Across Hwy 176 from High Bridge Micro, the distance and difficulty will be dependent on you. The difficulty varies from 1.5 to 3.0 and you do not have to cross on the highway.
We pulled off of Hwy 176 and parked at N 35. 14.409 W082 23.869. This is one of the easier starting points if you are planning on doing all 5 caches on this side of the road.
All five of the caches are placed on two Duke Power service roads. Private vehicles other than employees and company suppliers are not allowed behind the yellow gate even though it will be open on week days. Do NOT climb on top of Carl’s Worm (large black water flume). At no time do you have to leave the service roads more than eight to ten feet to locate the caches.
Carl has been the keeper of the worm for the last 30 years. We met Carl on the road and he was gracious enough to answer many questions that we had about the big black water flume. Carl has maintained the new worm since it went in service in 1990 and previously maintained the old worm starting in 1974.
Water flume history as we remember it: The original water flume went in operation carrying water from Lake Summit to the Pot Shoals power plant in 1919 the same year that High Bridge was started. The original flume was made with Cyprus and the inside diameter is 7 feet and varies with expansion and contraction. The flume starts at the Lake Summit Dam in Tuxedo and is one mile long ending in a large water tank. The flume itself is always full of water.
The new Flume which went in operation in 1990 is made from Canadian Hemlock and has an expectancy of ten more years of service. The reason for the change from Cyprus to hemlock was cost. The Canadian Hemlock costs about 1/3 as much as the Cyprus.
The water in the tank is controlled by the hydro plant operators and is cut off when Lake Summit reaches a certain level. When the water leaves the tank it splits into two 5 inch lines and drops vertically for .25 miles to the Pot Shoals Electrical Plant. Each of the 5 inch flumes turn a turbine and can be shut off independently relative to the need for power or the level of lake Summit.
The cache is a plastic "Ponds" hand cream jar, and contains small tradable items and a homemade log book. You will have to bring a pen or pencil to sign the log.
Note: On Feb 28, 2006, Dianne & I returned to replace the cache, but the debris from the last ice storm was still not cleared away. We decided that the cache has been disabled long enough, and decided to move it to a new hiding spot, about 30-45 feet from its original location. It is now to the left of the trail, and up about 5 or 6 feet. The cache is hidden just behind a small limb. Please rehide it well when you leave. This area is very GPS UN-friendly... Ours were all over the place.
