This cache has been placed in tribute to starnsun and OneKindWord, as a modest means of showing appreciation for their conceiving and placing the sequence of 170 caches in the “PNG Tour” and “Views of the Grasslands” series. Their caching adventure has already attracted a significant number of geocache seekers to the grasslands, pulling them from a broad area. For many of these cachers, the geographic breadth of this cache sequence has introduced them to the Pawnee National Grasslands and adjacent private lands for the first time. It has taken them along a route that illustrates some of the remarkable changes that are suddenly impacting this area: the explosive onset of oil and gas drilling and production; construction of huge wind turbine “farms”; and the related surges in truck traffic on the area’s roads.
Thanks, OneKindWord and starnsun, for planning and maintaining this sequence of caches; in addition to giving us a caching “high,” they have an interesting educational side benefit.
Many of my caches are placed on “Ranked Peaks.” A Ranked Peak is one that rises at least 300 feet from the highest saddle that connects it to a higher peak. That is, a Ranked Peak has a “prominence” of 300 or more feet. There have been 4,364 Ranked Peaks identified within Colorado’s boundaries, but only one of these occurs in the State’s third-largest county, Weld County! By contrast, Weld’s smaller neighbor, Larimer County, contains 256 Ranked Peaks, a dramatic difference in terrain between adjacent counties!
Weld’s one-n-only Ranked Peak is identified on the U.S.G.S. 7.5-minute quadrangle as “Point 5575.” This “peak” has an elevation of 5,575 feet above MSL. Only 21 Ranked Peaks in Colorado are lower than this mighty summit. Point 5575 is located on the Chalk Bluffs, northeast of Grover and southeast of Hereford. Cachers making the PNG Tour and Views of the Grasslands loop pass less than 7 miles west of Point 5575. The ”peak” is surrounded by the wind turbines that dominate the eastern skyline along the bluff’s rim, as viewed from the caching loop.
With my theme of placing caches at or very close to the actual summits of Colorado’s Ranked Peaks, it was clearly my intent to do so in this instance, too. I approached Point 5575 from the east, but as I went west I discovered several tightly closed ranch gates. So I parked along the county road almost directly east of the point and hiked about 1.3 mile (each way) to the high point. A communication tower is very near the highest elevation, and is clearly visible from where I parked. Although none of the parcels I hiked across was “posted,” this clearly was not public land. So my plan to place this tribute cache near the highest elevation was abandoned.
Instead, “Weld’s One-n-Only” was positioned on the peak’s gently rising slope along the road where I parked, 1.18 mile from the true “summit.” So this one is at the “gateway” to a Ranked Peak, rather than at its top. The cache is an uncamoed film canister, in keeping with the "canister theme” of the cache tour. Similarly, the cache’s proximity to the road matches the tour’s theme, rather than adhering to my cache placement signature!
So break away from the caching loop to see another dimension of Weld County–its one-n-only Ranked Peak surrounded by huge wind turbines and winter wheat fields.
Now, let’s play with words in “One-n-Only”:
One-n-Only – Weld County's one-n-only Ranked Peak
One-n-Only – OneKindWord
One-n-Only – Starnsun
One-n-Only – The Only Denali41 cache having a low Difficulty/Terrain rating (1.5/1.5), but this rating is consistent with the ratings of the tour's caches
One-n-Only – The Only uncamofluaged film canister that Denali41 ever expects to hide, but this cache container is consistent with the tour's caches
One-n-Only – The Only Cache-n-dash hide that Denali41 ever expects to make, but this caching experience is consistent with other caches in the tour
Have fun experiencing the Chalk Bluffs. And when you find this cache, make a personal tribute to starnsun and OneKindWord, for what they’ve done for you!