Cove Mountain "Lights-in-the-Night" Night-Cache Traditional Geocache
OReviewer: This cache has been disabled for an excessive amount of time with no updates from the owner. As such, I'm archiving it to keep it from continually showing up in search lists, and to prevent it from blocking other cache placements. If you wish to repair/replace the cache sometime in the future, just contact us, and assuming it meets the guidelines, we'll be happy to unarchive it.
Cove Mountain "Lights-in-the-Night" Night-Cache
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A few days after I placed my first geocache (Cove Mountain Twenty-Dollar Cache), a friend at work learned of it and told me about reports of strange lights in the Cove when she was dating a fellow who lived in that area. Her boyfriend not only told her of the lights, he even showed them to her. She says she is unable to explain them as anything other than the lights of a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object). This geocache is a special challenge cache dedicated to those sightings.
This cache is a bit non-traditional. It has been set up to be visited at night. Now that's a bit of a challenge given that it lies some four miles (one-way distance) from the parking lots at either end of this Appalachian Trail segment.
If you want to come in from the Duncannon end (from the north), we recommend you do the climb to the top of the mountain in daylight and good weather given the steep and narrow trail out of Duncannon and past Hawk Rock. Parking for this approach is at N40 22.977, W077 01.969, back Little Boston Street. Follow the trail uphill to its intersection with the Appalachian Trail. Stay RIGHT at the intersection to join the AT southbound.
The other possible approach (also four miles one-way to the cache) starts at the Appalachian Trail parking lot along State Route 850, about 8 and 1/2 miles west of Marysville, PA. Look for the wooden Appalachian Trail crossing sign on the left side of the road (coming from Marysville). A stone parking lot is just beyond on the left. This approach is probably the better of the two if you are coming in after dark or returning to your vehicle in the dark.
It is quite possible to do this cache in combination with other geocaches. See other caches in this area using zip code 17020.
ON TO THE CACHE. The GPS coordinates at the top of this page are NOT the coordinates of the geocache. They are coordinates of a place on the Appalachian Trail from which you must use your flashlight or headlamp to find the cache. The path is shown by the type of reflective markers used by hunters to find their blinds or treestands in the dark.
If you are arriving before dark, please stay well north of the waypoint until it's time to search for the cache. Halfway Rock is a largish rock outcropping which crosses the trail some 10 to 15 yards north (trail-north) of the waypoint and can serve as a boundary to your wandering- around-waiting-for-dark activities. It is a single very large piece of rock forming the trailbed which angles oddly and causes you to pause a few seconds to decide how to cross it or go around it.
Once darkness descends, go to the waypoint, then head southbound on the AT to the intersection of the blue-blaze trail. Then, without leaving the trail, begin looking carefully around you for the first reflective marker. (Hint: the reflectors are the same color as the TRAIL BLAZES). Follow the somewhat-confusing trail of markers until a turn is indicated. A set of three markers in a row (side-by-side at the same spot) indicates end-of-trail; the cache is nearby.
Please note: The next marker is not always easily visible from the previous but should be somewhere ahead of you unless a turn or end-of-trail was indicated.
While at the cache at night, please also take time to look along a bearing of approximately 110 degrees magnetic and see if you can see strange lights which look like they are coming toward you. We were convinced someone was coming through the woods from that direction with a headlamp or flashlight. The effect was so strong that we turned off our headlamps and whispered between ourselves about whether we should reveal ourselves or just hope he/she/they would pass us by. But after a few minutes we realized that he/she/they never came closer despite the obvious movement toward us. Odd. Very odd.
Also- my friend at work described the UFO lights as follows: From her vantage point at her boyfriends house down in the cove, the lights came low along the mountaintop from a northwestern to a southwestern direction, following the ridge of the mountain. At first they thought they were helicopters but the lights moved too erractically, then made an impossibly-fast move from left to right that no helicoper could make-- and then disappeared.
Given these directions, that's right over the AT from about the location of the shelter and south to the powerline cut.
Enjoy.
PS- I'm told that chances for a UFO sighting are much higher between midnight and dawn. I don't know if that's true or not.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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