Kettle Pond - Townes Forest Traditional Cache
New England Forestry Foundation: Discontinued maintenance of NEFF geocaches.
Kettle Pond - Townes Forest
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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The Cache:
BEAVER MEADOW
Parking Coordinates: N43.931617 W071.724367
Directions to the forest:
About one mile south of New Boston on Route 13 look for Lyndeborough Road. This four way intersection is marked by a small white church on the west side of Route 13 and the north side of the Lyndeborough Road. Go west on Lyndeborough Road about 2.8 miles to the intersection with the Francestown Turnpike, also known as the Second NH Turnpike. (These are colonial names, not modern divided highways!) Go south on the Francestown Turnpike toward Mont Vernon about 1 mile to "Frog Rock Road" on the left. This road is just past Hopkins Road on your right. Look closely for Frog Rock Road since it is somewhat overgrown and on a sharp curve of the Turnpike.
Once you're there:
Walk down Frog Rock Road for about ½ a mile, past the NEFF sign and campsite. Bear left onto the footpath, and walk to the west side of the pond.
About the forest:
In 1974, Dr. Charles and Mrs. Frances Hildreth Townes of Berkeley, California donated to NEFF the first of several parcels of old pastureland growing up to white pine. Over the years, Dr. Townes, a 1964 Nobel Prize physicist, and his wife have added to their original gift, and the forest now totals 543 acres.
The parcel includes a stretch of the South Branch of the Piscataquog River, used during spring runoff by white water canoe enthusiasts, and Frog Rock, 10 feet high -- giving its name to Frog Rock Road, an abandoned county road which runs through the property. Glacial boulders stand on exposed bedrock in an area affected by post World War II forest fires. Northwest of this unusual stone and across the old town road lies an enormous barn foundation belonging to the old Read Brothers place. This family owned much of the land in the area and was active in farming and logging. While doing timber stand improvement work on this forest a NEFCo forester found a twin black cherry stump cut at waist height and grooved vertically to serve as a makeshift vice to file crosscut saws. Nearby an old pint whiskey bottle lay next to a rotting 3+ foot pine stump. The bottle top was punched with holes and a small amount of kerosene remained in the bottle. A logger carried this in a back pocket and when the pitch started to build up on his two man crosscut saw he simply sprinkled the mix on the saw for lubrication.
The Townes Forest is an interesting place to study glacial geology. Near the northwest corner of the property lies a pond known locally as Colby Pond. It's a glacial kettle hole created when a large block of ice broke free of the retreating ice sheet and was later covered on all sides by outwash sands and gravels. This pond has no aboveground outlet, but drains below ground under the adjacent esker. The esker is a steep sided ridge formed when a tunnel within the ice sheet was filled with sand and gravel left behind by rushing meltwater. This esker runs thousands of feet to the west and east of the Townes Forest and is an important source of sand and gravel for the region. These features can be found by walking north from Frog Rock on the old town road. The pond is west of the road and the road cuts through the esker just south of Lord Brook.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Gur pnpur vf va n fgnaq bs orrpu, ovepu, naq urzybpx, ba n zbqrengryl fgrrc fybcr. Ybbx ng gur onfr bs n urzybpx gerr!