Big Friendly Giant Traditional Geocache
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(regular)
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A quick and easy cache in the Prospect Hill Wildlife Sanctuary to show you a BFG (Big Friendly Giant).
Prospect Hill is said to have been visited by both H.D. Thoreau and Edgar Allen Poe to take advantage of the views from its top, as it is the highest point in Northern Middlesex County. This sanctuary also boasts a BFG disguised as the State Champion Shagbark Hickory tree, a tremendous specimen that is easily 4 feet in diameter. In the fall, the ground is littered with discarded shells from all the animals feasting on the Hickory Nuts. You are looking for a plastic container hidden close to the BFG. After you find the cache, you can continue on to hike the rest of the loop trail.
The trailhead is on Hildreth Street. Park at N 42° 34.523 W 071° 26.373, near the small traffic island on Wright Lane, across from the trailhead. Look for the "Salt Box Farm" sign.
A green gate indicates the trail entrance. Walking through the gate and going to the left, you will be following an old cart path marked with yellow blazes. The path crosses a small brook on an earthen bridge. This part of the forest is darkly shaded by Norway Spruce. These trees are all the same age and were planted soon after the 1938 hurricane.
Continuing on the cart path, the trail rises and curves to the right. Although the summit is now wooded, “one hundred and fifty years ago, standing on this height, we probably could have seen the church spires of Concord". From "Walking Towards Walden" by John Hanson Mitchell.
After reaching the uppermost point on the cart path, there is a smaller trail leading directly down the hill, which is very steep. Reaching the bottom, you will be near a cornfield and walking among some interesting old stone structures before coming to the green gate. According to John Hanson Mitchell, these are “part of a waterworks that once supplied the town of Westford and was abandoned sometime in the 1950s.” The entire loop can be hiked in less than a half hour.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
OST qrnq jbbq