I was nominated early February to be the WSGA Southwest Washington Chapter Rep and was actually voted in at the beginning of March. My candidacy would last a year starting on April 1st. I was going to do my best to host as many events as I possibly can and be present at other cacher's events. Between my new job, working at the rental and our daily lives, I probably shouldn't have accepted the nomination. There was just too much going on, but I did it anyway.
There was a Blue Switch event at Squaxin Park (formerly Priest Point), and I wanted to go because I heard there was a group of people assembling to go grab Payback 10: It's All About the Journey (GCQYBW). I have put this one off for years. I was excited to find it with a bunch of people. I made sure to bring some clothes I didn't care if they got ruined with me.
This was my third caching event in four days. After work, I hustled over to Squaxin Park in Olympia, hitting every red light possible. I actually got there just before 5, with some time to spare and got a great parking spot! I grabbed what I needed and made my way over to the covered area and saw some familiar faces.
While we hung out in the covered area, we chatted, caught up, shared stories, discovered trackables and even won a raffle item! Some people brought some cookies and chips to share and snack on. I had an M&M cookie and a bag of chips to tie me over until I went home for dinner. Ohjoy got our attention and talked about some of the caches in the area, specifically the one a handful of us came for. The Dips also had some advice since they the trek down and up recently. We all appreciated whatever tips they could give us. I knew we were going to get muddy.
Around 6:30, nine of us drove to the parking coords just north from where the event was. The coords took us two one of the two pullouts...just enough room for six cars if you did it right. I had already changed my crappy sweatshirt and pants; I just needed to change out my shoes. I grabbed some gloves because I heard we might need them because of the Devil's Club that lurks along the creek bed. You do not want to grab these. I grabbed my hiking pole and met up with the rest of the group near the "starting coords" and began our way down into the abyss.
In any crazy geocaching adventure through the woods there are always 59 hard ways in and one good way out. Of course, we took one of the 59 hard ways in (it actually wasn't that bad) and had to do some bush whacking. There were muddy spots and I definitely slipped a time or two, but we did all make it down to the creek. We were among the Devil' Club, errant branches, broken logs, nettles, soggy ground skunk cabbage and mosquitos.
We spotted the natural bridge at the creek and took our time crossing it. We helped the people with balance issues make it safely across. We all made our way over to the other side of the creek and had a view of a huge maple tree with large holes. The tree was amazing. We found the cache without any difficulty, took turns signing our names, got a group picture, put it back exactly where we found it and walked back over to the log.
Again, we helped those who weren't as steady cross the log safely and guess what? We found the correct way back up the side of the hill!
We saw where the previous cachers from earlier that week came down and up. We followed it. There were a couple of muddy spots and broken trees, but we all eventually made it back up the hill and onto the road.
We saw where we made our mistake and should have departed from the other pullout near where most of us parked. We thanked each other for the company, the fun adventure and everyone went home. It is always fun geocaching with other people.
You gotta be a little bit crazy to be a geocacher, however, this cache was not the hardest cache I have ever found or hiked to. I was challenged a bit, but it wasn't hard. Until the next one!
Next Adventure: Friday: Girl's Weekend - Leavenworth
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