Old Whitetop Road at Iron Mountain Traditional Cache
Old Whitetop Road at Iron Mountain
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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This cache is hidden along the roadbed of the OLD Whitetop Road.
This section of the old road is now part of the Iron Mountain
Trail. The hide is a very short walk from the parking lot at the
overlook, which is open daily from 6am to 10pm.
This is the original Whitetop Road. The old roadbed continues
uphill past the cache site for about a mile before crossing the
current Whitetop Road again at Skulls Gap.
My father-in-law, "JJR," was born and grew up in a little farmhouse
just a few miles from here. He has told us many interesting stories
about this rocky old road and the surrounding area. When he was a
boy, and long before the nice paved highway was built, this
difficult route was the only access over Iron Mountain between
Chilhowie and Konnarock. He says his earliest memories of this road
are from the 1930s when he made trips through here with his family,
riding in the rumble seat of a 1929 A-model Ford – and mostly
remembers being afraid of falling off the mountain! The going was
very slow in those days, and you had to "hold your breath" when
passing someone going the other way. He later came this way in a
1947 Ford which his father bought new ... and he now owns.
Local cattle owners would drive their herds over the mountain via
this road, leaving them in pastures at higher elevations to graze
for the summer.
This part of the Iron Mountain ridge was named "Skulls Gap" because
human skulls and such were sometimes found up here during the early
part of the 20th century, most likely the remains of folks who had
run afoul of local moonshiners.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Va gur zbffl onax, ng gur onfr bs n fznyy gerr.