Can’t Hold Me Back

Thingummies overlooking my parking spot across US 70 at Haw River. Nah, I’ve no idea.

Why, yes I did need a rigorous geocaching adventure for today. There was a relatively new cache — “Can’t Hold Me Back” (GC93Y4W) — along the Haw River in Alamance County, just north of Burlington that looked promising, so I decided to make my way over yonder. The cache listing shows a set of parking coordinates, but they are quite remote, and I knew that legitimate roadside parking exists nearer the trailhead. However, that area turned out to be so muddy I feared I might end up needing AAA if I dared plant the Rodan Mobile there. When caching in this area a few years back, I had parked along US 70, near the southern end of the Haw River Trail, so I drove down to that location to see whether it appeared usable. It did, so I went for it. Across the road, there were thingummies watching me. No idea what they are about. Anyway, parking there shaves a wee bit of mileage off the hike, but what I saved in distance, I more than made up for in terrain difficulty....

Do you remember drought? At times like this, I recollect it fondly. The Haw is running high, fast, and hard, and there is flooding all around the trail. Before I even reached Boyd’s Creek, a fair-size stream that intersects the trail — today quite swollen — I had achieved the rank of Major Muddy Mess. The creek looked to be about waist-deep, so I went upstream a quarter mile or so and found a big log to use as a makeshift bridge. I stayed dry, but given the added distance, I resolved that, on the way back, I would attempt the water crossing. 

My makeshift bridge across Boyd’s Creek

At ground zero, I found the cache in good order. My pen didn’t much want to write, but I managed to get my signature on the log. About the time I started back toward the Rodan Mobile, I saw several deer grazing nearby. Then began the gunshots at frighteningly close range. I hadn’t thought to wear blaze orange (something to consider in this area during hunting season), so I made my egress from the area wildly waving my hiking stick and whistling Ennio Morricone’s “Ecstasy of the Gold” from The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly soundtrack at very high volume.

Back at Boyd’s Creek, I bit the bullet and made the water crossing. Someone had been kind enough to tie a rope across the creek, which is the only reason I didn’t end up totally submerged, for those unseen rocks down there are slickery. Happily, the water was only knee-deep, rather than waist-deep.

Boyd’s Creek water crossing, outbound; nice that someone has tied a rope across the water

Boyd’s Creek water crossing, inbound: chilly!

I was relieved to finally reach the Rodan Mobile, although it was not at all happy to see me, since I was covered in more mud than Lon Chaney as the mummy after sinking in quicksand at the end of The Mummy’s Ghost.

So, this outing proved rather more invigorating than I had expected. Although I did let loose a colorful metaphor or two along my trek, I can’t say I didn’t have fun. So, to the cache owner, all my appreciation for the new geocache and the opportunity for another adventure!

The Haw River: very high, very fast

An awful lot of this...

...and very few of these.

Haw, Haw, the Laughing Dead

Jesus Rob

Mercy, it's been way too long since I went out on a lengthy, invigorating trail hike to hunt a bunch of geocaches — something that not so long ago was at least a weekly, sometimes daily event. One of the drawbacks of being an avid geocacher is caching out the nearby environs and having to travel farther and farther afield to find any appreciable concentrations of caches. Add to that our recent bout with severe winter weather and the fact I'm now having to manage virtually all of my mom's affairs in addition to my own, and the opportunities to get out there have been pretty slim. But thanks to a new extension of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail along the Haw River in Alamance County, a balmy day, and a bunch of new caches courtesy of the nefarious "Yoda" Rob Lee, regular caching crony "Bloody" Rob Isenhour and I were able to put in

Can you undeerstand?

a good five to six miles in the woods and claim seven caches, with first-to-finds on three of them. Most stimulating for us, along the trail we came upon numerous crumbling, abandoned structures; discarded implements of death and destruction; and a few wrecked, rusting vehicles. We also witnessed a number of strange figures around (and in one case on) the river, some shambling silently through the shadows, others wailing and screeching in what might have been an alien tongue. By keeping a low profile, though, we passed more or less undetected through the woods, and thus lived to tell our tale.

The journey was not without some physical challenges of its own. While for the most part the trail is not terrain intensive, and none of the caches required any significant acrobatics to retrieve, several times we ventured into the surrounding environs to check out some of the more intriguing sights, and there is one stream crossing where no bridge, deep water, and a trail of submerged rocks make for an interesting experience. Neither Rob nor I fell in, but we each did our own version of a victory dance at the end, and neither were what I would call graceful.

I did discover what looks to be the perfect spot to place an evil, monstrous, dangerous, devious, heart-stopping, maybe kinda cool cache. This will require a return trip. Whether I can survive this endeavor remains to be seen. You'll no doubt hear about it one way or the other.

No survivors

One of the myriad structures near the trail we detoured to explore. We went with caution, for we figured
there might be Walkers nearby.

One of several implements of death and destruction we came upon. Hark! What's that sound?

Oh, lord, yes. There be Walkers here. Run! Run like hell!

High in Alamance County

It's one of those days that's too nice not to go geocaching, so I went geocaching — all around Alamance County, next door, in the company of my good friend Bridget "Suntigres" Langley. There's a relatively recent set of six caches over that way, each at one of the various branches of the Alamance County Public Library. It turned out to be an excellent little series, with several clever hides, none very difficult but all far more enjoyable than your garden variety park-and-grab cache. A few other new, well-placed caches made it a fruitful and highly enjoyable day. Tree-climbing has always among the old dude's favorite activities, and as you might deduce from the photos above, one of the caches along the Haw River Trail (GC5704W) provided the perfect outlet for that particular urge.

A good 1.5 inches long, this
rotten-ass fly-beast.

Another favorite was a new multi called "The Code" (GC57YFF) placed by frequent caching companion Robbin "Rtmlee" Lee at his own place of business. To even get past the first stage, one needs to utilize an app on a smart phone, and once you do, you're in for a big treat — providing you can figure out the "code" the app reveals to you. At another cache, we encountered the landowner, who had no idea there was a cache hidden at his place (generally a big no-no) but who, it turns out, was a good friend of one of our local diehard geocachers and quite familiar with our peculiar little hobby. He was fine with the container being hidden where it is and called his friend to let him know there was caching to be done — which is, to my mind, far more sporting than threatening to whack geocachers with a lawnmower blade.

No summer day in the south is complete without all kinds of critters in evidence. At the aforementioned cache, not only the landowner, but a very friendly snake came along to watch what we were doing. At another, a horsefly approximately the size of Rodan the Flying Monster gave us the compound eye but — fortunately — otherwise let us be. I say fortunately because he was so big and ferocious-looking that a close encounter with him would have amounted to a bad end for one of us.

Indeed, a highly satisfying day on the caching trail. Some of those Alamance County folks have their creative brains engaged. Always welcome.

Click images to enlarge.

The Oddities at Shallow Ford

Rock cairn photobombing ol' Rodan — or is it
the other way around?

A beautiful but cold morning. A handful of new geocaches awaited me over in a remote corner of Alamance County, a couple of which had not yet been logged, so I headed over fairly early, figuring I might have a shot at first-to-find. My first stop was the Shallow Ford Natural Area along the Haw River, which has several miles of beautiful hiking trails and a passel of caches, a couple of which are mine from a few years back — "Owl Rock" (GC2HM9H) and "Shallow Ford Towers" (GC2HMAJ). Along one section of trail, I encountered the ever-mysterious cairns that have been built from the stones that cover the wooded hillsides. I'm fairly certain they are the work of Martians, who have clearly taken over this section of countryside, for as I hiked this morning, I could hear them in the distance, constructing their giant fighting machines. The entire time I was out there — just over an hour — the hammering scarcely let up, and when it did, it was only for a few brief minutes. It had to be Martians; nothing else sounds like that. Many of the rocks were arranged in manners that defied physics, leading me to believe they might be designed for communications of some kind. Beware — the aliens could be on the move at any time. In the video below, you can hear the hammering. It's outright eerie, it is! (Click on images to enlarge.)

The enigmatic rock cairns along the trail. Note that one of them is wearing a rather macabre hat.

On the video, you can hear the distant sounds of the Martians at work upon the fighting machines
they're building.... sleepless, indefatigable.

I did get first-to-find on the new cache. And on a slightly more mundane note...

After quitting Shallow Ford, I headed over to nearby Lake Cammack, to the dam at its southern end, where I managed another first-to-find. The cache owner had suggested that hunters might help remove some of the trash along the trail there, for the local fishermen are apparently too brain dead to carry out what they take in with them. Indeed, the area is absolutely beautiful but for the prodigious piles of trash that choke the woods. In fifteen minutes' time, I filled up a large trash bag, leaving at least a section along the river trail almost pristine. If every geocacher that goes in there were to do the same, the trail would be as scenic as nature intended, at least until the local pinheads fill it back up with crap.

Perhaps, if we're lucky, the Martians will simply eliminate them. They're coming, you know.

A nice view of the dam at the southern end of Lake Cammack

The result of just a few minutes' effort along the trail

Fresh Air

The inevitable portrait from the day's caching trip

The best thing one can say about the days getting longer and the weather warming up is that it's a bit easier to fit the geocaching into the schedule. At the office, Good Friday is one of those days during the year you can take a floating holiday, and so, being as the caching was calling me and all, I took it. Spent most of it over in Alamance County, hunting for a few hides around Graham and Burlington. There's a fairly expansive natural area in north Burlington called Oakdale Town & Country Park, which runs along the always gorgeous Haw River. Much of my time out there was spent on a couple of hides that I ultimately could not find, but I did not care; it was just a great day to be outdoors. I love finding old, forgotten, and unusual things out on the trail, and there were several out that way: what might have been part of an old set of weighing scales hanging from a tree; a busted-up toy racing car stuck on a metal post; a portion of brick column in a creek that came from who-knows-what old structure. Perhaps the most interesting was discovering a new, unused can of Febreze out in the middle of woods, not too far from a cache. I figure I can always use a little extra fresh air in the house, so I took it home with me.

Today, Ms. B. and I popped up to Martinsville to see Mum, detouring through Eden to go after a four-stage multi cache called "Murdered by State of NC," after the inscription on the gravestone of a convicted murderer who proclaimed his innocence up until he was executed by the state. His mother had the epitaph put on his stone to protest the ostensible murder of an innocent man. A fun hide in a neat location, at which one discovers quite a bit of local history as told by the stones at many of the grave sites.

And that is all. For now.

A very green portion of the trail along the Haw River, on the way to a cache aptly titled "Emerald"

This little racer must have hit this pole pretty danged hard.

I think this came from an old set of scales; if you know, please weigh in.

No telling what this portion of column came from; I saw no other remains nearby.

Restored cabin and well at Graham Municipal Park