Bear Den Potholes Traditional Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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The cache is a plastic ammo box hidden at the Bear's Den Natural Area in Gilsum. The parking lot is on the right heading up the hill on Route 10 toward Gilsum from Keene. The cache is located roughly 1,500 feet from the parking lot, and it can be easily reached by walking along the old logging road that starts from the back edge of the parking lot.
One of the interesting geological features of the Bear's Den Natural Area is the glacial potholes. According to geologists who have examined these potholes, two series of waterfalls filled with cutting silt from the melting surface of the glacier appear to have poured off the ledges, carving these potholes in the solid granite approximately ten to twenty-five thousand years ago. When these potholes were originally examined, several very large stones were imbedded at the bottom of the holes, and it is believed that those large stones may have originally helped to create the potholes. There are twenty-five of them, of which the larger ones range from eight to twelve feet in diameter, while the smaller ones, which are perfect in form, range from one to two feet in diameter, and from two to four feet in depth. The bases of the potholes are now filled with accumulated debris and muck. The potholes are located in groups with the largest of the three potholes grouped right next to each other, with several smaller ones nearby making eight in the first group. Nearby on the spur of the same hill is located a second group of four or five potholes of lesser size. Geologists believe that these potholes are probably the same in origin and formation as those of Lost River near North Woodstock, and the Pool and the Basin near the Flume in Franconia Notch in New Hampshire. The cache is hidden a short distance off the right-hand or south-side of the logging road and the potholes are on the left-hand or north-side of the logging road. The three largest potholes are easily viewed from the location of the cache by looking back (north) from the cache to the ledges directly across the logging road. Congratulations to Woodbadge Bear for the FTF!! We are pleased that Woodbadge Bear was the FTF because we are looking forward to finding several caches that Woodbadge Bear has recently placed in the Keene-area in some interesting locations.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ab uvag arrqrq