Dog Hair Black Light Traditional Cache
GeezerGriz: Hide area clearcut during forest maintenance. Putting it to bed.
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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A challenging micro hidden on the NW side of Mount Helena City Park.
Did you know that Ponderosa pine is the most widely distributed pine species in North America, ranging north-south from southern British Columbia to central Mexico and east-west from central Nebraska to the west coast? Interior ponderosa pine's general distribution is from the eastern slope of the northern Rocky Mountains in Montana east to central Nebraska and Kansas and south to eastern Nevada, western Texas, and Mexico. The distribution continues south from Texas into Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and San Luis Potos, Mexico. In central Montana the interior ponderosa pine type merges into plains grassland at lower elevations and limber pine at higher elevations. Limber pine, Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir, and Rocky Mountain juniper are common overstory associates. On the dry slopes of Mount Helena it supports an understory of plains grassland species such as big bluestem, little bluestem, and blue grama, and of mountain grassland species such as bluebunch wheatgrass and elk sedge.
Do you need to know the above facts to find this cache? Not really... but I thought you might find it interesting!
What you DO need to know is that this cache is connected to a feature of Ponderosa Pine ecology that will help you find the right location. When fire has passed through an area with Ponderosa Pine, you often find thick stands of smaller trees fighting each other for light and moisture with the more successful trees eventually choking out the competition. Not as thick as the stands associated with young lodgepole pines, these P-Pine stands still can be a fairly tight place to move around in. If you seek this cache you'll need to get to the center of a small patch of "dog's hair" ponderosa that protects it. It can get kind of dark in there even during the day. Once there, you'll need to look for a nontraditional container shape that is camoed - but in plain view from the right angle.
Access is from any direction. While there are no maintained trails in the area there are numerous old mining roads, game trails and social trails. The location of the hide is only about .1 mile (but it's pretty much all uphill) from the west end of Le Grande Cannon Blvd where there is a parking area and the road is closed to vehicle traffic.
Have fun and remember to practice best cache in trash out (CITO) practices.
You are looking for a container recycled from a non functioning piece of "swag" recovered from another cache recently. It only contains a log sheet so please bring your own writing stick with you.
Please be gentle with the container and make sure it screws back together properly. It will also help it stay hidden from muggles if you replace it the same way you found it. Thanks.
Congrats to dexteri on being FTF!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Abg ba gur tebhaq be va gur gerrgbcf.
Sbe zber vasb ba Cbaqrefbfn Cvarf frr: uggc://jjj.sf.srq.hf/qngnonfr/srvf/cynagf/gerr/cvacbaf/nyy.ugzy
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
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