Witness Tree Traditional Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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In a medium plastic container. Visible but not from the road. You must step over a few rocks and downed branches. GPS reception may be spotty at or near the cache. Be careful of nettles and thorny vines. On June 17 2021 PM the owner restocked and replaced the cache.
Why Witnesstree? What does it mean? A blaze in a tree is an area carved free of bark to make an almost permanent marker. Early surveyors, after setting an important survey point, often used blaze marks in nearby trees to mark the approximate location of the survey point. They often carved into the wood exposed by the blaze mark, the name or type designation of the survey point and the distance from the blaze mark to the survey point. By doing this on several trees surrounding the point, it became much easier for future surveyors to find and use the old survey points. The marked trees were known as witness trees because they bore witness to the nearby location of the survey point. When, in the mid to late 1800’s, it became necessary to properly survey Lopez Island, a latitude line was projected from Anacortes, across Decatur Island. Where that line came ashore onto Lopez Island, a survey mark was placed on the top of the bank and marked by several witness trees. Although the ravages of time have eroded the bank so that the survey point and its three witness trees are gone, those trees are still the reason for the name of the property on which the current owner (a geocacher) has placed this cache. Please respect his property.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Zbffl Ebpx !
Oruvaq gur fvta.
Treasures
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