Aug 19/2010 |
Geocache Activity 815 |
FIND 752 |
IDENTIFICATION
Difficulty 2; Terrain 4; size regular; Creator: Kaydek and Xcaliber Date First Hidden: 4/24/2005 Date Last Found: 8/29/2009 Description A short walk to the cache from the car, but the last bit is a little tricky. Located in the Porcupine Hills you'll find a good place to lookout over the landscape. The container is a 2L juice jug completely filled with goodies. Hint Halfway between the 2nd and 3rd post from the tower turn downhill and go about 20ft. Comments
PLANNING
I set up a route that would involve 12 geocaches along Highway 22 north of Pincher Creek. I also made note of 4 caches in Claresholm in the event that I had time left after the first 12 had been searched. The intent was the simple one of trying to clear the southern end of the valley between the Porcupine Hills on the east and the Livingstone Range on the west of all "unfound" caches. I left home about 7:30 am.
OUTCOME
11:20 am This was my 4th search of the morning. It was an hour and 20 minutes since my last "find". My original plan was to slowly work my way north but I misread the direction my GPS was indicating and it quickly recalculated a route that took into account the direction I was moving. I was not aware of the problem until I had driven about 20 km and I then suspected something was wrong but decided (big mistake) to stay with it as the GPS had a route that it thought would get me to the cache.
After driving north for about 50 km and then doubling back but at the height of the Porcupine Hills I was getting close to the cache site when I encountered a closed gate and a sign saying the road was washed out ahead. I then readjusted my plans to find the nearest cache which turned out to be this one. The intent in my original plan was the two caches at the forestry lookout would be my last two caches before driving on to Claresholm. Now they were to be searches 4 and 5. Then I decided to abandon the idea of going to Claresholm and would reverse my route to find the remaining caches that I had bypassed by staying on the route the GPS had marked. I was still optimistic that I could find the 12 caches that I identified in my original plan.
Here is my posting to the geocaching.com website:
The plan for today was to search for 12 caches in this area. This was supposed to be #12. But I failed to get turned around at an earlier site and the GPS took advantage of my error to send me up here for search #4. Not a real problem as I will continue the circuit in the opposite direction. And the drive here as well as the view from the cache area is spectacular. TNLNSL. TFTC. Here are a few photos:
Pocupine Hills Lookout
hillside past the tower
cache site
container & GPS unit
I am now 4/4 for today. I was surprised that it had been almost a year since this cache was last found.
