Since I got
trail maps on my GPS, I’ve found it exceedingly entertaining to
hike in the Pilchuck Tree Farm. I think having the trail maps
exhibits my exceptional good sense, and I think you should get them
for yourself by clicking
here.
Then every excursion into the farm will bring you extraordinary
happiness because you will always know how to get back out. You’ll
also know just how far you have to travel to reach a certain cache,
although the maps will not tell you if a trail is easy or like
this one hard to traverse.
Let me
explain the exceptional engineering that went into placing this
cache, very little of which I did myself. First off, there was this
stump. I don’t really know how the stump came to be a stump, but I
suspect a wind storm broke it off and knocked it down. It doesn’t
matter. The fallen part is gone, for whatever reason, and over time
the stump started to rot. Then, a new tree took root in the
decaying stump and grew to be strong and healthy. The old stump is
what we call a nurse stump. We also have another tree that took
root, but it fell over. So here we have a stump, a living tree, and
a fallen tree. There is also a trail, some low-growing shrubs and
ferns, all well within the GPSrs reading of GZ. And there is also a
teeny tiny extremely exasperatingly little micro,
somewhere.
For the
sake of the tree, which has its roots in a rotten stump, I request
that you look before touching. You do not, in any way, shape
or form, need to add to the natural deterioration of the forest by
disturbing anything, pulling up bark, ripping out moss, or
rearranging the detritus that the stump is becoming on its own
timeframe.
The cache
is a micro. And it is painted with camouflage paint.
It is, however, out in the open and not hidden. You may find this
excruciating and not find it at all, or you may find it exceedingly
quick. It doesn’t matter as long as you remember to look first, and
then when you find it, touch carefully.
Pain was their body's way of telling them that they'd pushed
themselves to their limits -- which was exactly where they were
supposed to be.
Richard Marcinko, American Business Author