Geocaching - GC116 - "High Ridge"

We went geocaching on the Fourth of July. It was a bit of a mess, but it turned out fine in the end.

This was Pearl's first geocaching experience. I was proud of her; she was a real trooper, and seemed to really enjoy being outdoors. We were a little worried that her hurt toe might cause her some problems, but she seemed not to notice. Dogs are a lot tougher than people.

We selected a cache at the Emmenegger Nature Park close to our house. I'd been there before with Maggie, but Julie hadn't been before. It's not that great as far as park facilities go, but there are a lot of nice areas to walk around.

The park had the added flavor of people of a more earthy variety having Fourth of July picnics, playing some softball and listening to "Born In The U.S.A." blasting from some guy's van so loud that you could hear it throughout the park.

My preferred way to find a geocache is to locate it generally using an online mapping service like MapQuest or MapBlast!, then try to look at a map of the local park or area that it's in. I think it's a bad idea to just go tromping off into the woods following the GPS indicator, because that's an indication of where it is as the crow flies. I am not a crow; I'm a guy with a backpack and a couple of dogs. Part of the fun for me is plotting out the best way to get to the correct spot.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a map of Emmenegger anywhere. (Meaning, Google didn't help me find one.) So we went without a map.

We walked along the paved trail until we thought we saw a trail off into the woods. This turned out to be a dry creekbed, and I learned a good lesson in geocaching: It's impossible to get a good fix on a location when you're twisting and turning around following a dry creekbed. After a bit of slipping on muddy spots, running into spider webs with our faces, and generally getting confused and frustrated, we decided to backtrack and try another approach.

As we walked back, we noticed another "maybe that's a trail" point off the paved trail. Unfortunately, it was about a 45 degree incline. Julie volunteered to scout it out. When she returned, we decided that the top of the hill was where we were meant to be. I ran up there, then followed the real trail (finally!) back down to the paved area.

After that, it was a quick hike up the ridge and we were there. The best part is that Julie found the cache this time, not me. It's fun to be the one who finds the cache, and it's been me the previous times we've gone. I'm glad she was the big winner on this trip. How healthy of me.

It was a fun outing, but we could've done without the offroading. We'll try extra hard to survey the easy options next time. Better for nature, better for us.