One of the caches I’ve had my eye on for a little while is one off a trail I’ve seen from the highway on numerous occasions. The problem with the cache was that I never knew where the entrance to that trail was, so after consulting Google Maps, I had a rough idea where it was and decided that since it was a pretty miserable day and I had some time after dropping Beth off for work this morning, I would try and hunt it down.
I parked at the Woodlawn Metro North Station, which is a great place to park mainly because it’s free on weekends and the trail literally starts right there.
Time to hunt for the cache! I turned on my trusty Explorist GC GPS and went hunting and within a few minutes I was about 600 feet from the cache. The trail was quite nice and it was surrounded by greenery on one side and the river on the other. Just a great place to go for a walk.
Once the GPS zeroed in on 15 feet, I put it back in my pocket. Time to start looking around. Normally when I look for a cache, I look around for two things: something that’s obviously out of place, and where I would hide the cache. This one was interesting because it wasn’t a micro, meaning it would have to be camouflaged by something or hidden by something else and that seriously limited the places it could be.
One nice thing about a day like today is that muggles (people who aren’t geocachers) generally don’t bother going out on a day like today. No need to keep hiding or be sneaky, I could just find the cache and move on. It took me a bit of circling and taking in the views before I got a really good look at the area where the cache would be. I walked to it with purpose because I just intuitively knew it would be there. Sure enough, it was.
After signing the log, a few people were walking the trail so as not to look too conspicuous, I took a short walk and started taking pictures as a cover for what the hell I was doing in the middle of a trail next to a highway. Here’s what surrounded me. Tell me you don’t think this is a pretty awesome place to go for a walk. I dare ya.
All in all a really nice morning for a quiet solo walk and a cache hunt. There may be some more later, but I don’t know; either way, this week is going to be some great caching because Beth and I both have a few days off!
Needless to say, I can’t wait!