How to Anchor a Beach in a River: Yorktown Beach EarthCache
How to Anchor a Beach in a River: Yorktown Beach
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(other)
Related Web Page
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
A beach earthcache? Really? You bet! Because without some geo-engineered intervention, you'd need to be wearing hip waders, not flip flops, to stand at GZ.
The gorgeous, scalloped beachfront Yorktown residents enjoy is fairly new. Before the mid-1990s, Yorktown had been dealing with an on-again, off-again beach. Back then, the beach depended on the York River to deposit the sand it had scoured away from upriver sandy cliffs. During heavy storms, the river would carry that sand away, leaving a very narrow beach. After the Coleman Bridge was built and more upriver waterfront became paved and otherwise hardened, less and less sand made it back to Yorktown's beach. So in 1994, two breakwaters were built and sand brought in to make the first protected, crescent beach. Numerous organizations, including the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, partnered together using wave and transport models to identify the best breakwater placement and construction, protecting the sand from wave action and river transport. The breakwater you're facing when standing at GZ is the downriver of the two constructed in 1994. In 1998 and 99, more breakwaters were constructed downriver and more sand brought in, lengthening the beach to around 1200 feet. Without these breakwaters, Yorktown's beach would soon be Water Street!
To claim this cache, please send me answers to the following questions:
1. As you face the York River at GZ, you are separated from the water by a 120 foot-long breakwater. What is it made out of?
2. What do the breakwaters protect the beach from?
3. Turn around and face the street. You'll see a large patch of the marsh grasses Spartina alterniflora and S. patens. Why do you think the engineers planted these grasses here?
FTF honors go to Chip'n'Lori.
Besides the neat caches we have here in the greater Historic Yorktown area, the area is rich in cool benchmarks:
1. The Yorktown Monument is - drum roll, please - a loggable benchmark! Totally worth the visit. When you do, claim it here: (visit link) 0.2 miles S
2. The Customs House's Vertical benchmark: (visit link) 0.2 miles SW
3. Who says you have to go to DC to find a white house? (visit link) 0.1 miles W
4. The Nelson house's east chimney! And check out what's embedded below the chimney in the east wall. (visit link) 0.2 miles SW
5. Wait! While you're still on the beach, look off to the east. See that power station? That tall stack? That stack's a loggable benchmark! Saw it, log it... (visit link) 2.9 miles SE
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)