Sometimes It Pays To Look Before You Bushwack

Geocaching can bring all sorts of adventure into your life. Every time we go after one we never really know what we are getting into until we reach ground zero. Like today for example. I went for a D2/T2 geocache of regular size. No problem thinks I until the navigation GPS takes me into a subdivision of houses. Anytime I have to go geocaching in a residential area the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I usually feel really uncomfortable stomping around someones neighborhood permission or not.

Signs of caution indeed.

This time though I ended up stopping at the far end of a subdivision where the road ended and three red diamonds were there to greet me. I felt a little better with this because the geocache appeared about 150 feet away into the woods. So off I went in search of my find. Unfortunately I quickly came upon several really interesting obstacles. For one a really intense briar patch that went on without end. Not those little scraggly ones that tears at your ankles but those tall bushes that have 1/4 inch thorns and shoot up 20 feet into the trees. Oh this was not going to be fun at all. After considering the amount of pain I was going to inflict upon myself  I figured I would give it a go anyways. After a short distance later I then came upon a rather nice creek that had running water going through. Great, this is a bit much for a difficulty 2 geocache. Am I in the right spot to get to this particular geocache?

Going from the subdivision was not the best route.

After pulling up the map of the area and then switching to satellite mode I quickly realized that I was not. Even though the geocache was less than a few hundred feet away there was a better way. So instead of trying to make my way through razor sharp briers from the south I would drive around the block and attack it from the north. It was my hope that the path would be a little easier to reach ground zero and it looked about the same distance either way. So off I drove.

A better trail to follow.

As you can see here the path was oh so much easier than my original plan. There was only a few briers and yes even a smaller creek to cross here but overall I would much prefer this way of hiking to ground zero. My troubles were not over though. According to the logs another geocacher had difficulty trying to find this particular geocache because the coords were a bit off. A bit being about 40 feet. So needless to say with a lot of potential hiding spots and those wonderful briers in the area it still took me a while to find the geocache.

The geocache find..

The morale of the story today kids is you do not ALWAYS have to find the path of greatest resistance when geocaching. Even though that tends to be my normal trek. If there is the most painful, difficult and longest way to a geocache I usually find it. Yet if is seems your path is more trouble than the difficulty suggests. Try looking at your location via your satellite view. Sometime like today it may reveal a better way for you to go. This will also reduce the amount of time salving yourself up with antiseptic cream from all the briers. Ouchie...

GeoCache: I'm NOT Obsessed... Right?
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