Mountain Tragedy #1 Traditional Cache
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This is the 1st in a developing series of caches about the history of tragedies and other events that have occured in and around Estes Park, Co.
In April of 2002, while fighting the Big Elk forest fire, a firefighting aircraft crashed at the site of this cache. Both pilots were killed and debris was scattered across the mountainside. A small fire started after the crash but was quickly contained by firefighters in the area that watched the plane go down and rushed to the scene. Inside the cache, you'll find pictures from an eyewitness that show the plane break up, and descend on fire, a memorial to the pilots, the NTSB summary report of the crash and a news account from the day of the crash as well as (!) an actual page from one of the pilots checklists, recovered a few days after the crash, which has been laminated and placed inside this cache for geo cachers to see. (The orange color on the checklist page is the slurry chemical that was dropped by these planes to retard the spread of fire- which covered most of the site in the weeks and months after the accident).
Video and music tribute to the aircraft & crew: (visit link)
There are many small pieces of metal from the crash that still remain at the crash site.
From the parking lot, it is possible to follow the GPS 'as the crow flies' to the cache, which overlooks the site. On the way in, look for 4-6 large trees burned at their bases, at the bottom of the gulley which mark where the wing/engine landed, that separated from the aircraft as it descended.
We will add other caches to this series as time allows that offer a glimpse inside the unwritten history of this beautiful area of Colorado.
PLEASE! Leave the laminated items in the cache for others to see (there's only one checklist artifact!). Please let us know if anything is missing when you visit.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ebpxl crepu bireybbxvat penfu fvgr
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
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