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Trueblood Rocks Mystery Cache

This cache has been archived.

btrueblood: I'm glad those who came to find this cache did so with a spirit of adventure, as that was the reason for placing it. Sadly, in 9 years, about 1 cacher per year made the effort...and the container, along with several others, deteriorated in the meantime. Not what was intended at all. Made the trip out in less than ideal conditions (torrential rain, thunder and lightning, hail, grappel, and a snowstorm...with occasional blue sky and sunshine - welcome to spring in the Cascades!). The "road" to the cache is overgrown, as others have noted, and a bit more difficult to traverse than it was before due to more rockslides and thicker thickets...but it was still doable, for a 58+ yr old out-of-shape engineer. Got some photos of the snowy peaks to the south, and a few other places on the way, then one more photo of the snowstorm that drove me back down the hill.

Should also like to take a moment to sneer at the auto-bot that shuts caches down in these remote locations, irritating at best. If nobody comes out in over a year, what is the hurry to close the cache? If cachers would like to see these caches stay put, try fixing the problems you noted, or if not possible, try directly messaging the owner. "Maintenance required" posts just attract the auto-bot and get the cache auto-archived. Then again, if that is what you want, go for it. But it makes a cache owner grumpy, and then he comes 9 miles out into the woods to shut down the nonsense...which is what my opinion of the game now is. Peace out.

More
Hidden : 7/22/2012
Difficulty:
2.5 out of 5
Terrain:
4 out of 5

Size: Size:   regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

The cache is not located at the posted coordinates, follow the instructions below to locate this cache.

Come on out for the view, for the rocks, for the geology lesson, for the excersize, or just to get some more numbers for your profile.

Large-ish lock-n-lock container, with some cut and polished geodes and some laser-etched onyx tiles (my rocks) in it, along with a some other decent swag. Also located on a large hummock that, what the heck, nobody else has named. ;)

FWIW, none of the included rocks in the cache come from anywhere nearby. The geodes were collected in SE Oregon, and the onyx came from Home Depot (via Mexico, probably). Yes, packing them all the way up here was a chore.

This particular cache is a bit trickier than the others along this trail, in terms of terrain. The trail from the waypoint below, as of the date of posting, is getting a bit overgrown in spots (some would call it a bushwhack, but its not that bad to a real bushwhacker, more of a bush-push), and also has areas with heavy rockfall, other steep-ish areas with eroded footing, and uncertain footing (crumbly rock) near steep drop-offs. I ditched the two wheeler at the last waypoint and made my way on foot, but then I'm no Moun10Biker. Oh, and the terrain rating assumes you aren't so foolish as to follow the GPSr arrow blindly...

Kudos to Runhills for the linked cache concept, LightningJeff for his caches out here that introduced me to the area, and Grievous Angel and the Woods Creek Posse who showed that power trails can be fun for hiders and finders both.

To find this cache, you first need to find GC3HBG1

And copy down the coordinates you find in the back of that cache's logbook.

From up here, even with a summer storm rolling in from the east, I could still make out the towers of Seattle and Bellevue in the hazy western distance, Mts. Si, Tiger, Cougar, and Rattlesnake ridge off to the south, and the ramparts of the upper reaches of the south Fork of the Tolt River watershed wending back towards the spine of the Cascades to the east. Back where the trail reaches its easternmost point, you can look down into the wild, steep canyon of North Fork creek, with its own little waterfall. That easterly-northerly view also shows the ridge from whence the hummock you are standing on once slid, along with several more hummocks of similar provenance. Geologists used to argue heatedly over how these terrain features could be formed, with many arguing that the "g" forces occurring during a landslide would destroy the cohesion of most rock types, leaving only much smaller rubble behind. After the Mt. St. Helens explosion, the landslide which triggered/preceded the eruption left very similar hummocked terrain, with enormous rock chunks (hummocks like this) that stayed mostly intact from their original formation, on the northeastern slope of the mountain. That event has helped to put much of the arguments to rest. And here you thought you weren't doing an Earthcache...:)



View looking down on waterfall in canyon to the east



View of Seattle over rock outcrop south of summit

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Qbjauvyy fvqr bs n ebpx bhgpebc fbhgu bs fhzzvg, fghzc ebbgf

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)