Dirty Harry Was a Bad Apple Traditional Cache

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Hidden : 6/17/2011
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
3 out of 5

Size: Size: micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

This cache is one of the Pomological Passion – The Seeds series. The idea is to take one of the seeds, a small ready to go cache, and place another apple themed cache somewhere else. Well, I carried it around for the last nine months and still haven’t found an apple tree where I could place it so instead I’m going tie it in another way.

Dirty Harry

This cache is about Dirty Harry, a man who has become a local legend by leaving his name and his physical mark all over this mountain. Although we tend to revere and glorify our legends, like we often do for pirates, outlaws and gun fighters, the reality is usually that they were not very good people at all. The same is true for Dirty Harry, a bad apple within the logging community and in the environmental sense. Probably as a person too. He was what is labeled as a gyppo logger:

“Operating on little capital, substandard equipment, and always on the brink of financial failure, gyppo loggers multiplied in the Pacific Northwest woods in the two decades following the end of the Second World War. Reckless and daring, working through subcontracts and opposed to labor unions and environmental regulations, gyppos were a throwback to entrepreneurs of an earlier time."
William G. Robbins, Oregon State University

“Not much is known [about Harry the man. We do know that] Dirty Harry was an independent logger who logged everything he could get his hands on and was known for an uncanny ability to build roads and get trees where no one else was able or willing to go. Dirty Harry remains something of a legend, and today all that remains are aging clearcuts, rumors, rusting trucks and his dying roads”
Karen Syke, special to the Post-Intelligencer.

Some of the ways Dirty Harry treated the land poorly include:
  • Building roads outside normal environmental constraints
  • Cutting down everything he could his hands on
  • Not replanting new trees for the next generation
  • Leaving his trash all over the mountain
The roads he built were incredibly steep and haphazard which were dangerous and scarred the land much more than was necessary. In the picture below some of Harry’s road system is highlighted in red and contrasted against a typical logging road system, located on the next ridge line, highlighted in green.

Harry’s Logging Roads Versus Traditional Logging Roads

satellite view of logging roads


Harry clear cut every inch of the land and didn’t bother to replant seedlings in consideration of future generations. Instead of a fast regrowing and healthy forest created by planting seedlings, the trees must instead naturally reseed in a much slower process that often creates tightly growing swaths of trees all competing against each other for sunlight and soil nutrients.

Harry left his trash all over the mountain and some pieces can be still seen from the trail. Below is a picture of a typical item located at the nearby trail junction.

A Piece of Harry’s Trash

A photo of a Piece of Harry’s Trash


The Cache

A small container that only holds a log sheet and a pencil. The coordinates should put you 30’ up Dirty Harry’s Trail past the junction to the trail that leads to Dirty Harry’s Balcony and about 10’ off the right (north) side of the trail.

More Information

Gyppo Logger
by by Margaret Elley Felt

Hike of the Week: Rugged and thick with the stuff of legends
by The Post-Intelligencer

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Additional Hints ()

[hint]: frrqf qba’g arprffnel nyjnlf tebj ba gur tebhaq [spoiler (sentence backwards)]: rreg erqyn xaheg rreug sb upgbep

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)

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