zuma! throws down a gauntlet!

[Trekkin and Birdin]

We’ve had printed out all the cache listings for his Chippewa Trail series.
We keep hoping the stars will line up so we can jump on the bikes and go for them. I just read his description for his revamped “Dead Oxbow Lake” cache. Da Bloodhound helped with the container. We’ve found a few of his, so we’re not scared!

However, here’s where the gauntlet has been thrown down. zuma! says that to date, Da Bloodhound is the only cacher to have found all of the caches in this series. Hmmm. Biking legs, are you ready?

Dang, just when another zuma!-related series is in our sights, a new one appears. Now I’m not sure if I should have left that special trade item in lagrac’s cache for you or not! 😉

[marc_54140]

One cache I know DaBloodhound ‘threw’ down was in a lake!

[Lostby7]

I have great biking legs…..can you point me to this series?

[Trekkin and Birdin]

Lostby, take a look at this map link.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/gmnearest.aspx?lat=44.654417&lon=-91.92965

All those caches in a line along the river are in the series. They all have names like “______ on the Chippewa River Trail.” I think there are something like 25+ in this series. We’re hoping we can do a fall color bike ride to get these in October. We were too focused on that other series of 50 in honor of zuma’s 39th birthday to do this series sooner. Interesting math, eh?

All depends on about a jillion other things falling into place, but sooner or later, we’re at ’em!

[Lostby7]

@Trekkin’ and Birdin’ wrote:

Lostby, take a look at this map link.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/gmnearest.aspx?lat=44.613983&lon=-91.115267

All those caches in a line along the river are in the series. They all have names like “______ on the Chippewa River Trail.” I think there are something like 25+ in this series. We’re hoping we can do a fall color bike ride to get these in October. We were too focused on that other series of 50 in honor of zuma’s 39th birthday to do this series sooner. Interesting math, eh?

All depends on about a jillion other things falling into place, but sooner or later, we’re at ’em!

I’ll take a peak at this. I have done several 100 mile bike rides…..

[Trekkin and Birdin]

I think this is maybe about a 25 mile bike trail. Easy-peasy for us, if we can work it out to get away. Have at it!

[Lostby7]

@Trekkin’ and Birdin’ wrote:

I think this is maybe about a 25 mile bike trail. Easy-peasy for us, if we can work it out to get away. Have at it!

Looks like double that as you don’t get to do it as the crow flies. Add up all the twists and turns and I’d place my money on about 40is miles.

[zuma]

Hi,

Didnt really mean to throw out a gauntlet. I just wanted to acknowledge that DB was the only cacher to get all the caches on the Chippewa River Trail

The trail is 30 miles long, starting at the trailhead in Phoenix park in downtown Eau Claire and going down to Durand. The Eau Claire end is paved, and the Durand end has just recently been paved. The middle portion is shale, and is a good riding surface.

If a person wanted to get all the caches in a single day the best place to park would be the Caryville parking area, which has flush toliets, and is about at the midpoint, so you could ride in either direction. Coords for the Caryville parking area are:

N 44° 45.096 W 091° 40.541

The trail is 30 miles long according to the trails website: http://chippewa-river-trail.com/index.html

(I though the trail was 33 miles long, but that is just from memory, so I guess I would trust the website as being more accurate.)

After reading this thread, I updated the bookmark for the caches along the trail and it is at:
http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=a86e39cd-79e9-4d36-8219-33695ac5955d

There are 52 caches along the trail, with about 40 of those ones that I put out. Most, but not all, are within 150 feet of the trail. Degree of difficulty varies a lot, as some are park and logs and some are a bit more difficult, either with a puzzle or with a least 1 climb up a steep hill along the trail. Many are ammo boxes, but there are a lot of orange matchstick containers as well.

Hope this info helps, and yeah, I feel like going and riding the trail now.

zuma

[Lostby7]

I will be picking up that Gauntlet (I mean Biking glove). I DO plan to hit this series. With luck I will find time (or make it) yet this fall. Next weekend I have a 65 mile ride in Lake Mills so it would be some time after that.

This is a very exciting trip. Thanks for setting up the bookmark Zuma! and for the email. This is on my must do list. One further question….is this possible to do (for the average person) in one day?

EDIT never mind I just did the math the ride would be about 3 hours each way and at 15 minutes per cache add another 13 hours…looks like at least two days.

[zuma]

@Lostby7 wrote:

I will be picking up that Gauntlet (I mean Biking glove). I DO plan to hit this series. With luck I will find time (or make it) yet this fall. Next weekend I have a 65 mile ride in Lake Mills so it would be some time after that.

This is a very exciting trip. Thanks for setting up the bookmark Zuma! and for the email. This is on my must do list. One further question….is this possible to do (for the average person) in one day?

EDIT never mind I just did the math the ride would be about 3 hours each way and at 15 minutes per cache add another 13 hours…looks like at least two days.

Hi LB7,

The ride itself could easily be done in a day, and if you only stopped for the easy to find caches you could get 35 or 40 in a single day. Better to do it in 2 days, which would make it possible to get em all, and leave a little time to get some of the caches on the Red Cedar Trail, which joins the Chippewa River Trail. The Red Cedar Trail is not paved, but has a good riding surface. The Red Cedar Trail is marginally more scenic than the Chippewa River Trail, but is much less cache dense, except at the northern end around Menomonie.

zuma

[Trekkin and Birdin]

That was what we were thinking too, Lostby. We figured we could maybe do one end, and yes, we’d thought about parking near Caryville, Ralph. I want to go to the creepy cemetery cache there, anyway! Maybe we can do one end this fall and save the other for the spring. Overnights are not an option for us at this point in our lives.

That many caches? What did I miss? I thought we’d printed them all and I haven’t counted since I did that, but I thought it was around 25-30 caches. Wow!

I’ve been trying to add more caches to our bike trail, but it has been challenging because there is still an active rail line adjacent to it. I’ve found two spots so far that have worked and hope to add a few more between Onalaska and Rockland by this spring. There are already a couple that were placed by other cachers, so I think all told, there are five so far, not counting a few more that aren’t too far from the trail itself.

[zuma]

@Trekkin’ and Birdin’ wrote:

That was what we were thinking too, Lostby. We figured we could maybe do one end, and yes, we’d thought about parking near Caryville, Ralph. I want to go to the creepy cemetery cache there, anyway! Maybe we can do one end this fall and save the other for the spring. Overnights are not an option for us at this point in our lives.

That many caches? What did I miss? I thought we’d printed them all and I haven’t counted since I did that, but I thought it was around 25-30 caches. Wow!

I’ve been trying to add more caches to our bike trail, but it has been challenging because there is still an active rail line adjacent to it. I’ve found two spots so far that have worked and hope to add a few more between Onalaska and Rockland by this spring. There are already a couple that were placed by other cachers, so I think all told, there are five so far, not counting a few more that aren’t too far from the trail itself.

In saying 52, I am counting the ones that other folks put out along the trail, and just not my CRT series. For mine, I tried to place them about a mile or so apart. The only area without caches on the trail is where the trail passes thru a SNA.

z

[Doc.]

The Chippewa River Trail series of caches by Zuma! is where I learned to cache. Da Bloodhound took me out, day after day, bike ride after bike ride, showing me the gamut of what a cache hide could be. I was overwhelmed and amazed! This “Zuma!” character was a God in our household! If a cache came out, we were on the road to be the FTF! Well, one year later, and DB has all of the series under his belt, I’m still working at it, mile or two at a time, when I’m in the area treating horses and Amish families. Right now, I’m kicking myself for not having/taking the time (while the killer nettle plants are planning their next attack) to finish the series. I have not ridden down the CRT in the height of Fall Colours, but, as anything else is, it would be SPECTACULAR! This is a lengthy series to maintain, so the sooner the better, before time, other caches and the DNR take their toll. This is a well thought out Masterpiece, courtesy of Zuma!, that is as fragile as the region’s ecosystem. TFTREALLYGREATSERIESOFCACHES, ZUMA! You rock!

[Author]

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