An Eight $ Hike Traditional Geocache
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(regular)
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Highway 199 to Eight Dollar Road, paved all the way to the parking area.
It's less than a crow flying mile to the cache location from the parking area. It's a VERY EASY walk of about 1.3 miles from the cache to the car and only takes about 30 minutes. Read the previous sentence carefully. What goes down must first have gone up... Pick a clear day if possible because the views of our "backyard" are long and lovely. The mountains of the High Siskiyou Wilderness Area dominate the view to the south, and the Illinois River Valley nestles below.
The cache is located about a third of the way to end of the gated road you will be on. In other words, the cache site is at about the $2.00 or $3.00 point on the way to the end of the $8.00 full price hike. At about the $4.00 point, you get a good view into Selma and the lake. We HIGHLY (4000 feet elevation) recommend going to the end of the road on a nice day but bring water, snacks, time, and determination . If you hike to either the top of Eight Dollar Mountain, or to the Oregon Caves, from the valley floor, you will gain the same exact elevation, so the top of this mountain is a pretty good hoof up.
The mountain you are on is named Eight Dollar Mountain. Not because it only costs eight dollars to buy boots from China, but because in the 1800's, a lot of miners wore out their eight dollar boots hunting for minerals on this mountain.
Also, you will see a new trail (still under construction when we placed the cache) that leaves the road near the restrooms. It goes to a pretty nice darlingtonia bog and is only a few hundred yards. There are darlingtonia plants all over this mountain, along with an abundance of other unusual wildflowers. There are also acres of wild azaleas, and they have a long blooming season in the spring. Enjoy!
We started this cache with about $8 worth of goodies, a first finder's award, and Becky Bug.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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