Our Place Traditional Cache

A cache located in Saginaw Forest (80 acres, two miles west of downtown Ann Arbor) off of Liberty Road. This is a University of Michigan RESEARCH AREA NOT A PARK. U of M has been kind enough to keep the area open to the public but special considerations are required.

Saginaw Forest was donated to the University as an experimental area for instruction and research in forestry and student extra-curricular activities in 1904. Since the cache isn't too far in you can get it easily or you can spend the afternoon exploring the area. My girlfriend and I enjoy many a fall walk here. There are numerous places to enjoy the forest, hillside, or lake. (You can hike around to the far side of the lake.) You can examine the trees, check out the water runoff, or visit the caretaker at the lake front cabin, or look at an old campfire site. (For more info see http://www.snre.umich.edu/about-snre/university-facilities.php)

Since this is a RESEARCH AREA NOT A PARK some special considerations are required as we cache in the forest.

1. Caretaker: He is friendly and would be happy to answer questions about Saginaw forest. What he says goes. He is located at the cabin by the lake. Feel free to stop by.
2. Trails: Stay to the trails when possible until the last 300ft or so. The cache has been specially located with the groundskeeper's help to minimize negative impact. There is plenty of room around the cache to look and explore while searching for it if the GPS is off by 200ft or more. But in other areas there are many research projects underway and disturbing ground cover, simply moving a stick, or picking a flower can ruin 10-20 year forestry study.
3. Hours: Public hours have been restricted to 6am until 6pm (instead of dusk) because of late night abuse.
4. Parking: Do not park in front of the gate on Liberty or drive down the dirt road into the property even if the gate is open. If you park in any place where parking is restricted by a sign you will most likely be towed. I would suggest safely parking at Dolph Park off Wagner road just north of Liberty...it's a bit of a hike but you won't have to walk home. Alternatively, there are side streets located west of the forest on Liberty called Westview Way or Skyhalk Blvd which would be closer.
5. Tools: Don't bring tools such as shovels, axes, tree trimmers, etc into the research area. They are not required to find the cache. ;-)
6. Cache: The cache is in a medium size ammo box sitting on the ground. If you aren't somewhat close, 300 feet, to the cache location remember the old motto....leave nothing but footprints take nothing but pictures.