CCCNP – The Tree Fern Cave
Caution: the cache is NOT above the waterfall.
The CCCNP caches are in some of the scenic areas of the Preserve and, on the hike to the caches, one will pass many other scenic and beautiful areas. Please use the trail map available at the location of the Cane Creek Canyon Nature Preserve cache and plan your route carefully to minimize your hiking distance. To find all the caches in one trip could require as much as a 10-12 mile hike.
CCCNP – The Tree Fern Cave
The Tree Fern Cave is a large rock shelter beneath a pair of wet-weather waterfalls. A bog with sphagnum and Polytrichum mosses, native orchids and other wildflowers (in season) is found above the shelter. The west-facing rock shelter is named for a fossil from the Coal Age, a “scale tree” bark impression, which can be seen in the roof of the cave. The stacked stones in the shelter are recent work of young campers, not authentic archeological features. Camping is no longer allowed in any rock shelter or cave on the Preserve. Populations of a rare wildflower, French’s shooting star, and rare filmy ferns inhabit the rim of the floor of the shelter.
The cache is a small camouflaged lock-n-lock that is hidden within 2 feet of the trail. It contains a log and has room for small swag items
Please do not log this cache as a team find unless the team is a family unit registered only as a family unit. If the individual members of the team are geocaching.com members then each member of the team should sign the log individually. It is not fair to the geocachers that hike up to 10 or 12 miles round trip to find the caches in the Preserve to have “team” members log a find without actually going to the cache site. Log entries not meeting these requirements may be deleted.