Geocachers are often accused of not seeing the forest for the trees. So often preoccupied with the details that we tend to miss the big picture. We pick and pry at all of the ferromagnetic surfaces of a park bench, but fail to appreciate the park itself. We are so consumed by the GPSr as we approach Ground Zero's 30-foot radius, that we fail to notice the 30-foot vertical drop just ahead. In a grove of mighty redwoods, we take not a step back to inhale the majestic energy, but a step forward to see if there are any tiny knotholes in the bark or suspicious little rocks among the roots. And so on.
This cache... will do nothing to change that. You'll need to look closer than ever before to unlock the location of the final container. If the subject is trees and forests, I have no choice but to take you to Inwood Hill, the last remaining expanse of primordial forest in Manhattan. There are other areas of dense trees on the island, but they are landscaped or otherwise manipulated by man (such as the North Woods in Central Park). Inwood Hill, in contrast, consists almost entirely of old-growth virgin forest. A handful of trees here were witnesses as British and American soldiers struggled over Fort Cockhill in the northwest corner of the park (the eventual loss of which helped lead to the Fall of Fort Washington the same day - please visit Alan2's delightful multi-cache 1776 Phase 8 Fall of Fort Washington (GC130MF) for more on this fascinating piece of New York history.) Inwood is the last living link to Manhattan as it was before European settlers began landing on her shores.
(Note: The following image is a bit larger than can fit on a cache page without fubaring everyone's default browser formatting, so it has been resized accordingly. If you would like to view a larger version, most browsers have an option to "View Image" or "Open Image"; if yours does not, feel free to download it for offline viewing. I'm happy to tell you that the image is safe, but it has not been checked by Groundspeak or by the Geocache Reviewer for possible malicious content.)
Book store gift cards in a Pelican container await the FTF ($50), 2TF ($25) and 3TF ($15). So do come, and enjoy this forest. But don't make the mistake of approaching it with too much perspective. Be a good geocacher and look closely. Really closely!
If you hunt this cache between June and September, flora may be an issue - please contact me for further details and for assistance!