Disc Golf, Geocaching and Hwy 410

It was going to be the nicest day this week so we decided to take full advantage of it.  We got up around 10-ish and got ready to go.  He got his shower in (because he was getting his hair cut when we got back) and wanted the gel stuff out of it.  We ate breakfast and I was glad I did the queries last night so they were already on the GPS.  We made sure we had everything and put it in his vehicle.  Off we went.

We got to Buckley, soon through Enumclaw and on our way towards Mount Rainier via Hwy 410.  We talked about numerous things as we snaked our way down the road.  I got the GPS out just to see how many were still along the road that I didn't get back when I went Chinook Pass to Yakima back in 2011.  White Pass/Hwy 12 had been closed that summer for construction.  We saw about seven caches to grab on the way back home later on.

We stopped at the Greenwater Ski shop to talk to the owner about the status of the disc golf course.  I wandered around the store while Ben talked to the guy at the front desk.  He told Ben about the changes to each of the holes and gave us a map to take with us.  Ben has done the course before but it's been a while.  We got back in the Explorer and made our way a quarter of a mile down the road and to a very primitive pull out, roughly three cars could fit comfortably in the designated area.  We changed our shoes, socks and pants, grabbed our discs and off we went...to hole one.

Holes one thru five were down a dirt road shaded by trees.  We managed to get our discs in the pin under five throws are less.  Six and Seven were in an open meadow area and it took us a while to figure out the map and which way we were suppose to throw it.  Once we figured it out we were on our way to the lower section of the course.  There, we had two choices...8A and 8B.  I voted for 8B because it would involve "Sasquatch Stairs" and walking over a make-shift bridge.  I threw my disc and it almost was a hole in one.

I'm just glad I didn't throw it in the water.  If there is water nearby, my disc always manages to find its way inside the body of water.  Luckily, the past few times I've avoided the depths of the deep. 

We got lost at hole nine and ten but ended up doing a few extra holes and didn't seem to mind because we were having fun.  We found a booklet and a baggie underneath one of the benches so we dated it, signed it and wrote a fun sentence or two.  We went back up the hill and finished out the course the way we came in.  We got to hole 18 and commemorated our outing with a few fun pictures.

We walked back to the "parking lot" and made ourselves more comfortable.  Ben changed his shoes and socks.  I was pretty happy with what I was wearing so I stuck with it.  The first cache was called Warm Up Stop (GCM8VB) Warm Up Stop and it's been around since 12/12/2004.  It was at a little shop called Wapiti Woolies and it was known for its winter hats.

http://wapitiwoolies.com/

It took us a few minutes to locate the cache because the coords were very bouncy.  Then we saw the fence and the old ski lift someone had turned into a porch swing.  We sat on the ski lift as we dug through the cache.

We went inside the shop before we left the town of Greenwater.

The second cache along the way home was my 52nd state park cache and Ben's first one.  I've always wanted to come get the Federation Forest (GC4B04P) cache but had never gotten out here to grab it.  I had grandma's passport (I finished my 50 state parks July 3rd and turned mine in) so I continued using hers with parks I have not been to yet.  We parked near the trail head and walked the .12 of a mile to the cache.  We saw where the GPS and the hint was steering us towards.  There were giant bearded trees everywhere.  We pulled the cache out from its hiding spot and I had Ben take it all in.  We signed the cache, stamped our passports and I had to have the traditional photo with the cache.

View from the Bridge (GC1W0M7) was at a large pull off with a great view of the White River.  I got my tripod and camera out because I wanted both of us in the picture with the river.  First we found the cache, which was on an old part of the road underneath a piece of median tucked away with a rock on top of it.  I let Ben find it.

We threw rocks in the river mostly because we could not help ourselves.  :)

A little further up the road was a cache called What's That??  (GC1W0KF) which refers to the large white dome in the distance.  Ben told me it's a weather station and some believe that's where they aliens go after they fly around Mount Rainier.  I saw the cache underneath the stump.  It's been a while since I've seen a PVC pipe cache.

A few more miles down Hwy 410 we stopped again and this time we could not find the cache.  My first DNF in a little while.  We made sure in our logs to let the owner know it hasn't been found since August 2013 and to come check it.  We saw two caches up the road, Denizens of the Forest (GC371Q1) and Lions and Tigers and Carnivorous Lizards, Oh My! (GC2C4Z5) were both down a forest road.  We parked at the gate and walked to both of them.  The first one was missing so we decided to make a replacement log and baggie and leave it.  We found out later after we logged it the owner decided to archive it.  We were the LTF (last to find) it.  We continued walking the quarter of a mile to the other one.  That one led us astray.  It was 25 feet off of the coords and it did have a plastic carnivorous lizard inside.  We walked back to the Explorer.

We grabbed two more on the way home, Travel Series #1 (GCY5N8) and #2 (GCY5NP) and the 410 Travel Bug Hotel (GC2PPXK).  I had gotten #1 and the TB Hotel about a year ago with Bob and Bev but I thought Ben would enjoy these.

It was getting late, we were hungry and Ben still needed to get his haircut before we went back to his place.  We went to Sports Cuts, ate stew made by his mom and then got cleaned up, logged our finds and passed out.  It was a long adventurous day.  Until the next one!

Next Adventure: Bonney Lake Caching