This geocache is placed in the North End section of the park, an area that is less visited by many tourists but has some of the most beautiful landscapes. Within the North End is the Great Hill, an open hilltop meadow with picnic tables, a quarter mile soft surface oval path, and lawn under a ring of stately trees.
Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed the Great Hill as a carriage concourse where visitors could enjoy commanding views of the Hudson River and the Palisades. With the passing of time and the growth of trees, the view slowly disappeared. In the 1940s and 1950s, the Great Hill was turned into a recreation area with bocce, tennis and volleyball courts and horseshoe pits, but by the 1980s, it was an abandoned and dilapidated ruin.
In 1993 the Conservancy replaced the crumbling recreation spaces with a lawn and oval track. In August 2009, an unexpected microburst devastated the area, felling so many of the trees in the area. Today the Conservancy has replanted many trees and the original views that Olmsted and Vaux had created have been restored. Now, the Great Hill is the site of picnics, lawn games, running or race walking on the oval track, and jazz concerts.
This geocache is off to the side of the Great Hill and will require a keen eye, for not everything is as it appears to be. Please be careful of nearby muggles and replace carefully.