Caching Through The Snow

Day 94: "Caching through the snow / That's how I spent my day / Oh, what fun it is to find / A brand-new place to play!"

I have to admit that I'd never been all the way to the end of the trail (gated road) despite how long I've lived here and the fact that I've worked with the Nisqually Land Trust at a site about a quarter mile in. The old road goes on for almost two miles, not losing much elevation until the last quarter mile when it descends to the confluence of Ohop Creek and the Nisqually River. The timber was harvested from this acreage years ago and a network of closed roads remains, and now most of the land is under the umbrella of Washington State Parks. The "Nisqually-Mashel Park" is still under development. Permission was granted for someone to place a geocache within the park boundaries, and a mad rush of first-to-find fiends sallied forth on December 31 to find it. On that date, I was snowshoeing in the capital-P Park (Mount Rainier) and enjoying the solitude. I've lost the drive to be first off the block. I knew this one would still be there when I got around to it.

The cache was not the only thing I found during this adventure. There was some classic "great" Americana manifesting as rusted-out car bodies, empty beer cans, trash, shell casings and targets, but at least I saw nothing to indicate illegal fishing. Maybe two miles is too far for a snagger to carry a 20-pound salmon. Who knows? For company, I had an assortment of dear friends: Pacific Wren, a young Bald Eagle, an unidentified woodpecker which I never saw clearly, Kinglets of some sort and of course the elusive Black-Capped Chickadees who are my photographic bane. The spot is certainly worth another visit, and I wouldn't have discovered it if geocaching hadn't taken me there.