This Tarn Trail! Traditional Cache
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Cache is located just off a popular public hiking trail on the way to a beautiful cirque lake in the Ruby Mountains. Location is close to the lower part of the trail so it does not require a long hike or much elevation gain, but as long as you got this far, you might as well continue on for some beautiful views of scenery and glacial features.
Cache is a standard ammo can that originally contained geology-themed items (mineral samples, stickers, pencils) but you need not to stick to the theme with trade items. Cache is hidden by rocks but not difficult to find. Visit the related website to find out more about the geology of the area. An EarthCache has also been placed above this for the geological features along this trail.
The Ruby Mountains were sculpted by glaciers during the Pleistocene Epoch (from 1.8 million to 10,000
years ago). Although little permanent ice remains now in the Ruby Mountains, only in high areas
protected from the sun, there is abundant evidence for large Pleistocene glaciers. Glacial features
include:
• Smooth canyon walls polished by rocks trapped in the ice as it flowed down the canyons)
• Moraines (mounds and ridges of unsorted blocks of boulders, cobbles, sand, and silt
transported and left behind by the glaciers)
• Classic glacial topographic features:
o U shapes of Lamoille Canyon and several tributary valleys (carved by the glaciers as
the slowly flowed down the valleys),
o Cirques (high walls at the heads of the glaciers),
o Arêtes (ridges carved by the glaciers with cirques on either side),
o Horns (sharp peaks left behind where three or more glaciers cut into the mountain),
and
o Cirque lakes (for example, Island Lake).
o Lateral moraines from tributary glaciers are well exposed in a few places; they appear
to have partially blocked the main Lamoille Canyon at the Right Fork of Lamoille
Creek (east of the overlook down onto Camp Lamoille) and at Thomas Canyon (also
on the east side of the tributary canyon).
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Pnvea lbh svaq vg abj?
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
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