Cougar, McKitten’s
favor little buddy, thought it was high time that a cache dedicated
to his favorite suburban green space be put out for the community.
However, this cache is no ordinary cache, this cache attempts to
outline some rules/guidelines for visiting and caching in King
County’s crown jewel of parks.
First, a quick history
about the park. King County took over the land in the late
60’s after the US Army decommissioned Nike Missile site at
what is now known as Anti Aircraft Peak. King County officially
preserved the area as a regional park in June 1983. The first land
acquisition occurred in January 1985. Generally, the parks
elevation sits between 1000 and 1595 feet above sea level. Over the
years, the park has grown, piecemeal to 3115 acres and in doing so
has become the largest urban wildland in the United States. Between
Cougar and nearby Squak Mountain, the combined parks have almost
5000 acres of public green space to enjoy.
Ok, down to business. Heres
some guidelines you should follow while visiting the Cougar
Mountain Regional Wildland Park:
1) Your paws should never stray more than a couple of feet
off of the established trails in the park. The parks long history
of coal mining means that there are mine shafts about, some of
which the location is not known.
2) All caches within the park’s
boundaries SHOULD BE WITHIN A COUPLE OF STEPS OFF ESTABLISHED
TRAILS. CACHERS NEED NOT TRAMPLE FOILAGE TO FIND
CACHES!
3) The parks hours of
operation are from 8 AM to dusk. NO NIGHT CACHING IN
COUGAR!
4) This last
rule really applies to Geocaching in general and not just to Cougar
Mountain. Cache In, Trash Out, and minimize your impact in the park
(fluff foliage after finding a
cache).
Now for the cache.This cache
should be fairly easy to find, especially given some of the
guidelines noted above. Caches on Cougar should be more physically
challenging than mentally challenging given “foot or
two” off the trail requirement. This cache follows that
guideline. The container is a plastic jar. This would hold some
small TBs and coins.
CONGRATS TO TOBIAS AND
PETRONELLA FOR THE FTF!!!
