The Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy Geotrail was designed to introduce folks to the Rachel Carson Trail. The trail is located north and east of Pittsburgh, spanning 38.2 miles from Harrison Hills and North Park Allegheny County parks. The Conservancy and trail are named after the late well- known conservationist Rachel Carson. Carson was a marine biologist and early ecologist, born in nearby Springdale, PA, in 1907. (The Rachel Carson Trail passes right by this homestead.)
Often considered the mother of the modern conservationist movement, Ms. Carson is a daughter of Pittsburgh. She graduated from the Pennsylvania College for Women, now Chatham University, located in Pittsburgh. She went on to earn a Master's degree in zoology at John Hopkins and the University of Maryland before becoming a "junior aquatic biologist" with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries.
Rachel Carson also loved nature. She was an active hiker, bird watcher, outdoors explorer and nature enthusiast.
In 1962, Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring was published.
Rachel Carson died in 1964 at the age of 56 of cancer. She was later named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
Funded by the Conservancy, the RCTC Geotrail consists of 40 caches - one for each mile of the trail and the beginning and end - designed to get all geocachers out on the trail including those with young children. Each cache contains a clue about Rachel Carson or the trail. PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THE CLUES FROM THE CACHE, WRITE THEM DOWN! Cachers who collect any 26 clues from the 40 caches and email them into the Rachel Carson Conservancy will receive a Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy Geocoin designed for this project. The coins will not have a set limit. Once our supply is low, they will be reordered. Please keep a log of each cache and the hint to send in – you will need the cache name and the hint for that particular cache. When you have accumulated 26 hints or more, email them all together at once to geotrail@rachelcarsontrails.org.
New: There has been a trackable wooden geocoin added to the GeoTrail. In order to obtain the trackable coin, you will need to obtain all 40 RCTC GeoTrail code words/phrases. Once you have all 40, email them all together at once to: geotrail@rachelcarsontrails.org.
Note: Please do not remove the clues (the clues generally on a laminated strip – the answers are the yellow highlighted word or words) from the caches.
A special thanks to TAC73*, Lady Bug Lady and BB Big Guy for all of their volunteer hours to establish the trail. Also thanks to the Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy for their support.