Geocaching Leather-man

With the approach of hunting season we decided to finish up our goal of 100 cache finds for the 2006 year this past weekend.

Rather than go into a blow by blow description of each of the finds I thought about listing my choices for the top 5 out of 100 finds for the year. These are the most memorable caches for me and the reasons why.

1. Number 1 on this list has to be The Spot GC39, the main reason is that it’s the oldest surviving cache East of the Mississippi. The hike was an old style hike, which means, if you want the find you are going to have to work for it. The greatest part of this cache was being followed down the trail, on the way out, by an eagle.
2. My second most favorite was Above Ground Railroad GCQEEF, there were 2 directions that you could approach this cache and I chose the one which required crossing an old and abandoned railroad tressel, scored a big point with that and then the hide was in plain site and it took some time to spot it.
3. High Tor Rabbit Trial GC11A8, another old cache placed in the old style which required lots of hiking. Bob Bowter has a bit of a wicked mind when it comes to his hides and this one is placed in the middle of a berry thicket. Very tough to get to and the last 50 feet can be painful, I loved it.
4. Canadice II GCC18, another of the older hides and another evil one by Bob Bowter. What made this one tough was the last 3/4 of a mile had to be done by bushwhacking up a very, very steep grade. It was the hardest hike in the first 100 finds, bar none.
5. Doin it Italian Style GC1F5A, I cant list my top choices without including this one. The reason I remember it over so many others was the location. It was placed about 1/4 of a mile off a circular trail and we hiked most of that trail before realizing what was going on and just broke into bushwhack mode to find the container. It was a good thing I marked the location of the car on the way in because we were so turned around up there it could have taken hours of hiking to even find the trail again.

Those top five will probably stick in my mind for awhile. We may have met our 100 goal, but we are not done for the year, heck, there’s 3 months left to hunt caches and I’m sure we will grab a few more before the year is over.