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NOTE: There was a report in early July, 2006 of a nest of very aggressive hornets at waypoint 6. Rather than risk more people getting stung, I've temporarily replaced the plaque at wpt #5 to bypass #6 and go directly to #7, so for the remainder of summer 2006, the cache will be eight parts, rather than nine.
The cache is a nine part “Multi” that covers a portion of Black Creek Park, ten miles west of Rochester, NY. The theme of this cache is “Wolf Trees”, and you will visit several of them in the park. It’s a long walk on well maintained trails, and probably is most suitable for adults and older kids with adult supervision. The 4.0/3.5 rating seems a little high, but is the clayjar.com recommendation for the conditions. Bicycles are not permitted on the trails, and horses are prohibited on some trails (floating bridges), so you're stuck with walking.
A “wolf tree” is a tree in a wooded area that began life in an open field, unrestricted in available light and space to spread out, but in middle age became surrounded by a crowd of second growth trees which had to reach upward for light, and have a more vertical growth pattern than the original tree. Wolf trees often tower above the surrounding forest, still collecting the most sunlight, and being protected by the surrounding forest, can grow to great age and huge size.
Black Creek Park, a Monroe County park west of Rochester, NY consists of old farmland, much of it out of production for well over a century and grown back to hardwood forest, interspersed with swamps and wetlands. With that history, wolf trees are fairly common, often near artifacts (rock piles, fences) that indicate they were at the edges of farm fields, and often near swampy areas that couldn’t be farmed. It’s easy to visualize the (now wooded) open fields of 100-200 years ago being tilled with teams of horses or oxen, and those rock piles slowly growing over the years as the fields were cleared.
This is a multi-part cache that will take you through a variety of landscapes to visit nine trees or groups of trees that (I think) qualify as “wolf trees”, or the area near them. I originally was going to concentrate on Shagbark Hickories, but soon discovered they were mostly concentrated in one area of the park, so only three points feature them. Other points feature red oak, maple, and (tentatively identified) pignut hickory and a very old hawthorn (one of over 100 varieties native to NY, maybe a “Caughuawaga Hawthorn” based on a leaf ID on the USDA website).
The GPS coordinates for the next point on the “tour” are on small (2”X4”) plaques on or near the featured tree. The farthest (point 7) is about 50 feet from the tree. The posted coordinates indicate the location of the plaque or cache, not necessarily the featured tree. The plaques are somewhat concealed to prevent being seen from a distance. At the last point, the cache itself is placed about 50 feet east of a big red oak tree.
All stops on the tour are near well maintained established trails. The off-trail portions are through open woods or easy deer trails, varying from 10 to 300 feet off the trail. No heavy-duty bushwhacking required. But please note that there is not necessarily a direct trail connection from one point to the next, so backtracking and moving to a different trail may sometimes be a good idea. A park trail map is recommended. Also, please note that it took me over a week and a LOT of walking to set this up; you may not want to tackle it all in one day.
The cache itself is a .30 cal ammo box, painted black. The initial contents of the box included a special “First to Find” prize (now gone), and a couple other pretty good items to justify the effort finding it. Please swap appropriately.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)