Hotspur.us

I’m putting this in writing for two reasons:

1. Without both textual and visual evidence I suspect many people would doubt this happened.

2. When things come back to bite me in the arse this coming Saturday, I can refer to this post and say, “I put more thought and preparation into this debacle than most things I undertake.”

So I love Halloween. Love it.  It’s spooky. It’s creepy. It’s a legitimate reason to dress up in outlandish costumes. And best of all, it does not involve me running all over trying to find the prefect present for what seems to be 300 people.  Usually we end up going to a Halloween party where one of us has to be the designated driver. So this year I thought…hey why don’t we do something different and terribly scary – NIGHT CACHE!

Actually let me clarify that - SIX night caches. In the woods.

In order to undertake The Magic of Mountwood (Nocturnal) #1 (GC2QNZJ) – #6 (yeah I have no idea what GC# the rest are and I’m too lazy to look them up.) I did some preliminary work – at least that’s what I like to call it. Mostly it was me grilling Allysmom24 and wvmikiepar about their trip to tackle the series. I elicited some very useful information.

1. Ignore the bizarre coords. All you need is the trailhead for cache #1.

2. The trail is not a loop.

3. You’ll want to park one car at the start and one at the end (they pointed out the end).

4. There’s a place called “Bailout” on the trail(s) that is mid-way. Just in case.

5. There are a lot of switchbacks that could be cut out, if you knew where the trail was.

Armed with this info, Chad and I headed out to Mountwood Park to walk MAP the trails, locate the six red beacons and see how long of a hike we were in for. Also, we were really hoping that knowing what the area looked like during daylight would come in handy later.

Two-and-a-half hours later we emerged from the trail pretty happy with ourselves.

Proof is in the pudding:

It’s Fall. And that means more than just pretty leaves and rain. Yep, it means that quite a few of the forest roads in the Mon National Forest that are typically gated most of the year are open. And since quite a few of us MAGPI have Jeeps…well you do the math.

After cramming (and boy do I mean cramming) Gentleman-Carpenter & Rock_Rat into the back seat of the Jeep (did I mention my hi-lift jack is still on the floor?) we set out to meet up with 3_Dogs and Russ of ruannwv in Parsons.

Our first target was Coalcat Knob (which sidekick and I had tackled, along with Aquacache, the old fashioned way – by hiking it.  We may or may not have been quite useless in helping determine the best way at one of the many trail splits. After all, if one is inclined to hike the cache, one comes in from a different approach.

The remaining bit of hike was pretty much uneventful. No critters, no scares, no scarring experience. And an intact (and clean) cache container awaited us – of  the ammo can variety.

Missing Part One accomplished we headed back to the Jeeps, crammed back into the Little Black Jeep (I mashed myself into the back this time) and headed off to rendezvous with CL Combat & Aquacache who were (somewhat) patiently waiting for us at Sheetz.

Thus assembled we headed out to Cheat View South.  (Getting a find on this cache would bring me to within TWO caches of completing all the wvcoalcat caches.  So I was seriously hoping that this cache was 1. Findable 2. had the paper log in it.

We didn’t quite get as close as we thought we would. Oh sure I love to hike, but come on,  I have a Jeep and today I was all about cheating the hike.  Someone in this group is  gonna have to learn how to pick a lock.

Shockingly this hike was also uneventful. I know, I know. Two ‘coalcat caches and nothing really in the way of serious bad decisions. What’s up with that?

And as the sun started to go down we headed back to the Jeeps.

Having successfully completed our targets, we headed back to Parsons for delicious dinner. After cramming ourselves with delicious dinner we then crammed ourselves back into the Jeep.

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After braving A True WV Geocacher 1 (two fails, many hours and finally a find), A True WV Geocacher 2 (two fails, a severely bruised knee, a spider bite that caused sidekick to end up in the ER with a thankle and finally a find) it was inevitable that we went toe to to with A True WV Geocacher 3. And Sunday (after hiking all over the Mon National Forest in pursuit of wvcoalcat caches) seemed as good a day as any.

I can’t say too much about this cache for two reasons:

1. It’s a puzzle – so you have to figure out what tool to use (there goes about half our photos)

2. Both stages are tricky – so I had to seriously edit photos

My recap of the days adventure in question form.

1. How did you guys find the location for stage one and not die in the process?

2. How in the heck did you place stage one and not die in the process.

3. Do you seriously think we’re going to make a geotrail through those rhody? You know, the ones that I could not even see the people that were five feet in front of me through?

4. Why do you hate us so?

5. Why are you trying to kill wvhunter? (no wait, that’s a rhetorical quesiton.)

6. Ok. Did you feel ridiculous carrying the final through the woods?

At any rate we had an EXCELLENT time! We did not die. We did not get injured. And we got it in one try. Rock on!

I can’t share more. I wish I could. But that would spoil every one else’s fun!

[Show as slideshow]

 

It was a near perfect September Saturday here in Morgantown and we were hoping the same could be said for the Pheasant Mountain area of the Mon National Forest down towards good ol’ Parsons, WV.

After some last minute nagging cajoling, Gentleman-Carpenter said sure he’d join Loyal Sidekick LWB, Aquacache & yours truly for a trip into the woods (provided of course we didn’t break him). And so we rendezvoused at Rendezvous Here around 9:30 and headed on to our first destination: Fools Run (I Walked) GC1AKD1 by the illustrious wvcoalcat.  The previous week while cleaning up some nasty stuff (see previous post about us being nice or something), wvcoalcat had mentioned that we may be able to driver darn near his cache. A lot darn nearer than the posted parking coords. And all on the up and up. He furnished the coords to the Forest Road and followed with the standard disclaimer of “if the gate is open”.

We were in luck because the gate was open. WIDE open. Score!  We took the jeeps (so labeled on our track log) up to as close as .45 of a mile from ground zero and parked.  Well that was after we had a minor bit of confusion about which road to take (please see the point labeled B on our tracklog) – five way intersections get a little confusing in the woods.

After getting falling out of the jeeps (the drivers) and climbing out (the passengers) we geared up, which took longer than usual since we were parked on the side of a mountain.

(Aquacache took the above pic, for the record.)

Taking one last look at the jeeps and hoping they were still on the side of the hill when we returned, we headed out. At which point, of course, we realized we could have driven even closer to the cache. But by the time we realized THAT we didn’t see the benefit of walking back to the jeeps to move them forward. Ok, perhaps only the drivers didn’t see the benefit, the passengers were all for that plan of action.

A brief 30  minutes later we found ourselves at ground zero and shortly thereafter Gentleman-Carpenter hit plastic. Easy peasy lemon squeezy my friends. (This should have been the tip off that things might not go so well later on in the day.) Cache having been found we settled in for a celebratory snack.

Our merry crew rolled back to the jeeps and headed off to tackle Coalcat’s Blunder GC1AM7M which was touted as the closest thing to a ‘coalcat PnG as one could come. After heading back to Rt. 72 and then Rt. 291 we pulled up onto FR933. We had some hopes of finding the gates opened (or unlocked) but upon inspection – and trust me, Gentleman-Carpenter check it out thoroughly – we had to leave the jeeps behind.  None-the-less, buoyed by  our earlier success we headed upward.

It wasn’t long until we realized that the road we were on and the trails that seemed to be suddenly appearing were not on any of the topo maps with which we were equipped. It was either that or….no that was pretty much it. Arriving at our first major decision point – a fork in the road where we could have gone right and up or left and down we were in a quandary. Which is when Loyal Sidekick took the lead, scouted out the UP route and declared it to be “the right way.” Since he usually has pretty good instincts and has chosen wisely in the past we followed.

Thing were going pretty well until we ran out of trail. But somewhere, someone had mentioned a bushwhack and so off we went. It wasn’t much of a whack, to be honest. There were no walls of impenetrable mountain laurel or stands of fir trees so thick one couldn’t move. Mostly it was just a bit annoying. Trusting the topos on my GPS (dumb idea as usual) I started around the side of the hill gaining elevation as I went (I have mad mountain goat skills) because my topo maps said the cache was NOT on the top but on the side. It lied. Liked like the dog it is.

At any rate I hit ground zero ahead of the men folks and was settling down to do some serious searching when I came upon…..DA…DA….DA!!!! A very mauled lock-n-lock lid. Oh CARP. I turned and DA….DA….DA……found something even more troubling. It was the bottom of the lock-n-lock which was also mauled. But that wasn’t the disturbing part. The Disturbing part (yes, disturbing with a big D) was that some PERSON had left a log of his own. Right. In. The. Container. ERK.

Having made that discovery I started looking for other bits of the cache and located some gnawed upon zip lock bags. By this time the gents had hit ground zero.  We searched in vain for the real cache log but came up empty although Aquacache did locate the stash note way down over the hill.

Moving away from the scene we had a snack and pondered our next step. After all, you gotta sign the log to claim your find. The paper log you know. Aquacache produced a nano and a log book, but with no metal at hand (although he kept claiming there had to be a nail in his geocaching backpack) that wasn’t going to work. But what’s this? A pill bottle?  I had forgotten I was actually prepared! Sweet. So we signed the temporary cache replacement log, stuffed it in the pill bottle and Gentleman-Carpenter placed it where we surmised the hiding spot to be.  We were quite sure that wvcoalcat would be thrilled with us for fixing his cache with a micro. It’s hard to find such a conscientious group of cachers as us.

And so, our good deed for the day done, we headed back to the jeeps.