This is a small cache placed along a quiet but well-used walking path.
With the headwaters of its main branch flowing down from the coastal foothills near S.W. Peavine Road, about five miles west of the city, Cozine Creek cuts through seven miles of forests, farm fields and urban development before joining the South Yamhill River near S.E. Dayton Avenue. Another 14 miles of named and unnamed tributaries enter the main branch from the north, south and west.
Prior to European settlement in the Willamette Valley in the early to mid 1800s, the lands encompassing the more than 11-square-mile drainage area of Cozine Creek and its tributaries were dominated by wide open expanses of grass prairies, edible wildflowers and scatterings of mature oak trees, with majestic boughs stretching out limbs to form umbrella-shaped crowns. And along the active floodplains, dense woodlands shaded the waters of Cozine Creek with stands of oak, ash, big leaf maple and cottonwood. This particular area of the Cozine is called Ash Meadows Park.