First, I didn't believe that the only way to get to this one was to go all they way up, then back down. The satellite maps seemed to show a road near there, so I decided to see if I could get there by another route. I took a few turns off anonymous roads off 17.
The first one took me on a very steep and winding road past a tavern. I got to the top and found myself at a dead end in some guy's driveway. I was trying to figure out how to turn around without falling off the cliff when he came out his side door. "Clearly, I'm not where I want to be" I said. He laughed and helped me figure out how to turn around up there while a couple of deer ran through his backyard. I did the steep drive back down, tried another side road, but never got closer than a half-mile, which here means on the wrong ridge.
I made a quick attempt at the next exit on 17 near a big barrel, but that quickly ended in private property.
The next exit was Black Rd., so I gave that a try. That turns out to be the normal road up to the cache. Oh well.
After an uneventful and quick find at Hairpin View, I started down the hill to get to this one.
I had printed out a map, but I forgot to bring it. This turned out to be a fateful mistake. A couple miles down I ran into a fork in the road. There was a sign that pointed to the left and said "Trail". They both seemed to run parallel and while my GPSr pointed slightly right, I decided to do what I never do, which is follow directions. This was the wrong time to change my strategy, even though lots of bikes were on the trail and they had to be coming from somewhere.
A mile later, I got concerned that I wasn't getting closer to the cache; in fact I was mostly getting further away. I concluded that I must have gone the wrong way at the fork and started back up.
At the fork, I went the "right" way and quickly made it to the cache, finding it easily. Nice cache and nice view. TNLNSL.
Now it was time to take the hike back at exactly noon, which was not in my plan. It wasn't oppressively hot out, but hot enough that I was quickly drenched in sweat. The trail was fairly easy except for one killer part between the fork and the top of the hill.
I survived, even though I put in an extra 2.5 miles and 800 feet of elevation change. That was a tough one. Thanks for the cache.
Posted by jeff at July 11, 2004 12:04 PM