Thursday, July 02, 2009
Endless Road - Endless Fun?
There’s something to be said for geocachers grouping-up for caching excursions - especially, in my opinion, when it involves hiking. Today was a fine example. Our “covey of cachers” came from as far as St. Helens, WA and Beaverton, OR to attempt a First to Find (FTF) for Mackie’s Endless Road cache near Eel Lake and Tugman State Park. The group hunted other caches in the area as well but Endless Road was primary target for the day.
In attendance (left to right):tincuphunter (Dick) from Beaverton;MrWalkie (Eric) from St. Helens, WA;Charlie ‘n’ Sue (actually only Charlie came);knightcb (Chuck);myself
How did this motley bunch come together? Like happens so often with geocaching, people begin emailing back and forth regarding specific caches or caching issues and before you know it you’ve made a friend and have made mutual invites to cache together “sometime”. This is what happened with tincuphunter (Dick). Earlier this year I met up with Dick to hike the Marquam Trail in Portland. Today I’m returning the favor. Dick invited his regular hiking buddy MrWalkie (Eric). I invited some of our local cachers to join the fun and knightcb (Chuck) and Charlie of Charlie ‘n’ Sue accepted. And there you have it!
The morning view before starting the hike
We met at Tugman State Park boat ramp parking lot early in the morning, made introductions, gobbled a few doughnuts then hit the trail. First two caches actually involved hiking the opposite direction we needed to go for the main trek. With those two found, we returned to the vehicles, grabbed one more doughnut for the road and headed down the 3-mile long Eel Lake Trail. This trail provides a great view of a typical coastal forest with thickets of spruce, cedar and fir on the ridges and even denser thickets of salmonberry, thimbleberry and elderberry in the draws. One of these thickets of berry brush would play a role in just how tired we would be and the end of the day - more on that later. The trail tightly follows the waters edge yielding several picturesque views of the lake.
Eric pondering life while Charlie and Chuck set course for the next cache - Uh, where’d Dick go?
After finding the three caches in the Tugman Tubs series we backtracked a short ways to find the trail taking us to Endless Road. It was a short, but steep half-mile climb to the ridge top where we found the gravel road that would be the bane of our existence for the next couple of hours! Mackie described walking on this road as “easy”! Easy? Since when is it easy for five “old guys” to walk a roller coaster road with loose gravel for over five miles after having already logged eight miles? Huh? EASY?
Finally we arrived at the cache area and begin searching. Charlie was the one who actually found the container. We all signed the fresh clean, unspoiled logbook then headed back a short ways where we found a spot to take a break, eat some lunch and otherwise gather our strength for the return trip.
When we returned to the point where our trail back down to the lake met the road, we agreed instead to continue west on the gravel road and hunt one last cache - Ridge Walk (yes, Mackie put this one out too). The plan was to find the cache then bushwhack down a forested ridge to the lake edge where we would undoubtedly connect with our lake-side trail again. Yes, we found the cache. Yes, we found a decent ridge top to follow. Down the hill we went. The brush wasn’t too bad and we were making good headway until….......we made a huge strategic error! Instead of continuing on the ridge top where there was much less brush we dropped down into a side draw that would get us back on the trail below much quicker. We could see that the draw was brushier than the ridge but reasoned that we’d only have to endure it for 100 feet or so! True enough but we failed to anticipate just HOW much brushier it would be! Thankfully, a big guy like Charlie led the way creating a “path” through the maze of salmonberry (did I mention salmonberry has little thorns?). Hopping over logs, sliding down muddy rocks and constantly getting slapped in the face with limbs we finally emerged onto the main trail - tired, sweaty and bleeding! Did I also mention that two of our group, including the hard-charging Charlie, did all this in shorts and sandals! So some ended up more bloody than others!
Charlie emerging from the brushy draw
Once back at the vehicles we spent a short time visiting (mostly moaning!) then parted ways. Yes, there’s something to be said about geocachers grouping-up for caching excursions - FUN!
Final statistics: 14 miles, 7 caches, 6 bloodied legs, 5 gooooolden fritters, 4 phone calls for a chopper, 3 baby birds in a nest, 2 hundred foot bushwhack and an osprey in a fir tree.