Hiking

There are 5 geocaches inside the boundary of Hitchcock Woods and we had found only one of them so far. Today we thought we might try and get the remaining four. That goal took a severe hit when we couldn’t find the first one we came to – Cuthbert Cache. It is shown as a regular sized cache, meaning we were looking for something the size of a box of Kleenex at least, and the clue limited the search zone to between the trail and a stream, but we couldn’t find it. We moved on vowing to give it another shot on the way out of the woods.

Next objective was Hitchcock’s Mystery which was the one we were 1/4 mile away from once before, but it was 1/4 mile of swamp called Barton’s Pond. Ahhh, an ammo can, we are good with these and because the bushes are still somewhat barren of leaves this was a halfway easy spot for Donna. We left behind the small rubber chicken travel bug we found in yesterday’s Graniteville cache and took out a Blue’s Clues coin purse.

From here we headed over to The Cliffs of Cache.* But now that we were, where we were, getting there, was going to be a long walk because of that pesky Barton Pond again. This time we had already decided to make the long walk, so off we went. We came at this cache from the correct direction according to the clue given, but couldn’t find it. We then figured that when it said approach from the left, they must have meant our other “left”, so we tried from the other side of the cliffs. Followed the GPS to right back where we were the first time and found the cache. TNLNSL.

*This cache was made famous when 2 college kids from USCA were hunting for it one day several years back. They found bones of a body instead. A mystery was solved that day and a family now knows answers.

Next up furtim unus meaning “The Stealthy One.” This one was different from all the others in the woods because it was off the trail a bit, about 100′ into an area that was sparsely treed with pines. We almost gave up on this one, but I spotted after walking in a big circle and getting a different angle on it. This one had another travel bug in it, a green beanie baby bear, so we took it and left behind that coin purse from 2 caches back.

That left our one miss of the day for the walk out. We came at it coming from the opposite direction and the GPS said I was right on it again, but I was 40 feet further up the trail this time. The find zone was even slightly narrower, because the trail and the stream were closer together, but it didn’t help, we came away empty handed. Maybe next time.

According to the GPS that green loop you see above is 6.1 miles long and we spent a little over three hours in the woods. Partly because we were in there so long and partly because it was a glorious spring day we crossed paths with the most people ever, 20 or so horseback riders and and a little more than half that many people walking their dogs.

We went for a walk in Hitchcock Wodds today, not just any walk either, it was our inaugural attempt at geocaching. I had loaded about 7 geocaches into the GPS, but we printed out the instructions for one that was accessible from a road that took us to a woods entrance for start. I started down Coker Springs road, even after it turned to dirt (well, actually mud with yesterday’s rain), but stopped a hundred yards down when I came to a berm across the road that looked high enough to strand a Miata. So I backed up the hill to pavement and parked.

We walked back down the road with the GPS in hand and it led us right to the Coker Spring House. We were right there, but after 5 minutes of fruitless searching, we were close, the GPS was reading under 10 feet away at times. I talked Donna into stop looking, go for a walk in the woods and try again on the way out because we had to pass right by there.

About a half mile into the woods I looked at the GPS for the next closest cache and it showed one about a half mile away, but the direction it was in was straight down a trail that had become a shallow stream because of the rain. Next closest was .9 miles away, so we opted to try and find that instead. Trying to follow the directional arrow on the GPS and stay on a trail that took us in the right direction was interesting. When we got within a 1/4 mile we realized that the cache was on the other side of a swamp area and the only way to get to it to go in 3/4 mile circle around the wetland. Close, but because we had already gone almost 2 miles, with about a mile to go to get back to the car, we decided to save that one for another day.

On the way back we took a slight detour to try and find the second cache because we were coming from a drier direction. Until we got close. A short squishy walk on Sand River and the GPS pointer locked hard left – up a 15′ cliff like bank. Retreat down river and then a short walk along the trail (current stream) led to a trail that took us to where the cache should be. With the GPS reading distances in the single digits we milled about for awhile and I lobbied for moving on, Donna would have nothing of it. And it was as if she knew she was that close, because less than a half minute later she shouted, “I got it.”

Fresh from our success we tried for the Coker Springs cache again and another 5-10 minutes of beating bushes resulted in a no find again.