Another Day on the Caching Trail: The Uwharries

Today's incarnation of Team No Dead Weight: Old Feller, Fishdownthestair, Skyhawk63, Pharaoh

The Uwharries — a relatively low, exceptionally ancient mountain range, some thirty miles due south of Greensboro — conceal a considerable number of geocaches (a hundred sixty-something, I'm led to believe), maybe half of which I've found on numerous visits over the past dozen years. Back in November, the redoubtable local geocacher Ranger Fox (a.k.a. Christopher) placed a bunch of new caches down yonder, and I will confess to you that this is the kind of behavior that makes ravenous geocachers like me go foaming at the mouth. A week or so ago, friend Skyhawk63 (a.k.a. Tom) suggested that today might be a fine day for a select team of us to seek a few of those suckers. And what a day it turned out to be. For December, it proved a morbidly warm day — damn near 70 degrees and somewhat humid. We had dressed with extra layers for the early morning's chilly temperatures, but by 10:00 a.m., for better or for worse, those layers were shedding themselves in ragged droves.

Depending on which of our pedometers one should believe, we put in something between 7.5 and 9 miles in terrain that might be considered a little more extreme than gently rolling hills. Of the seven caches we visited, getting to a couple of them damn near reduced us to quivering, sweat-soaked, perfectly useless mounds of human flesh and blood. However, as the oldest member of our intrepid group, I felt it incumbent upon me to set a positive example on the trail. Thus, I wailed, moaned, groaned, and griped better than almost anyone ever. You just ask. It's true.

Our mostest favorite of these caches lurked in an ancient graveyard out in the midst of the wilderness. Cooper Cemetery dates back to the 18th century, and is the resting place of one Sterling Cooper, who fought in the Revolutionary War.

For all our wandering and searching, the one thing we did not find today was the Uwharrie Bigfoot. Yes, reputedly, one or more specimens of the Bigfoot clan reside in the Birkhead Wilderness, right smack in the heart of the Uwharries. A couple of years ago, I discovered the movie Stomping Ground, about a search for Bigfoot in the Uwharries. It wasn't particularly good (nor was it awful), but it was fun, and seeing so many familiar locations in a wacky Bigfoot filum made me smile. Now, today, I did stumble in a rather massive indentation in the ground that might have been a Bigfoot track, but the considerable weathering made conclusive identification impossible. Because I'm  never one to leap to unjustifiable conclusions, I'm just gonna say it was a big old Bigfootprint and leave it at that. So there.

At the end of the day, we had seven caches under our belts. The company and exercise couldn't have been better — well, it might have if Bigfoot had come along — and the late lunch that Ms. FDTS and I had at The Flying Pig in Asheboro sure hit the spot. When I got home, to soothe the aftermath of my exertions, I took an honest-to-god hot bath, something I've not done probably since I had more hair up north. At least now I am clean, relaxed, and have availed myself to a Damned Rodan's Dirty Firetini (okay, so maybe there were two of them). Tomorrow's lineup includes Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I must tell you, I'm a little concerned about my Star Wars geek status, for there was a time I camped out in front of theaters for Star Wars tickets, and some people tell me I actually went to see the original Star Wars in 1977 no less than 23 times at the theater. This is probably the longest I've gone after a Star Wars release without hieing myself directly to the theater. Ah, well. I'm a getting to it, and that's what counts.

That is all.

A rock cairn at the summit of one of several high elevations we experienced today

Old dude takes a breather at the top of a mighty high ridge

Pharaoh looking for a helpful message from God at the cache site. No helpful signs were forthcoming,
so we had to find the cache the old-fashioned way.

It's All Relative

Robbin Lee verifying his precise location in space
and time. Conclusion: nowhere and fast.

Time and distance, that is. In last week's episode, Old Rodan was out climbing Mt. Rogers, the highest peak in Virginia — a solid ten-mile hike, uphill, both ways. This week, he went out with fellow geocacher, Robbin Lee (a.k.a. Rtmlee) to the Birkhead Wilderness in the Uhwharries, about 45 minutes south of Greensboro. The overall distance hiked was less than half of last week's big outing — just about four miles — but something about traversing Birkhead (I'm guessing it's bushwhacking up numerous super-steep, slippery, leaf-covered slopes, seemingly taking two steps backward for every single step forward) required a much greater expenditure of energy. The day started chilly, too, but as it wore on, the temperature climbed until it felt more like summer than mid-autumn, requiring us to shed layers of clothing to prevent heat exhaustion.

The Birkhead Wilderness area is just southwest of Asheboro, NC, encompassing over 5,000 acres of the northern Uhwharries. The mountains are considered the oldest on the North American continent. Almost all the Birkhead area is deep woods, so you won't find spectacular views, certainly not like those we experienced at Mt. Rogers last week. The wilderness area is open for hunting (in season), hiking, and camping, with numerous trails of varying difficulty.

There are also plenty more caches down that way. I shall return.

Old dude taking a much-needed breather

There are ancient artifacts dating back 12,000 years and more to be found in the Birkhead Wilderness.
This little rock cairn is not likely one of them.

Crazy as Fire

Who goes out on a five-plus-mile hike in some fairly rugged terrain on a day when the peak temperature hit 105? Yeah...a bunch of lunatic geocachers. Specifically, Mark Case, Scott "Diefenbaker" Hager, and old Damned Rodan. About midday, we hit the trails at the Birkhead wilderness area, just southwest of Asheboro, to hunt a handful of caches, most specifically, one called "Mystery of the Birkhead Ghosts" (GC3C2A), which requires deciphering a code key that had daunted us for some time. A few days back, Scott and I managed to decrypt the key independently, so this was the day the bunch of us opted to make a go of it.

Holy crap. I've been hiking in some heat, and ordinarily, it doesn't really faze me. Today, however, it came damn near to doing the old man in. At least we had presence of mind to take plenty of water with us so we could keep ourselves hydrated. As all good geocachers do, we occasionally left the trail and bushwhacked to our various destinations, at which time we discovered... per usual... that the short way is all too often not the best way. Still, we managed to conquer the ghost and a couple of other caches lurking in the wilderness. We happened upon numerous very cool rock formations, and Mr. Case, science teacher extraordinaire, enlightened us with some fascinating facts about the geology of the region. Certain of the rocks indicated that we were treading on some of the oldest exposed earth on the planet, which is rather humbling, when you think about it....

Anyway, we all survived, so that young Kimberly and old Rodan could visit with our friends, Joe and Suzy Albanese, at their neighborhood pool. Never was a dip more welcome. (Do not over-think that last sentence, for it means nothing. Seriously.)

One of the intriguing rock formations we happened upon in the wilderness

Funny how some of those rock formations tend to grow, almost as if someone actually
placed them that way. Scott Hager (L) and Mark Case (R).