The cache is located in Topsail Hill Preserve State Park located about 10 miles east of Destin just off US 98 on scenic Highway 30A. There is a $6 per car entry fee for the park. The park is open 8 am to sunset every day. Be sure to check with the park rangers for condition of the trails. The shortest way may not be the best way. Help keep this fragile dune ecosystem intact by staying on established trails, not walking on the dunes, and following Florida State Park rules at all times. Be prepared for 4+ mile through sandy terrain, and bring your sunscreen, insect repellant and water bottle! Some of the trail is paved. Bikes are permitted but would recommend a mountain bike if leaving the paved path.
This cache is located near a very special tree. If you like to geocache in the woods here in NW Florida, you have probably seen several of these trees. But have you ever seen a Double Cat Faced Tree?
Because we are in a State Park that gets visitors from all over, some of you may have never even heard of a Cat Faced Tree. So, to make your visit to this cache site more enjoyable here is a brief description of what you are looking at and how it came to look this way.
This is called a cat face tree. It's a vanishing part of the southern history. The turpentine industry started in North Carolina in the mid-1800S and slowly moved south as the trees stopped producing any significant amount of sap. By the late 1800s, the industry had moved into Florida’s pine forests. Pine trees like this were cut with shallow V shaped cuts (cat faces) that caused the tree to "bleed" sap. Metal strips were nailed on to guide the thick pine sap down to a collecting pot. Do not touch the metal strip as it is very fragile. The "turpentiners" would come along every so often, collect the sap. The sap was then distilled to make products such as tar, pitch, turpentine, and rosin. The pitch and tar were used for caulking wooden ship planks and waterproofing canvas sails of the seagoing vessels. At the time, longleaf pines such as this one produced 70 percent of the world’s supply of these products. By the Mid-1900s, the industry started its decline due, in part, to the advent of steel ships and the development of synthetic chemicals. By the 1970s, the industry had pretty much vanished from the Florida landscape. However, the turpentine industry left a lasting legacy on the landscape. One of which is these cat faced trees which can be found in many of the remaining longleaf pine forests.
After you have had a chance to examine the tree and get some pictures of it to show folks back home, your job will then be to find the log inside the cache.
We know that balls are something everyone loves to play with, so we filled the container with balls. You are welcome to take one, but DO NOT TAKE THE LOG!
If you take one, we would love for you to trade something, like a ball you are tired of.
Feel free to post any pictures of your group and the tree, and for fun, tell if you have ever seen a Cat Faced tree before this one. Remember that with this tree being a DOUBLE one, it is a rare thing to see even for us locals who like to cache in the woods!
The container was a FTF prize in GC3J65E - Things we have learned...We all like ammo cans! by Team Paradise, that we found on 4/29/12.