Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween!

Lots of news this month that I am behind on. First as of tomorrow I work for Washington Federal bank (at least for a while) that means 3 banks in less then 3 years and I never left the same office. We'll see how well this conversion goes.

Second I found some caches with Turner over the weekend and we went to an event. It was actually the first event I attended this year. That is pretty sad as we use to have monthly events around here. We even found a couple of "penny pipe" caches which are a plastic tube closed on one end with a penny wedged into it. The other end is open. The log in the first one was only held in by friction. I'm not sure these containers will last through the winter, but we'll see. There are certainly a lot of them.

My new cache "Kelly" Bigelow Lake has had a few finds and that will probably be all until next year. My second newest cache Little Craggy Falls has been found twice this year after it had gone 2 years without a find. My personal favorite of my caches Taylor Camp Cache hasn't been found since 2009. These out of the way caches are usually among the best and more then ever they are the ones I am seeking out. However the weather will keep some of them out of reach for a while.

Tonight was also opening night for the Trail Blazers and they beat the LA Lakers 116-106.

Sunday, October 07, 2012

Mt. Elijah

Last week I talked to Dr.Dan about making a trip out to Mt. Elijah for a couple of caches one still unfound. The trail head is a ways off I estimated about a 90 minute drive from Grants Pass. Most of my hiking books give directions from Williams but we came from the Oregon Caves. I decided on that path partly because there were fewer turns to goof up and because its the second weekend of hunting season and there would be fewer to run into from the caves direction.

The hike itself was not too bad. The trail makes a series of switchbacks and then comes up a ridge line. You have good views of Bigelow Lakes as well as the rest of the valley. There is another trail to Lake Mt peak and the NF boundary that might need to be explored later.

At the top were these caches:

Mt. Elijah Cache
Mt Elijah #2 

On the way up I hid my first cache since 2009

"Kelly" Bigelow Lake 

Its right off the trail to Mt Elijah as a side trail splits off to the lake. We'll see if Kelly ever goes after his tribute cache.