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Yellow Birch Landing (Historical)- Now that’s the kind of thing I find interesting! Who used that spot as a landing and when? Will have to see if there is any information on this…
From reading the cache page I believe that that route is how this cache was hidden. It would surely be shorter and easier and from reading logs it seems that some folks are still taking that route. However I think that, upon closer inspection, there isn’t really public access from that point? But I don’t know, I just know I drove down the road and it looked like a bunch of private cottages and such. Others have come to the same conclusion and have accessed the cache from the longer Atkins road route. I have no plat book to work from. Timberline Echoes is from the area and they chose to access the cache from Atkins road- so after a quick look down Yellow Birch that’s where we made our attempt.
The road from the west doesn’t look like much of a road- probably an old logging road. I’m pretty sure it won’t be plowed- may be a snowmobile trail? In any case I think that as a winter access we can forget about that route.
Rsplash-
Yes, I agree taking that Y isn’t a bad idea. There is a minor swampy area that was a little difficult to get through. Although our track does follow some kind of a decent trail through it. The place to avoid is that arrowhead shaped swamp pointing southwest. It was a very pretty and unique area but I’m not going back.
Happen to remember what service gate? :>
The red track begins at the service gate mentioned. That’s where we parked.
The northern track is the “in”. You can see that when we entered the thick swamp we could have- and should have- come out shortly to some hardwoods before entering the more marsh-like swamp. But I turned us right, then you can see a little better angle that turns right again, and repeat. I do think the electronic compass needed to be calibrated also and we were traveling at a slow enough rate that my GPS would have switched over.
Finally I gave up the trekking poles and just followed the arrow- but by that time we’d spent better than an hour at .8 mph going through that thicket and we were wet and it was cold. We were looking at more thicket and decided to turn southwest and follow the hardwood ridge looking for a better entry to the next swamp. You can see a projected path where we did find a good entry. But, we were so tired and wet, and I had no idea if we’d be able to avoid the swamp on our way back to the car or how long it would take us that I decided to call it and work our way back. As it turned out we found a MUCH better route out and it wasn’t anything like the in.
So, we will be able to avoid the thicket by following the track out and then following the higher ridge through the swamp to the cache. It will still be challenging but not the killer hike of last year.
Sounds interesting and fun. Unfortunately we do not have snowshoes or the like to participate.
It has been my experience that this kind of problem can be solved by Christmas and a credit card. 😉
Otherwise, we may have some snowshoes we could lend out too.
If we are around when you guys do this we could meet you all for a celebratory dinner somewhere after… it is a great one.
Sounds like a great idea. Of course it would be easier to work out the timing if you folks just hiked along with us. 🙄 😯 😉
Nope, I would have had to have hit submit again.
When I’ve double posted it’s always been because I hit back on the browser after posting and it sent the message again. At least I think that’s what did it. I’ll try it right now…
If someone can host an image I’ll send them our embarrassing track log to post here (I have it as a jpg but don’t have any place to host it). We got into the thick swamp and I had my trekking poles to keep from tipping over- which prevented me from keeping the GPS out all the time. I just kept turning right over and over in the thicket discovering it every 20 minutes or so when I’d pull out the Garmin. It was strange and disorienting to pull out the GPS and see I’d done it AGAIN. I can see how folks who are lost end up going in circles.
Anyway, we can avoid the worst of the swamp- I know because I managed to find a better route on our way out (and I have the saved file so I can download it and follow it back- I can also share with anyone who plans on attempting this with us). We could have pushed through to the cache but it was getting later in the day and we were exhausted. It is very hard work to bust through snow that you’re sinking into up to your knees in most places even with snowshoes on. Add in tripping and falling because of unseen logs and branches under the snow and the disorienting feeling of turning away from the cache. I also had some health issues at the time that took a toll and those prevented me from going back last winter. My wife and I broke trail though that snow for almost two and a half miles as we didn’t return on our own tracks.
So, this one is on our list. We can try to work out a day that works for most folks too as we have the luxury of time off during that time frame.
Looking forward to getting back to this one!
I don’t think there is any access off Yellow Birch road. We drove up that road last year and it all looked like private property to me- no obvious access in any case. We’ll be coming in off Atkins road like we did last year. We’re just going to go around the tree tripping, wall of wood, keep turning right and never get out of thicket of *ell that we went through last year.
I also agree that the topo photo above is not the correct area. I know the area pretty well after my last trip there. 😳
I’ll see if I can find our track file from last year. It is a little amusing (now that we’re out of the swamp).
We have 6 pair of Northern Lites:
2 Quicksilver 25’s
3 Quicksilver 30’s
1 BackcountryThe 25’s are great for kids or hiking on a used trail but for breaking a trail like you do geocaching the Quicksilver 30’s are the way to go. That’s why we have 6 pair- the kids started with the 25’s but as they got older they needed more flotation for deep snow conditions. The Backcountry was only because there were no Quicksilver pairs available when we wanted to buy. It’s often difficult to get a pair of Northern Lite snowshoes.There is no reason to spend the additional money for the Backcountry- there is no functional difference between them and the Quicksilver.
We like ours but they are a little more pricey than the heavier shoes you can get at chain stores. And the prices are up quite a bit from when we bought ours. But, we like them and they have quite a few miles on them. The bindings are great- once they are on they never slip off or slide. No matter what shoe you get it sure is fun to hike around in the winter woods. Especially at night by headlamp.
Hmmm,
That just might work out. At 8:30 a doe and two fawns came in behind me, at 9:30 a spike buck angled around behind me, at 9:45 or so a four pointer came through in front of me at about 85 yards running a scrape line, and the 10 pointer showed up about a half hour later. Thinking about it, the next deer I see could well be a 12 point. 😉
Ah, if only it really worked like that…
Yup,
True story. Some years I’ve spent many, many enjoyable hours weekend after weekend being part of the woods with never getting a shot. Then yesterday, the first morning I’ve had time to go hunting this year, a 10 pointer just came along at 10:15- stopped in his tracks at my grunt, and I watched the arrow with its slight arc travel 26 yards to arrive at the exact spot I had placed the pin in the split second I had to make the shot.
That’s when, hunting alone, I realized I had a problem. I had a 10 pointer down in the farthest corner of our property. I thought about getting it out all by myself but quickly realized that would be extremely difficult with the terrain. Lucky for me there were a couple of Eagle Scouts sitting at my house an hour away! How great to see a truck coming down the narrow road through the pines an hour and half or so after the cell call! The phone-a-friend of bow hunting. 😀
The dictionary sitting next to me defines a “game” as “a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators.”
If everybody plays any way they want you don’t have a game at all. An activity maybe, but you don’t have a game.
It’s just sad to see this sort of thing because geocaching used to be such a neat way to spotlight those cool places on the planet- thin spaces where the past seems like it’s such a small touch away that your spine tingles, beautiful views, interesting geology, fascinating people, etc. Then some folks got confused and thought it was all about slapping stickers in the most plastic containers off the side of the road…
According to our math, that gives them about 3 minutes and 30 seconds per cache. That includes putting your sticker on the log, replacing the cache, and driving 528 feet to the next cache. That leaves very little time for searching for the cache- and they claim 24 dnfs that are not included in our time estimate. Any stop for gas, any cache that takes longer to find, and you have less time per cache. And, you have to keep that pace up for 24 hours including searching in the dark.
To do this without splitting up would be on the edge of possible- but I would think only with someone along who already knows where all the caches are. And then, are you geocaching or just putting stickers in logs?
Yes,
We ran into some of your logs too. We were camping at Bay Furnace and paddled the mile over to the light house caches only to see that the last folks there were you two! Too bad we didn’t know. We only did a few caches but had a great time exploring all the falls in the area.
08/07/2009 at 11:23 am in reply to: Be on the lookout for cache #5000 for Trekkin’ & Birdin’ #1911822Great cache for the milestone. Congratulations and glad to hear you enjoyed the adventure.
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