Two places stood out on the map that I most wanted to explore.
One was the end of Brushy Creek, and the other was where Long
Canyon meets the reservoir. It is indeed a LONG canyon, as we
discovered later that afternoon while driving along Forebay Road.
The end of the canyon also forms a pretty cove which tucks into the
south wall of the reservoir.
You could conceivably hike down Long Canyon to the cache, but it
would be a long round trip bushwhack, at least six-tenths of a mile
one way. Or, you can enjoy a nice paddle from the reservoir's boat
ramp and view some historical logging industry sights on the
way.
Between Scoobert's
Belo Poho and
Cable Point Crux caches is a logging flume used to send tree
trunks from the top of the hill to Slab Creek. With a roughly 1,000
foot vertical drop, the descending trees made an enormous sound as
they sped down the flume.
Just past Belo Poho, we discovered an old path descending to the
water's edge. We believe this is the remnant of the path that used
to cross the creek and connect to a small station house on the
southern side, built near the turn of the century. You can see the
path continue on the south shore, although it's overgrown and
harder to notice. We also found the remnants of the lumber cable
system that replaced the flume in the early 1900s. Pieces of the
cable carriage and broken cables lie on the southern shoreline,
where they fell during a 1949 fire that destroyed the cable
system.
Who knew that you could learn so much of our local history while
caching? Everything I've found and learned about our logging past
has been related to finding caches.
The cache is a cammoed, rectangular "lock-n-lock" container. If
you boat in, you can land on a small ledge just below the
cache.