[Az-Geocaching] Sunday Geocaching

[Scott Nicol]

What a day it was! I awoke at 4:00am for business (balloon flight). My crew 
cheif (and geocaching teammate), Brent, met me at my place at 5am and we 
headed out the door for a wonderful morning flight over the Gold Canyon 
area. We launched from our usual launch site out near El Camino Viejo Rd/Hwy 
60. As I was setting up the equiptment and was flipping my GPS on, I noticed 
the new Rennessiance Cache was only 527 feet away! Oh well. Cant go for it 
now. Even thought it was only 500 feet away! We took off (kinda hoping I 
could find a wind to take me to the cache site!) and headed away from the 
cache. Oh well. Get it another day!

Arrived home from the flight and got everything unloaded and we headed out 
the door caching at around 11:30am. We were planning on heading up to get 
the long standing 'not found' cache Verde Hot Springs Cache. This is really 
a day trip that we were going to do in a half day! We left at 11:30am and 
arrived at the turnoff from Hwy. 87 at around 1:30pm or so. The road in was 
awsome with some really spectacular scenery. The road follows the edge of a 
canyon wall and drops very steeply into the canyon. Then, at the bottom near 
Fossil Creek, it climbs once again and over another ridge before decending 
into the Verde River valley. We parked near the campground and made the one 
mile hike to the cache site. We got as close as about 100 feet before 
finding the Verde River seperating us and the cache! Well, the cache 
description states that you can cross where the river narrows and it is only 
knee deep. Well, we walked up and down the river a bit and couldnt find 
anywhere that looked any better. Did see a crossing with alot of rock and 
probably not more than getting wet knee deep, however, it was very swift 
flowing water. I stepped into it and could feel the current! So, we walked 
up river a bit and found a calmer area of water that wasnt too bad. It 
required crossing twice, as there was an island in the middle. No problem. 
The first crossing there was alot of small rocks, and didnt barely get knee 
deep. The second crossing... Well, fairly swift flowing water and soaked 
from our hips down! That is freakin' cold water too!!!!!!!! But, we were 
determined to get to that cache come 'hell or HIGH WATER!! :)

Once soaked and on the other side... we made the very short trek to the 
cache site. It is no fun hiking in soaking wet Wrangler jeans and sneakers! 
Fortunately, it was warm enough out that it wasnt too bad. However, the 
cache side of the river was all shadows now and it felt a bit cool out! It 
was around 2:30pm or later upon arrival at the cache location. We quickly 
found the '0' spot and made our search. Nothing. Not a whole lot of places 
to look. A couple really obvious spots. But, still no cache. One place that 
was really obvious was right near the trail, but, I suspect it may be gone. 
Also, right where the GPS '0'ed out, there was a rock slide. I also suspect 
the cache may be under all that rock! After searching well within a 100' 
radius of the 0 spot, still no dice. We even searched below and slightly 
above the ridge area we were on. Nothing. After nearly 2 hours of searching, 
we finally decided to take a stab at the rock slide and removed a good bit 
of rocks and still couldnt get to the bottom of it to see if a cache 
container was in there. The description doesnt even tell what kind of a 
cache container we were looking for. So, really didnt have a clue. Just 
searched.

After well over 2 hours, we called it quites. It was now nearly 5:00pm and 
we needed to be getting back as it would be getting dark soon. We made the 
short hike to the Hot Springs to check them out. Interesting. Lots of 
hippies and well... other people there. Kinda cool though. There are a 
couple of caves with springs in them. Neat little piece of AZ history. Didnt 
look like a place this redneck should be hanging around.. unless, we were to 
join them! Nope. This was a long ways to come without a find. So, we were 
gonna try to find another cache before heading home! This was a long day and 
a long ways to come to not make a find. We also had to make a 2 mile hike 
and cross hip deep in the cold Verde River, only to not make a find. Oh 
well. All was not lost. This was our first time in this very secluded and 
hidden spot of Arizona. An area we were very glad to have visited. Very 
scenic. Absolutely beautiful.

There is a new cache about 2 miles on the other side of the river, but, our 
vehicle probably wouldnt make it across the river.. didnt even try though 
and took the steep and rocky road back out to Hwy. 87 to Strawberry.

We made it back out to the highway well after dark and proceeded to the 
first cache along the way. There are about 5 or 6 caches along Hwy. 87 form 
Pine south to around Rye or so. We checked them all out. Most were a few 
tenths of a mile or more off the road and didnt sound like anything we could 
hike in the dark. It is pitch black dark in the pine forests at night! There 
were a couple of Multi-caches as well and didnt even consider them.

We first stopped at the Pioneer's Remembered Cache outside of Pine, AZ. We 
parked in a pull out along the highway about 295 feet from the cache. We 
made the very dark and very eerie trek down to the cache site. My teammate 
has a high powered flashlight that really aided in lighting the dark forest 
up at night. I was just amazed at how many stars were in the sky. The light 
pollution of PHX just doesnt allow for this kind of sky viewing. Very cool. 
We quickly arrived at the cache location and made a quick scan with the 
bright flashlight and found the clue and thus the cache. We logged in at 
7:42pm and made our trade and headed back to the truck. Fortunately, we 
marked the truck, as well as a spot half way, as a waypoint on our GPS just 
in case! Of course, the highway was right there and didnt even need the GPS 
to get back to the truck.

Headed to Payson for dinner at Macey's Grill/Restraunt. This is a really 
nice little cowboy cafe on the south side of Payson (really cute waitress 
too!). We downed some mighty fine BBQ burgers (read: some durn good 
vittles!) and headed back toward PHX.

We check out a few more caches along the way. Most seemed too far off the 
highway to attempt at night. Also, it was getting late and nearly 9:00pm. 
But, we pulled off the highway at the Trailhead for Deer Creek and decided 
to make a run at the Deer Creek cache. We have read many no find logs on 
this one and the thinking that this cache may be gone. However, as of 
late... there are several find logs, so, we felt confident we could get this 
one in the dark of night. Parked at the trailhead and hiked the .5 miles to 
the cache site via the trail. The high powered flashlight really lit up the 
trail and we were able to make out the trail rather easily. However, the 
flashlight's batteries were fading quickly and no more fresh ones to put in 
there! We posted the truck as a waypoint as well as the spot were we left 
the trail for the cache. We arrived at the cache location and found the 
cache very quickly after a quick scan with the flashlight (which was just 
about dead by now!). We found the cache and logged our visit and traded out 
a soldering tool kit for a .. wouldnt ya' know it (!)... a FLASHLIGHT! It 
was a small flashlight and not very bright... but, it was a flashlight! Just 
when we thought we were going to have to hike back in the dark. I cannot 
tell you how pitch black dark it was out there without a light. Seeing the 
trail would have been a chore in itself (probably not too bad on a moon lit 
night, but, no moon tonight!). It was so quite and peaceful out there and 
only the occasional sound of a passing car on the hwy about a .25 mile away 
or so.

Found the trail back and made it back to the truck. Lots of cactus along the 
route, but, no scratches! Came out unscathed. What an awsome caching 
experience. Certainly ups the degree of difficulty. I think we are hooked on 
night wilderness caches!

This was it for the night. We logged our visit at around 9:42pm or so and 
made it back to the truck around 10:00pm and was on the road for home.

We made one more stop on the way home... the Snow on the Highway cache. This 
was nearly impossible. We had only a cheap little flashlight that would only 
lite the ground directly in front of you. But, gave it a shot anyways. We 
had to look for an ADOT marker to start our search, as per the cache clues. 
We found it. However, walking a straight line on the heading indicated was 
impossible as it would take us thru trees and such. Also, we didnt have much 
of any light. So, if we were off with our paces and heading.. we would not 
be able to scan far enough around to have a good look at the cache. We 
quickly said "forget this one" and headed for home. Try that one again 
someday. Got home around midnight. What a long day. A fun day though. A 
beautiful morning ballooning and then off to do some caching. Great views of 
Arizona we had never seen before and.. what can I say.. nighttime caching in 
the wilderness is an awsome experience. Could this be the future of Extreme 
Geocaching!? :)

Although we didnt come up with a find on the Verde Hot Springs Cache.. it 
was a day well spent and enjoyed. We cant wait to get up to the high country 
and do some caching again sometime soon!

Scott
Team Ropingthewind







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