When we got there we expected mom to be ready. I had to get her going so we could leave. She grabbed her stuff and her camera and we were off to the Clear Lake area. On the way there we noticed a lot of new houses being built around Lawrence Lake which was too bad this lake will have houses around every square inch of it.
We went through Cougar Mountain and noticed a few changes since we've been out here. The store has been closed for quite some time and there was more graffiti covering the building. I was out here last with Lacey about two years ago grabbing some of the newer caches in the area. When we got out past the Clearwood area I noticed all the trees have been cut down making the area more open and unfamiliar. This is what happens to those trees; they get planted and cut down by Weyerhaeuser because this is their land. We saw the new county park sign and that reassured us we were going the right way since I've never been out here on this road.
We found the driveway and the small parking lot. There were actually people here today. This park opened last Fall so we weren't sure how much the word has spread. There were a few articles written about it in the Nisqually Valley and the Seattle Times. The park closed in the 1980's and then sold to Thurston County in 1992. No trespassing signs were posted all over the place for a few decades.
We found a parking spot, grabbed our day packs, hid the stealables under the seats, locked the car and started for the trail. On their way back up to the parking lot were Rebecca's parents, Michael and Dorothy. I haven't seen them in years! We visited for about fifteen minutes before they got into the van and headed out. Mom, Ben and I started down to the falls.
I wanted to grab the cache, Deschutes Falls (GC7CRKW), first before we explored so Ben and I read the hint and followed the GPS coords to the spot. It was hidden near some fallen logs under some bark. It was one of those really big ammo cans. We signed the log, I dropped about ten trackables I've carried around with me for the past two years and we took a couple of photos before we put it back in its hiding spot. I made sure it was hidden very well before we left to meet back up with mom.
We walked over to the falls first and took a couple of pictures. We had to be careful because the run off into the river carved out many mini rivers and you had to watch where you stepped. I stood there remembering the last time I was out here and told Ben the story. Since this area was closed to the public, both the park side and the Weyerhaeuser side, about seven years ago we were escorted out through the gates on the Weyerhaeuser side over by Vail to have a memorial ceremony for my cousin Jay, who passed away near the falls in 2010. We walked out to where he was last seen while his sister Kirsten told us about what they thought happened that night. That ledge was so little and so close to the edge. They also installed a wooden memorial to remind those of what happened that night and to establish the no trespassing warning.
We walked to the other area and looked for mom while she was taking pictures. We ran into her as we left the falls and got back onto the main trail to see what was east of the falls. The area was well manicured (for the current time of the year) and obviously this place will get more traffic as the weather improves over the next couple months.
We made our way to an open area where you could tell (when the park used to be open) people often spent a lot of time here playing in the water and possibly camping. It was nice to be able to explore without anyone there to bother us. We definitely came on a great day and the weather wasn't too bad either. We continued exploring and looking at the different rocks and crevasses that have been eroded over the course of time. This place was pretty awesome!
We were out there for about an hour or so before we decided we've seen pretty much all of it and started walking back to the main trail. We all said we would like to come back in the summer or the fall to take more pictures. We made our way to where we entered the trail and walked back up the hill to the Escape.
We unloaded our stuff into the back of the Escape and headed back towards the house. I told mom now that she knew how to get here that she should take dad here for a walk one evening when it got lighter and nicer out. She said she might just have to do that.
I dropped mom off at home and Ben and I headed back into Lacey to get some of our chores done and relax a bit. It was nice to get out and do something outside. I could not wait until the weather got nicer so we could do more things like this during the weekends.
**Update as of 4.10.18** I found out that this cache was disabled because a month after we found it someone took the cache and all the trackables I dropped off in it. I felt so bad after reading that happened. All of those TB's are now gone.
**Update as of 4.10.18** I found out that this cache was disabled because a month after we found it someone took the cache and all the trackables I dropped off in it. I felt so bad after reading that happened. All of those TB's are now gone.
Next Adventure: February Game Night - Comfort Food
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