America the Beautiful-#3 Mt. Rainier National Park Traditional Cache

You are looking for a series of 9 caches which will eventually lead you to the final one.  All the caches are in Gunpowder Falls State Park/Hereford Area which is open from dawn to dusk.    If you attempt to do all the caches at one time, you will be completing a 5 mile hike through a beautiful park and will get credit for completing 10 different caches. Please replace the cache as you found it.

The 9 caches highlight 9 beautiful national parks which we have visited and enjoyed.  We hope these caches encourage you to not only visit more national parks, but to enjoy this beautiful park and many others in our area.

Cache #3-America the Beautiful-Mt. Rainier National Park

Mount Rainier National Park is a United States National Park located in southeast Pierce County and northeast Lewis County in Washington state. It was established on March 2, 1899 as the fifth national park in the United States. The park encompasses 236,381 acres including all of Mount Rainier, a 14,410-foot stratovolcano. The mountain rises abruptly from the surrounding land with elevations in the park ranging from 1,600 feet to over 14,000 feet. The highest point in the Cascade Range, around it are valleys, waterfalls, subalpine wildflower meadows, old growth forest and more than 25 glaciers. The volcano is often shrouded in clouds that dump enormous amounts of rain and snow on the peak every year and hide it from the crowds that head to the park on weekends.

As you locate each cache, you will find a code listed on the log.  Copy these down as the letters and numbers will lead you to the final cache.  However, only 6 of the 9 numbers will be used.  Wait!  Before you panic to try and figure out which 3 you won't use, we will make it easy for you.

Complete the following popular sayings:

A penny saved is a penny _ _ _ _ _ _.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ speak louder than words.

A stitch _ _ time saves nine.

Take the first letter of the missing words and those 3 letters equal the 3 you won't use.  With the remaining letters, put them in alphabetical order and this will give you the final numbers for the coordinates with the first 3 completing the N coordinates and the final 3 completing the W coordinates..

N 39 35._ _ _

W076 40._ _ _

All caches require minimum bushwhacking.  We tried to place them in areas where there were either no stickers or very few.  The caches are not located far off the trails.  Even though you may think that bushwhacking from one cache to the next might be closer, we would highly recommend that you just stay on the trail and enjoy the beautiful area.  As you approach each GZ, stay on the trail until the last possible moment to avoid extra bushwhacking.

Just as a reminder, the park is open to bow hunting from the beginning of September to the end of January.  The hunters are only allowed to hunt from deer stands and although we've never seen any in all the times we've hiked there, just be aware that they may be around so wear bright colored clothing.

The final cache is located within the park and will not require retracing your steps.  The coordinates for the final cache are not the ones listed.  They are actually the coordinates for the parking area off of Mt. Carmel Road which is where we recommend that you park to start your adventure. We tried our best to come up with the coordinates that will lead you to the cache, but with all the tree cover, they may be a little off. If you come up with better coordinates, please let us know. Please bring a pen and tweezers. Congratulations to unusualsuspect for FTF!