Mike's Geocaching Blog

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Hiking Lower Table Rock

Last spring Chuck Knight and I hiked and cached Upper Table Rock while our wives attended our church’s Ladies Retreat hosted by Applegate Christian Fellowship in Ruch (just west of Jacksonville).  This spring we managed to talk two more guys to join us as we tackled Lower Table Rock.  Greg Blackwell and Bob Fanelli joined us at the trailhead at 0630 this morning to beat the heat of the day.

It was a little cloudy and we even had a few rumbles of thunder as we started our trek.  We found 17 of the 18 caches on this trail system.  It was difficult for four of us to walk away from that one DNF!  The hike was great fun with great company.  After the hike we headed into Medford for a meal together - a great place called Spicer’s.  After eating we all hunted a few caches close by then Chuck and Bob went their way.  Wonder what we’ll do next year?  Hmmmmm

Thanks to Chuck for the pictures!

The Start

Hey Greg, you’re flap’s open!

Yep, there was a cache on the end!!

Milestone - 2000!

I would much rather have accomplished my 2000th find on our excursion around the rim of Lower Table Rock - like the one named Puckerbrush or Poison Oak or Ol’ Flat Top.  Unfortunately, that would have required getting up around 3am and found about 40 caches before meeting up with the guys at the trailhead at 0630!  Needless to say THAT didn’t happen!

The actual cache was EUOPLOCPHALUS.  As micro’s go, it was a pretty imaginative container.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Blackwell’s Arrive!

The Blackwell’s arrived mid-day and setup in the space next to ours at VOTR.  After a bite to eat and some visiting, all four of us took a walk on the portion of the Rogue River Greenway Trail between camp and the town of Rogue River.  Greg and I managed to sneak a few caches in along the way.

The girls’ departure to their retreat in late afternoon marked the beginning of what became a five hour cache hunt.  It started with clearing all the caches between Rogue River and Gold Hill.  My main goal this evening was to get a cache in DeLorme section 21 and we got that near the end of our evening adventure.  We concluded the day by dropping down to Medford for “breakfast” at Shari’s sometime after 10pm!  This was the first serious night caching I had ever done.  Twenty-five caches bit the dust!