Hotspur.us

 

So my Nun-Nun’s house is an organized archaeological dig. Flinders Petrie would be thrilled – no need to grid out and sift pot shards since most of the important stuff (like photos) have been neatly organized and labeled.

From the depth of some box was unearthed the following photographs, which nearly ended up in a dust heap, if not for my step-dad snagging them and handing them over. My mom is not much of a keeper of things.

 

It all started innocently enough when ruanwv causally mentioned at MAGPI’s October beer & wing night that they’d never been on a group cache. After a resounding chorus of “What?” from the gang I shouted said, “I’ll fix that.” And since runanwv appeared to have an inclination for a good, old fashion, vertical hike of pain and doom (and also since the cache filled in a Fizzy Challenge square) I offered up Chimney Top Cache.

None of the above is in any way surprising. Pretty much it’s taken for granted that I’m going to offer up some impossibly insane difficult cache for a group hunt because that way there are plenty of extra people to get my carcass back to the vehicles should someone push me over a cliff  I have a horrible accident. It just makes sense.

What was surprising is that no one called me out on the insanity of tackling Chimney Top Cache when A) I am in really not great physical shape due to spending most of my summer & some of my fall sitting around doing nothing (thanks Never, owe you one) and B) the route to the cache appeared to be a 3 mile vertical hike of switch backs. NOT. A. SOUL. Thanks gang. Good to know you’ve got my back. Oh and by the way, I’m so not responsible for anyone foolish enough to follow me.  I think we all know the standard disclaimer  ”Just because SSPG does it, doesn’t mean anyone else should.”

And so our tiny crew of me, loyal sidekick, Aqucache & ruanwv headed off to meet our possible doom. No one said my associates are any smarter than me (and fortunately no one had mentioned that to ruanwv).

It was indeed a gorgeous day to be out hiking in West Virginia. And the tight quarters at the parking area indicated that we were not the only ones to think so. After some deft maneuvering both vehicles were safely parked and we were ready for our hike of doom leisurely stroll up the hill. WAY. UP. THE. HILL.

It was not so very long before the little tiny (but LOUD, man are they loud) voices in the back of my head started questioning my decision to choose this cache. “Hey CHUCKLES!” they shouted (and boy do I hope no one else heard them). “You remember how you spent this summer, right? On your ARSE. And NOW you think you’re just gonna walk up THERE like it’s nothin’? IDIOT.” (Yeah, my voices aren’t very nice, but at least they’re honest.)

The hike up was S…L…O…W…and for once I was quite thrilled that one of the group was still trying to be not-dead-yet. Gave us all good excuses to slow down and hang back. Make a stop or ten two; stretch the calves. You know, good hiking habits.

After at least 5 days of steady climbing UP, UP, UP  we hit the Cliffs of Doom overlook, our first scenic waypoint. Bless the cache owner for scenic waypoints. (I totally take back all those nasty things I said about SenecaRocks during Fear Factor Saturday.) I was also quite delighted to find a wondrous cool diagonal rock on which to lower my body temperature back to its normal 98.6 or so degrees. Yes. It was uncharacteristically HOT WAY up there in the mountains. Way freakin’ hot. On November 15. In the Mountains.

After some photo ops and delicious snacks, we reluctantly shouldered our packs and continued UP. Man. I hate UP. But what I hate more than just UP. Is UP over rocks covered in leafy goodness. UP that doesn’t stop. Up to the top of the world where one will not find the promised cool, crisp wind shear, but rather 76 degrees.

Yes. It was 76 degrees on the top of Chimney Top on November 15. Shoot me.

After a good time relaxing, cooling down and refueling. As well as exploring, taking photos and letting our muscles get cold and cranky, it was time to retreat. The descent took a much shorter time, despite all of it being done upright and using both feet (rolling had been considered, but the trail was seriously lumpy).

Excellent cache. Excellent company. No one let me choose the destination next time.

Pass the ibuprofen, won’t you?

I was out on a solo cache run trying to fill in a square for the Fizzy Challenge (‘hunter you bastard see what you get me into?) and was looking for a good spot to park that did not involve a 1.5 mile hike (one way), loose dogs or verticle bushwhacks.  My map seemed to indicate that the cache was conveniently located less than 500 feet from a road.

Now I did think that was odd since no one (Aquacache) had mentioned this option. But what the heck. I was on vacation and had time to investigate.  Ah…seems the reason no one had mentioned the option I found myself exploring was because there seemed to be a creek between me and the cache.

A wide, shallow, cold creek. Now ordinarily I’d take one look at that and figure I’d go ahead and do the 3 mile round trip. After all, a motivated Spotty Spotty Pony Girl caching solo can rip off  a mile and a half at a good clip. I’m no runner, but filling in that Fizzy Challenge Square is a pretty good motivator. Except it was now hunting season  and the parking coords were for a WMA. And it was a week day. Quite frankly I wasn’t a big fan of running the risk of getting shot with an arrow (please see phobia #42.1a).  And that left me little recourse considering I wasn’t about to drive all the way home without finding this cache.

Instead, I slung the trusty Canon around my neck, took off my shoes and socks and waded across. (Now for those of you who aren’t geocachers, I understand this may seem to be a rather rash decision, plunging into a stream in late October. After all, you might be thinking, couldn’t it just wait until Sunday when the WMA wasn’t fraught with pointy peril? No. No it couldn’t. And besides, when have I ever been known to demonstrate common sense? )

Anyway, back to my narrative. Since I was a little unclear about where the WMA actually was and extremely unclear about how irate the locals might be to find someone so close to their property (was not trespassing but some folks in that area have been known to have a different concept of private property on ocassion), I stopped to actually use the camera mid-creek. Do you have any idea how cold a mountain stream is in late October? Really. Freakin. Cold.  REALLY. REALLY. FREAKIN. COLD.  Trust me on this one.

After what seemed like an eternity searching under all sorts of leaves and rocks - oh Fall geocaching, I love it so. Lovely lovely deciduous trees. You are so awesome in making everything geo-flage-o-rific  – and answering my phone’s plaintiff vibrations at what seemed to be 30 second intervals (yes, my support team, they are so very concerned for my well being) I finally, finally found the cache.  So yay, one more geocache off the list and one more square for the Fizzy Challenge completed. 

The new challenge before me was to now descend the hillside (covered in leaves which were covering rocks that were haphazardly stacked – damn you Mother Nature for your periolous obstacles) WITHOUT taking a header into the stream. Becauase remember, the stream is cold. Really. Freakin. Cold. And me, well you know, I’m not the most graceful person on the planet.  So while I’m contemplating the best path down, I’m also thinking that should I end up IN the stream most likely I’m going to fry all the electronics except the Garmin (yay, waterproof) which is going to make it near impossible to let support team know I’m NOT DEAD. So there I stand, trying to figure out if there are such things as public pay phones yet. And then I realized I don’t know anyone’s phone number any more. “Self,” I thought, “You have the potential to really wreak some havoc today.”

GERONIMO!!!! 

(Yes, I made it down safely. No, the electronics did not get wet. Maybe I will write down some important phone numbers on a piece of paper to keep in my GCC. maybe.)

(and thanks support team….I appreciate your unrelenting concern for my safety. Or was that your unrelenting desire to not get drug out to the side of a WMA to find my carcas? Either way…thanks.)

 

The Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Prior trip left me with this impression: CREEPYTOWN. Or perhaps more appropriately: CREEPYTOWN!!!!!

And so Mom and I thought hey…let’s take the four floor tour! Yes, yes we did. Surprisingly this time around, despite the upper floor portion of our tour consisting of only four other folks including the tour guide, it wasn’t creepy. Not creepy at all. Which was strange.

In fact the only scary part was hanging out waiting and waiting and waiting among the rather irritable and cranky folks who were also waiting for a tour.  Honestly. I thought one lady was going to break out a whooping stick or some other implement of damage. And I thought I had anger management issues. Ha!

Anyway, while milling about and wasting Mom and I checked out the entertainment….not a lot of channels in this neck of the woods.

Once the tour got started though, anger management lady seemed to calm down. But just in case Mom and I checked out the phone service. You know, in the event we had to make an emergency call for help.

It was a grand time indeed. Cold, sad and strange. But not creepy. Perhaps it was because it was such a nice sunny day. Maybe it was because there was a carnival on the front lawn. Who knows.