I love to go hiking. Ithaca has so many great places, both in town and farther out, but I keep getting drawn to Six Mile Creek for some reason. One of the first caches I found in Ithaca was Tofu Shake/Team Ferret's cache "We won't make you go six miles". While it was a great cache, I left thinking, "but I do want to go six miles...". Hopefully some of you will agree with me and will enjoy this six mile/six cache series!
This series is comprised of six caches spaced out along a hiking route in Six Mile Creek and along the South Hill Recreation Way. The South Hill Recreation Way follows the southern rim of the Six Mile Creek gorge from the outskirts of southeast Ithaca to Burns Road, near the Ithaca Reservoir. The gravel path follows the former grade of the Cayuga and Susquehanna, built in 1849 to haul coal from Pennsylvania to a canal in Ithaca. The rail later merged with the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad, abandoned in 1957. The trail was developed in 1986 as an Environmental Quality Bond Act Project.
Today the trail meanders through a combination of residential neighborhoods, meadows and woodlands, crossing several deep ravines and offering scenic views across the Six Mile Creek valley. Part of the route passes through the Mulholland Wildflower Preserve and Vincenzo Iacovelli Park, providing access to those sites and the Six Mile Creek gorge itself. Hiking paths lead off the biking trail into the gorge.
At each cache be sure to record the information written on the inside of the lid and/or written on the inside of the container itself (this may be more legible than the code written on the lid). You will need this information in order to find the final cache.
Directions for Cache #1
First get some gear together- be sure to grab your GPS/phone and a pen (of course), but also some water, a jacket or raincoat (weather depending), and maybe some snacks. A friend or some dogs would also enhance the hike. Park at the indicated coordinates on Burns Hill Road. There is ample parking here for 8-10 cars, but on the weekends it can get quite crowded here. Start heading north along the paved walk way. After approximately 0.6 miles, you should see a wooden fenced area with a blue blaze on it (marked as a waypoint). Along this route you will pass by Six Mile Dialtone , so be sure to grab that cache if you haven't already. You can also grab 2 KET wildflower caches along the way Red Trillium and Wild Geranium . Follow this trail east through the bushes. You will then enter the woods. Fairly quickly you will need to leave the trail. This cache is located about 300 feet off of the trail, so it may be worth it to take a waypoint to find your way back to the trail. The cache is a small camo'ed pill bottle located 0.80 miles from the start of your hike. This one may be hard to find in deep snow. After finding the cache, head back to the trail and then off to Cache #2: GC6GF8H.
General Considerations for this Series
- This series of caches describes a 6.4 mile hike, starting and ending at the indicated parking coordinates. Most of these caches can be accessed by alternative parking spots and you don't need to hike the full route I'm outlining. However, this 6 mile route is probably the most direct way to find all of them. The first 5 caches must be found in order to access the 6th.
- Expect 2-3 hours, depending on walking speed and breaks, to find all 6 in this series.
- All caches are hidden in a typical fashion- all should be relatively straightforward hides.
- Please remember to BYOP as the first 5 caches do not contain writing implements.
- Coordinates were a bit spotty for most of these- 35 foot accuracy- due to the tree cover.
- Most are hidden a bit off the trial unless otherwise noted. This is a heavily trafficked area so please be sure to rehide the caches as good as, or better than you found them to try to prevent them from being muggled.
- While most caches are off the trial, please do not try to bushwhack from cache to cache. Leave the trail to find the cache, and then return to the trial where you left it. There are a number of sudden drops once you get out into the farther parts of the woods.
- All of these caches are also kid friendly, as long as they are capable of hiking the six miles.
- Bicycles are allowed on the paved walkway, but not on the side trails that many of these caches are hidden along so they are not recommended.
- Not to scare anyone off but I can tell you from personal experience that the sign at the trailhead warning of Lyme disease is not a joke. I would strongly recommend spraying down with bug spray during the spring, summer, and fall months and doing a good tick check when you get home.