Pine Canyon Conservation Area
Cache 7 of 8 in the PCCA Tour | Cache is located at the posted coordinates.Â
The Smelter & Smokestack
You're standing close to where the smokestack stood — 350 feet of brick that smoke poured out of for sixty years. The smelter here ran copper and lead under one roof, which was unusual at the time.Â
Look around. The land here was completely reshaped during cleanup — graded, capped with clean soil, then replanted. Some of the contours running across the ground are engineered, not natural curves.
Getting there
Short walk (under a tenth of a mile) from the TRAILHEAD waypoint along the access road. Open ground, no shade.
What's inside?
A logbook, the cache's letterbox stamp and ink, a pen, and a printed card on what the smelter actually produced each year, in tons — and what those numbers would be worth today.
The lid word. Each cache in this series has a word inside the lid. Collect all eight to unlock a future Mystery bonus.
First time at Pine Canyon?
The Pine Canyon Conservation Area is 3,000 acres of protected open space on the east bench of the Oquirrh Mountains. From 1910 to the mid-1970s, this was the International Smelter — one of Utah's largest industrial sites. The land was cleaned up and replanted. The Wildlife sign at the trailhead names six common animals you might see here, including mule deer, coyote, and elk.
This cache is one of eight in the PCCA Tour. Tour 1: Trailhead is the best place to start — there's an Adventure Lab there too.
The PCCA Tour
Bonuses: Trailhead Bonus (Adventure Lab) · Lid-Word Mystery (coming later this year)
Please tread lightly. Do not dig, scrape, or disturb the soil cap anywhere on the conservation area.