Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Chasing Jolly Roger
Weekly geo-coffee winding down. A day off. What to do? Caching, of course…but alone? What do know…Bad Duck has the day off too! Where to go?.....does it matter?
We settled on a newly placed cache out near the North Spit - The Lost Jolly Roger. Figured it shouldn’t take too long….only a quarter mile from the road. We already knew it wouldn’t be a straight bushwhack from the road. I had already looked at the area on Google Earth and could see it was in a low dune area with several small bodies of water to work around. Darren had previously scoped out this very location thinking he would place a cache there himself and had an idea about an “easier” way into this new cache. Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?
Armed with aforementioned plan we park at the logic spot along the highway and strike out…..uh….almost 180 degrees from the direction of the cache? Whats up with that? “I know this is a roundabout way to get there but I’m thinking we’ll have an easier hike, not as nearly as much brush to go through” says my fine feathered accomplice.
ROUNDabout indeed! Check out the GPSr track below! Six MILES of roundabout!
So after walking this nearly six miles completely AROUND the cache coords and coming with in 45 FEET at one point, we get back to the vehicle….drive back into North Bend for Human Bean smoothies….drive back out and strike out using the direct bushwhack approach we had spent all morning AVOIDING! Picked our way through the low wetlands parting thick stems of scotchbroom and crossing narrow logs across water channels making our way to GZ. Finally locating the cache and signing the logbook was so anticlimactic compared to the whole adventure of getting there!
We turned an admittedly tough, one hour, quarter mile bushwhack into a nearly seven mile bushwhack taking until mid-afternoon to complete! Sometimes pre-planning is over-rated! Despite all that I still enjoyed the adventure! It gave us some new ideas for a new cache! Mu..ha..ha..ha!
Precarious log crossing