Black Springs Nature Trail Mystery Cache
Black Springs Nature Trail
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The coordinates listed at the top of the page are NOT the coordinates where the cache is placed. The coordinates are for the beginning of an interpretive trail.
In order to find this cache, you are invited to walk the interpretive trail at this location. This trail was placed as the result of a service learning project by students of Calaveras County.
The path is an easy loop trail. To find the answers which will provide the final location of the cache, you will need to bear to the RIGHT of the loop trail. There are 12 plaques placed along the trail.
You are looking for the following coordinates:
N38 AB.CDE
W120 FG.HIJ
The First Plaque: WHITE FIR
The tree you are looking at is approximately (A)50 years old.
The Second Plaque: BLACK OAK
The acorn takes (B) years to mature.
The Third Plaque:
The number of letters in the title of this plaque has (C) number of letters.
The Fourth Placque: TIMBER HARVEST
No numbers taken from this plaque
The Fifth Plaque: WILDLIFE TREE
The number of words in the name of the hawk that's pictured on the plaque = (D) Don't count the word "hawk".
The Sixth Plaque: The ROLE OF FIRE
The mixed conifer forest you are standing in had a fire burn through every (E)0 years on the average.
The Seventh Plaque: FOREST SOILS
Nature produces soil at a rate of only 3/10 inch per (F)hundred years in this area...
The Eighth Plaque: FOREST HISTORY
The number of times the phrase "Native Americans" appears on the plaque = (G)
The Ninth Plaque: INCENSE CEDAR
Incense cedars can live for (H)hundred years or longer.
The Tenth Plaque: JEFFREY PINE
At this plaque the tree you are looking at was (I)90 years old in 1991.
The Eleventh Plaque: DECOMPOSITION
No numbers taken from this plaque
The Twelfth Plaque: SUGAR PINE
In the Sierra Nevada, Sugar Pine will grow between 2000 and 7(J)00 feet.
Now go find the cache!!!
Please replace the cache exactly as you found it. There will be school groups coming to visit this trail and there's a chance this cache could be muggled.
If you look at the meadow across the street from where you parked, there is a wooden fence. Right by the wooden fence and on the big rock in the middle of the meadow are Mi Wuk grinding stones. The Mi Wuk spent their summers up here and moved to lower elevations in the winter.
Note: This cache might not be accessible in the winter. I doubt this trail is cleared of snow and the markers might be buried as well as the cache container.
Congratulations to SonoraZark for the FTF!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Purpxfhz sbe Yngvghqr pbbeqvangrf = 14
Purpxfhz sbe Ybatvghqr pbbeqvangrf = 17
Pnpur vf abg va gur Cevpxyl ohfurf.
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
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