History of the Cache Location
Abraham Anderson was a convicted felon who had been jailed multiple times before returning to Westmoreland County where he began his infamous crime spree. Anderson would often waylay the stagecoaches before they made it up to the tollgate, which was also the entrance into town from the turnpike. He would then rob the passengers and make his daring escape. Anderson delighted in taking small, insignificant trinkets, and was believed by many to be insane.
After each robbery, Anderson would escape to his hidden cave, which was believed to be in the hills above the turnpike. He stowed all of his booty in this cave. When he was finally captured in 1833, it was an arrest made in the town of New Salem. Anderson was sentenced to 4-1/2 years at Western Penitentiary, during those years Anderson eventually died. No one ever found the cave after he was arrested.
Until one day, early in the Spring of 2004, TeamK-9 received an email from Quest Master, regarding possible information on the true location of this cave. While investigating the coordinates, TeamK-9 found an old rusty lock box, the kind you would find on a stage coach. They promptly replaced it with a well-stocked ammo can and submitted it as a geocache.
TeamK-9 does admit to the possibility that they changed some details of this story, but they also claim that most of the story is true.
Important Details for Finding the Cache
Parking Suggestions: Recommended parking coordinates can be found here N40 24.632 W079 33.761 (park in the gravel area, this parking area is suitable for 2-3 cars. Do not block the gate or the trail head.)
Trail Choices: From the trailhead parking area, there are two trails. One straight ahead, and one off to the right. If you follow the trail straight ahead, you will get close to the cache, but you will be downhill from it, and have a nasty bushwack. From there, you can either bushwack or follow the trail until it loops back around to the top of the cache, making an easier approach. The full loop is approximately 1.5 miles.
You could also choose to take the trail to the right. It is not as well maintained, but it is a shorter hike which will take you incredibly close to the cache, on the uphill side. I recomend this trail, unless you want a longer walk. This shorter hike is somewhere around a short, .2 mile walk.
Be warned that there are community events held at this park and/or in the town that would prevent you from accessing this cache. I will try to post about a week ahead of time of these events and disable the cache, even though the cache might still be on location, please do not attempt to log it. During this event, the trail head parking area will be inaccessible, and any other parking would lead to you bushwacking..
Terrain Notes: It is necessairy to go down or up (depending on your approach) a steep hill to get to the cache location, but you should be able to find a passable route to the cache. Please be aware of your dogs or children, you would not want them falling down the hill.