Take Me Home - Please!! is a continuation of your off trail hike through the more remote parts of French Creek State Park. Although they can be done in two trips, doing "Red" and "Home" separately will add over 2 miles to your walk. The terrain for this cache is listed at the same level as Cliff Notes - Red, (see "Related Web Page" above), but that is because the total straight line distance is a bit higher. (about 3 miles or 4.9 K) The optimal route is less gnarly than Cliff Notes - Red. Use of a good map will make your day more pleasant, but it certainly can be done straight line point to point if you desire. Along the way you will come close to and perhaps recognize lots of old charcoal burning terraces and perhaps some circular ditches that are the remains of the colliers log and mud shelters. There are also the traces of old wagon roads from the days when this woods provided the charcoal fuel to make the iron at Hopewell Furnace. Many of the established trails also follow these 200 year old tracks.
So to get started..... From the final stage of Cliff Notes Red, take a careful compass bearing of 279 degrees from magnetic north for 180 meters. (Do not adjust for declination, and if you hit the swamp try again) There you should be within a few feet of an old and somewhat overgrown charcoal terrace in a small reentrant ("gully" in non Orienteering terms) . You need to find a small wooden plaque at or slightly above eye level with the coordinates for stage 2. If you find the charcoal terrace first, look directly down the reentrant. The plaque will be facing you. It faces northwest so looking south east will make it easier to spot
All the following stages are 2"x 3" camouflaged pill bottles which are wired into place to prevent small critters from making off with them. The final is a regular sized container from my dwindling stock of mayonnaise jugs.
If you do both caches you've done the equivalent of a "Red" Orienteering Course designed to keep a good middle aged runner busy for about 70-90 minutes. The "Take Me Home" part is about equal to a "Brown" course designed to keep us old guys busy for about an hour. Of course looking for a foot square of orange and white cloth hanging in the woods isn't quite the same as finding a pill jar hidden in a hollow log... but carrying a GPS in a competitive Orienteering race is illegal, so it may come out about equal in time. If you are one of the 10 current finders of Cliff Notes - Red, and have not saved the final coordinates, email me and I'll help you out. 