Ghosts of Dark Mountain

Have you seen the bridge? Where's that confounded bridge?

Today’s geocaching adventure turned out to be a pretty big one — another trek down to the Uwharrie Mountains, about an hour from here, for some serious hiking and hunting of hidden thingummies in the woods. Today, Team No Dead Weight consisted of Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Tink (Scott’s faithful cache hound), Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), and Old Rodan (a.k.a. me). Our destination was Dark Mountain, by way of the Jumping Off Rock Trailhead on Flint Hill Road, in what is surely one of the most scenic areas of the forest. The morning started out a little chilly and drizzly, but thankfully, the precipitation ended before we went far on the trail.

We had selected for our primary target a relatively old (from 2006) cache called “Ghosts of Dark Mountain” (GCF3E6) a four-stage multi that requires several miles of hiking on fairly rugged terrain. Mainly, it’s very steep mountainsides covered in slick rocks, especially after as much rain as we’ve had. Each stage of the cache relates a ghostly legend from Dark Mountain, which we all found alluring. The stories go more or less as follows:

Squashblossom: Some 300 years ago, a Cherokee Indian chief fell in love with a young woman named Squashblossom. The two of them often met on top of a high rock ledge (see photo below). The chief was called to war, and Squashblossom promised to wait for him on the rock ledge. However, the chief was killed in battle. When Squashblossom received word of his death, she climbed up to the ledge and leaped to hear own death. Legend has it that on moonlit nights, you can see her ghost standing high on Jumping Off Rock.

The lonely grave of Dania Woodell

Dania Woodell: In the very early 20th century, a preacher came to Poison Fork Creek and built a rudimentary shelter for the attendees of his regular sermons. More and more churchgoers began to gather here, and plans were made to build a church on the site. During this time, ten-year-old Dania Woodell died and was buried close to Poison Fork on the assumption that hers would be the first grave in a new church graveyard. However, for reasons unknown, the church was never built, and now young Dania's grave stands all alone in the deep woods along Poison Fork.

The Hulin Brothers: During the Civil War, brothers William, Jesse, and John Hulin lived in the Dark Mountain area. They were fierce Unionists and Abolitionists, and so refused NC Governor Vance’s order that all young men honor North Carolina by joining the Confederate Army. Thus, the brothers were considered deserters. They survived in a cave in the deep woods for some time, but three months before the war ended, a bounty killer found them and shot them dead in the cave. Their bodies were buried in nearby Lovejoy Cemetery with the epitaph “Murdered.” According to legend, the rocks of the cave where they died are indelibly stained with their blood.

The ghosts caused us no grief on our outing today. Given that the information on the cache page was minimal, we did have the occasional hiccup on our searches. When we came upon Dania Woodell’s grave, we had it in our heads that we would need to use numbers from the dates on the gravestone in a formula to determine the coordinates of the cache’s final stage. It failed to occur to us that the grave was near but not at the coordinates we procured at the preceding stage. We sought and sulked in vain for a while until old dummy here had the brilliant idea to actually hunt at said coordinates. And that is where we found what we needed to continue on our way.

This swag is just a little too familiar...

At the final stage, high up on Dark Mountain, we found the container without any problem. Much to my amusement, inside the cache were two very cheesy SF movies on DVD — The Head and Cobra vs. Komodo — which I realized I had left as swag in some other cache (almost certainly in Greensboro) at least a decade ago! Now, I have on a handful of occasions discovered swag I had left in one cache at some other cache, but never at such a distance and so many years later. These days, I almost never bother trading swag, although I do enjoy occasionally leaving a copy of one of my books for some poor, unsuspecting soul. In any event, I left the DVDs in the cache, mainly because I had dumped them off for a reason, and — who knows — perhaps I will see them again in some other distant cache one of these days.

We were all pretty exhausted by the end of the hike, but there was one other hide not too far away we wanted to go after, named “A Call to Arms” (GC1ERDX). As with many graveyard hides, in order to find the final stage, you are supposed to use numbers on the gravestone to calculate the coordinates. But at this one, there are two graves: one for Jesse Maness, and one for his arm, which he lost in a sawmill accident when he was twelve years old. Happily, Jesse himself did live for many years thereafter. At this cache, though, the cache web page gave just enough information for me to get it into my head I could find the container without actually calculating the coordinates first. And when we arrived at the graveyard, I did indeed walk right to the cache. Yay! Of course, I wasn’t about to leave without seeing the graves for both Jesse and his arm. It did remind me of a cache in Salisbury, which takes you to the graves of both a particular gentleman and his foot, which he lost in an accident.

After this day’s festivities, I have a pretty good tired going on. I sleep now.

Thataway!

It's a long way down to Barnes Creek. The view from Jumping Off Rock

Team No Dead Weight, appropriately distanced: An old dude, Natalie, Scott

Poison Fork, near the grave of Dania Woodell

The summit of Dark Mountain

Tink relaxes after a hard day on the trail

Burial site for the arm of Jesse Maness, who lost it at age 12