with world wide events

8:10-Prepare for rocket launch with play by play 

8:25-Q&A

The laser show was pretty cool.  It showed some Star Wars stuff, lots of fun music from Top Gun and Elton John's Rocket Man rocked the laser dome.

Picture from Moun10Bike's log.

Afterwards, they had us on Google hangout with other events going on in the world simultaneously.  There were events in Australia, Canada, Germany and other parts of the US.  It was pretty cool until the feed stopped working.  Then we moved onto videos and chatting with our neighbors.  

Then it was time for the launch.  I have actually seen a launch on TV or in real life.  This was pretty cool.  Before, during and after the launch we had a person tell us what was happening and why.

It didn't take long for the rocket to leave our atmosphere and enter space. It was pretty awesome to watch.  This has been the event of the year so far.  They thanked us for attending and we made our way back to the car but decided to grab a hot chocolate and warmed flavored milk before actually walking back to the car.  It hit the spot.

It didn't take us long to get home, a little more than an hour.  I dropped off Bev and went home.  I logged our finds from earlier in the day and then went to bed.  It was an awesome day.

Next Adventure: An Eatonville "Traveling" Cache