The Dragon's Lair Confluence Traditional Cache
The Dragon's Lair Confluence
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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This is a regular geocache placed in Forest Service Land outside of Dragoon.
A couple of years ago we did a confluence geocache in Henderson, NV and we've been hooked at placing one in Arizona since. A confluence is a junction of 2 major points and in this case it is N32 and W110. (Notice no minutes or seconds to the coordinates) Most confluences seem to end up on private land or in the middle of a highway. For instance, the confluence of N32 and W111 is about 500 feet inside Pima Mine near Green Valley.
Determining that today was perfect weather, we loaded up the cachemobile and headed out to Dragoon (having scooped the area out previously). Drive through most of Dragoon and take Lizard Lane south. This is also the road heading into the Marbelous cache. When you are under the large power lines the road branches and take the road that LOOKS like the left fork, it's really the middle road. The road forks again when you get near the Marbelous cache. To get to our cache, take the left fork. We actually went and had lunch at the Marbelous cache and then left cachemobile and hubby behind and walked to the confluence. Walked? Scrambled. Bushwacked. Slid. Climbed. You name it and we did it. We left hubby because he wanted to collect rocks from the marble quarry. As we left him we told him we had .62 miles to the confluence. He says, "Be back in an hour." Yeah right, if you are the famed Shadowace, Mule Ears, or AZTech perhaps. But not us. We wouldn't meet back up with hubby and cachemobile for 2.5 hours! Oh well, he had the Sunday paper with him to read.
So after leaving the marbelous cache we walked back down the road to where it forked and then walked all the way up the road until it ended. There is a point where you will practically run into a large Pratt and Whitney engine container. This is a good place to park because the area is wide and the road ends shortly after this. N32 00.291 W110 00.151. Elevation here is 5100 feet and it is .37 miles to the cache.
We followed the western ridge to the cache. Some sections were easy especially when we could follow animal trails and others that were so difficult that Woodcutter was on hands and knees. Rocks everywhere. The white powdery rocks are actually the most dangerous. After placing the cache we descended all the way down into the creek bottom and walked back toward the car through the creek. We climbed back up at the Pratt and Whitney engine container. That was a much easier walk. So we recommend that after you see the Pratt and Whitney engine container (if you follow the road, you can't miss it) that you go around it for a bit and then descend into the creek bed (it's dry right now). Walk along the creek until you are directly below the cache and then climb the hill to the cache. Cache is a red cookie tin, under a bush with red berries and under rocks of course. Cache is at 5400 foot elevation. We had 6 satellites on the GPS when we left cache and 4 had digital locks so we think we've got the cache in the right spot for the coordinates. The terrain rating I've given the cache is based on our walk back, if you stay on the ridge line all the way to the cache you need to mentally increase the terrain rating. I do not recommend taking small child to the cache. There is NO trail.
Cache is named the way it is because I realized if you take 1 "O" out of Dragoon, you have Dragon and I love to cut out dragons. So this cache has a theme. It is dedicated to all mythical and fantasy creatures and critters out there. Dragons, unicorns, pegasus etc. Please only take 1 woodcut item out of the cache. The cache will smell of woodstain and varnish because I just finished making these pieces this past week.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Cnl pybfr nggragvba gb gur qevivat qverpgvbaf
Treasures
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