The Paradise Valley Conservation Area property was purchased in 2000 from the Lloyd family, who originally homesteaded the property in 1887. The initial purchase of approximately 667 acres was funded by a Washington State Salmon Recovery Grant, Snohomish County’s Conservation Futures funds and grant matching funds from King County and the Martin Miller Fund. The overall purchase price was reduced significantly due to a generous donation made by the Lloyd family. Restrictions, covenants and conditions were negotiated “to ensure that the Lloyd Family Farmstead property be retained forever in its open space and historical condition and to prevent any use of the property that will significantly impair or interfere with the open space, wildlife habitat, and historical values of the property.” The trail system here is extensive and open to multiple uses.
This cache will bring you close to the border of the original conservation area. At the time of placement my dog Ozimandias had alerted me to potential danger. While we never saw more than a glimpse of the bear, we heard it next to us in the woods while we hiked for about an hour. After a certain point we stopped hearing the bear the woods and just went about our search of the perfect hiding spot. Just as we had placed the cache we met a couple riders on horseback who mentioned that she had been chased by that bear a couple weeks prior. As always in any wooded environment, be on the lookout for the Bear that was Bearly There.
The cache is hidden with no need at all to step off the trail or trample any vegetation.
In September 2002, a group of 19 concerned geocachers scheduled a meeting after hearing that the Washington State Parks was considering banning geocaches in the state park system. Out of this meeting, the Washington State Geocaching Association (WSGA) was "born" with its core values of promoting geocaching as a fun, family-oriented outdoor activity that increases awareness and appreciation of the environment and our parks and trails, provide opportunities for participants to enjoy geocaching and to socialize with other geocaches, educate park systems and land managers about geocaching and its benefits, increase awareness and support of the geocaching through interaction with other outdoor groups and the public, encourage low-impact geocaching and promote stewardship of our natural resources, and support "Cache In Trash Out" activities to help maintain parks and trail systems.
In 2022, the WSGA turns 20 years young. To celebrate this milestone, the WSGA is hosting a 20th-anniversary GeoTour. This GeoTour will give you the opportunity to travel to all corners of the Evergreen State while you search for 140 GeoTour caches. To make it easier to tackle such a large GeoTour, each of our 7 regional chapters will host 20 chapter-specific geocaches in bite-sized GeoTours with the entire GeoTour consisting of 140 caches. To learn more about our GeoTour, please visit the GeoTour page on our website which you can find HERE. We hope that you enjoy getting back out on the road while touring around Washington State. If you have any questions about our GeoTour, you can reach out to us via the contact tab on our website.
