Return to the Black Lodge

About five years ago, I placed a series of Twin Peaks–themed geocaches ("Project Blue Rose") in various locations in Greensboro, one of which lurks deep beneath the city streets in an old storm drain system. Yesterday, I was caching in Greensboro with friend Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), and it came to my attention that he had never claimed this particular hide. I've wanted to check on it for a long time—caches placed in such an unfriendly environment frequently end up damaged or going missing—so I suggested he go after it with ye olde cache owner accompanying. He found the idea agreeable.

So, off we went to ground zero: a culvert entrance, about four feet in diameter, which hides at a small creek that flows through Greensboro's Lindley Park neighborhood. We haven't had a lot of rain lately, but a strong, steady current of water flowed through the pipe. Fortunately, both of us had worn our trusty, waterproof hiking boots, so, with flashlights in hand, into the gaping maw we went.

 

FYI, long before my "Project Blue Rose" series, this particular tunnel had been used for a stage of a multi-cache called "Greensboro Underground" (which I found in June 2009; you may read about that wild adventure here). I credit that underground excursion with curing me of arachnophobia, and had Scott and I found ourselves back in a cramped chamber filled with giant, hairy wolf and fishing spiders, I might have experienced a fair adrenaline charge; however, it's too early in the season for the big multi-legged monsters to be out and about, and I reckon that's fine.

 

I found that out, this many years later, negotiating such a cramped space for such a distance caused me a bit more physical discomfort than it had in those old days (okay, yeah, it hurt), so in the future, I may need to limit my subterranean excursions to those that allow for standing upright. The top of my skull will thank me.

Once we reached our final destination, I was pleased to see that the Project Blue Rose container remained intact and in its proper location. The log sheet, however, had gotten soaked, so I will need to replace it. I can do that next time I'm in the area; I reckon my back and knees (and head) will hold out for at least a few more ventures into these deep, dark confines. Maybe I'll plan my next one for when the spiders are out and about, just to get a charge.

 

Anybody wanna go along?

Looking back toward the entrance as we make our way in...

L: The view ahead...as far as our flashight beams will reach; R: Diefenbaker claims his prize

Caching King

Friend Scott (a.k.a. Diefenbaker) and I met for a day of geocaching in King, NC, this morning, hunted and found a bunch of fun ones. Also didn't find a couple. My favorite was one I went after that was down in a culvert under a country road. Haven't done a culvert cache in quite a while, and this one was a lot of fun — and very wet after the rains we've had. It's an oldie ("Mountain Stream Cache," GC39HZW), placed in 2011, and it looks like the container and log are the originals. Nice.

There was a neat little cache called "The Enigma of King" (GCAEAH8), which is a wooden puzzle box. I'd found one like it several years ago, but I needed a video refresher to get this one open. Also a fun one.

Scott and I found lunch at a little Thai place — Amazing Thailand — which we'd visited on earlier King trips. If not altogether amazing, the food was good.

So, finally, a caching day with me a great caching partner from the good ol' Greensboro days. There will be more, and soon, I hope.

Found the cache.

The Enigma of King

Pilot Mountain in the distance

Out of the Park and Others

This past Sunday’s geocaching outing of the No-Dead Weight Irregulars — consisting of Old Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), not-quite-so-old Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), and the Old Dude as the Beaver — took us back to Chapel Hill, where we sought one of our favorite varieties of geocache: one hidden in the deep, dark underground. This one is called "Out of the Park" (GC55DEF), located just off the UNC campus, in the Coker Pinetum, along Meeting of the Waters Creek. There are a couple of nice trails here, as well as what turned out to be a most colorful pathway into the depths of the earth.

The portal lies in a deep valley just off the nature trail, where a massive tree has fallen in the relatively recent past, all but obscuring the entrance from view. Getting down to it and back up from it are more difficult than negotiating the tunnel itself. To prevent tumbling into the chasm, Ms. Natalie made the mistake of grabbing a thorn-studded tree (which Scott informed us is called "The Devil's Walking Stick"), which resulted in considerable bleeding and swearing. Fortunately, no amputations were necessary. A rusty steel cable goes across the culvert, and I made the mistake of grabbing it on my way down. Unbeknownst to me, the section of cable was splintered sufficiently to bite my hand pretty deeply, which resulted in considerable bleeding and swearing. Fortunately, no amputations were necessary. A surprisingly large volume of water was gushing from the culvert's mouth, given there's been no rain to speak of in recent days. But we were all able to enter the darkness without mishap.

Apparently, this particular culvert has attracted graffiti artists of every stripe, and for almost the entire length of our journey into darkness — just under half a mile, by our calculations — the tunnel walls were decorated with intricate images, a variety of slogans, and the occasional dire warning that hell lay just ahead.

We hadn't gone but so far when Scott and I heard a holler, and we turned just in time to see Ms. Natalie take a quick seat in the chilly, rushing water. Yeah, it was pretty slick in there. Fortunately, her pride suffered more bruising than her butt, and from there, we proceeded without mishap — well, except for my flashlight going dead. I knew I should have brought that extra light along! Happily, Scott carried a spare, and he handed it over to me, if somewhat grudgingly. We pressed on and on, and — finally — our flashlight beams fell on an object that appeared slightly out of place in the deep, dark underground.

Indeed, it was the cache.

Once we had signed the log, taken a few pics, and re-secured the container, we made our about-face and hoofed it back toward the portal. To my chagrin, Scott's spare light also began to fade, so we made haste for those last few hundred feet. By the time we again emerged into daylight, this second light had also bitten the dust. But we had our smiley, and — happily — there were a couple of more caches along the nature trail, which proved a lot of fun to hunt. The woods here are gorgeous, and just enough fall color remaine to make the trip visually memorable.

We found lunch at a lovely little place called Four Corners on Franklin Street, where I availed myself to what was surely the largest half rack of ribs I've ever been served. And they were freakin' delicious.

On our way back to Greensboro, we stopped off in Hillsborough to grab a trio of hides, one along the old Occoneechee Speedway Trail, where we've hunted caches several times in the past. It's a lovely place, the oval racetrack having long ago been swallowed by forest but converted to a hiking trail.

All in all, it proved a wonderful day to add to our caching totals. Definitely a day for quality over quantity, which, for me, is always more than fine.

Cache on.

Along the Coker Pinetum Trails: A good place not to lose one's footing

So far, so good.

Oh, shit, Scott's got a camera. "No, dear, I didn't do anything foolish. Why do you ask?"

Beyond the Gate

Today was the day to attempt a new geocaching milestone: geocache find #12,000. For this outing, the Socially Distanced No Dead Weight Irregulars — Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), and the old radioactively mutated flying rubber prehistoric reptile — welcomed friend NCBiscuit (a.k.a. Linda) to our ranks as we went after a nice tunnel hide in Durham, NC, called “Beyond the Gate” (GC5C0C4), placed several years ago by friend Vortexecho (a.k.a. Christian). Ground Zero is a lovely location, which you see in the photo above, and it’s right behind the apartment complex where my daughter lived after she graduated college, back in... well... a handful of years ago. The pipe is big, so once inside it, we could easily walk upright. We found the biggest challenge to be wriggling through that broken gate. The pipe isn’t very long — maybe a hundred feet — but it sure is wet in there. You end up in a drain out in the middle of a pond.

Inside that pipe, I encountered the biggest crawdude I’ve seen since I was a kid, when I loved playing in the creek across from our house in Martinsville. He measures almost six inches long there. He proved friendly enough, though he was not at all an enthusiastic conversationalist. So as not to upset him needlessly, I avoided mentioning that crawdad is one of my favorite delicacies.

After completing the deed at “Beyond the Gate,” we shrugged off the increasingly oppressive heat and moved on to a nearby cache that has been in the wild for several days but has yet to be found. It isn’t meant to be especially difficult, but a number of geocachers have been unable to locate it. Count us among them. After a diligent, fairly lengthy search, we were forced to give up in frustration.

Some old fellow hanging around in the dark

From there, Ms. NCBiscuit departed, leaving the regular Irregulars to strike out after a number of caches along the American Tobacco Trail. Hoo, doggies, was it ever hot and ugly out there! We decided to end our day at another of Vortexecho’s tunnel caches, but unfortunately, claiming a find on this one was not to be. LV-426 (GC4YJFD) lurks deep inside a series of very tight culverts, requiring either crawling or very constricted duck-walking. I opted for the latter. Once way down deep inside, though, we encountered some smoky fumes oozing from a couple of pipes — one of the inevitable hazards of such locations — and decided to abandon our search. Never let it be said we are irredeemably foolhardy. Merely foolish.

That ended our adventure for the day, although before coming back home, I had to get even hotter and filthier helping Brugger put up a new mailbox in front of her house, since the old one was by all rights condemned. That done, I finally made it home and fell into the shower, for which every organism within a hundred feet of the property thanked me profusely.

It was a day.

Beyond the gate at “Beyond the Gate”

Old Rodan and VERY Old Diefenbaker

Heat be hot!

South of Heaven: Abyss

Team No Dead Weight: Old Dude, Scott, Natalie. I just realized these two were not properly socially distanced
here. At least, I was good. I am always good. Sort of.

I haven’t come home from geocaching so hot, wet, and filthy dirty since the last time I came home so hot, wet, and filthy dirty, and that is some kind of hot, wet, and filthy dirty. Team No Dead Weight — today’s incarnation consisting of Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), and I — set out this morning for Chapel Hill/Durham for the express purpose of knocking out a few geocaches that require venturing into the deep, dark underground. We ended up in five tunnels, I believe it was, two of which were part of a single multi cache.

Our view for the better part of the day

We started out with a fine multi called “Preparation H: Feels Good on the Hole” (GC340DE) in Chapel Hill. It’s one of a series of “Preparation” caches, which require you to have some particular tool of the trade in order to acquire the prize. In this case, the tool in question is a flashlight, and we made sure we had an adequate supply of them for our trek. The first stage led us to not so much a tunnel as a tight, lengthy enclosure under a bridge. The object bearing the coordinates to the next stage proved quite challenging to turn up. Reaching the second stage did require going into a bona fide, fairly lengthy storm drain tunnel. The stage itself was not a container per se, but a novel method of revealing coordinates to the actual cache. It lurked just off a nearby trail, at ground level, but on what is called, in the vernacular, high ground. Someone was kind enough to leave a rope to assist with our ascent and descent. A bloody fun hide this one.

Next, we sought a little monster called “Strategies Against Architecture: Darkness” (GC1JXYB), deep inside a narrow tunnel that required crawling to negotiate. Not my favorite means of ingress, I can tell you. And sadly, this effort turned out to be a bust. The cache may still be in there, but damned if we could find it. This cache and the next two were placed by friend Vortexecho (a.k.a. Christian), who is well-known locally for his more extreme geocache hides.

Scott trying not to fall down go boom

We had similar bad luck at a much longer tunnel — “Mind the Frogs” (GC1JZC1) — in which we could stand partially upright, at least. This journey turned out to be fairly lengthy, our search intense, but once again, we got skunked. Most depressing, since we did put in such effort in hopes of making the find. Alas!

But then, the pièce de résistance: “Strategies Against Architecture: Abyss” (GC1QF2P). I think Vortexecho may have outdone himself on this one. It’s a two-mile “hike” in a very long, very dark, very wet tunnel on the outskirts of Durham. Thing is, thanks to none of us adequately reading the cache description beforehand (which one really ought to do, especially when you’re going deep underground), we didn’t realize just how lengthy this thing would be. After we had slogged and sloshed through the tunnel, which was mostly big enough to traverse in something akin to an upright position, we decided to re-read the cache description.

Oh, yeah. Two miles. We had gone about a quarter of that.

The aftermath: hot, sweaty, soaking wet,
Filthy mcNasty old dude

Well, of course, there was nothing for it but to keep on sloshing. Happily, we encountered no Copperheads, although we did see Black Widows in profusion, all just lounging about. Black Widows, at least, aren’t particularly nosy (noses they ain’t got!), preferring instead to mind their own business unless bothered. And we bothered them not at all.

Finally, we saw a light ahead (the “room of golden air”), which turned out to be a large junction with a drain overhead, through which golden sunlight came pouring. And there, chained to a pillar in the center of the chamber, there lay our quarry: a nice, large lock & lock container, just above head-high. When I opened the container, though, it emptied a considerable quantity of water on me, which indicated that the chamber has been totally flooded on occasion (possibly quite recently, given the amount of precipitation we have suffered). Needless to say, dangers do exist in this environment. A couple of years back, a sinkhole opened above the pipe, causing the total collapse of one section. One would not wish to be in the pipes during any appreciable rainfall. (And I had only been home a short time this afternoon when one of our notorious gullywashers began.)

All in all, an invigorating, if damned filthy-dirty day. I sleep now.

Big honking millipede — about six inches long — wandering about in the tunnel

Taberna Ferramentorum and Others

That unusual-looking critter you see in the photo is a two-foot-long Hammerhead worm, the first specimen of which I've ever seen in the wild. Team No Dead Weight turned it up while hunting a geocache over in Chapel Hill this morning. Hammerhead worms are not especially dangerous to humans, but they do prey on earthworms, which are beneficial to humans. Hammerhead worms use a virulent neurotoxin on their prey, which actually dissolves the earthworms they catch. This particular chap might not be what I would term pleasant-looking, but it certainly was fascinating. That thing just kept extending and extending, appearing to actually grow longer and longer as it moved. We let it go on its way, although had I known at the time it doesn't really qualify as a dear friend to people, I might have had a somewhat different reaction.

Our team — Robgso (a.k.a. Old Rob, a.k.a. Bloody Rob), whom we managed to keep up with this week (see "Where's Rob" from last Sunday); the ubiquitous Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie); and Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) — had determined to visit the North Carolina Botanical Gardens in Chapel Hill, as there are numerous geocaches on a host of trails in and around the facility. The day was miserably hot, but we made the best of it, as we found a number of intriguing caches, including one in the deep, dark catacombs underneath the local Trader Joe's.

We started out at a five-stage multi-cache — Taberna Ferramentorum (GCYZ2Q) — which we didn't realize had such a long history. It was originally placed in 2006, and it hasn't had many finds in recent years. It started out simple enough, but as we proceeded through the stages, which included Roman numerals etched on rocks and such, we found that time and weathering had done a job on the information we needed. By a process of educated guesses and pure intuition, we managed to make our way toward the final stage, which turned out to be at a very old, very secluded area back in the woods just outside the Botanical Gardens' farthest reaches. Completing this multi required no little time and a fair distance hiking, but we enjoyed the experience immensely, especially since we had to rely on some outside-the-box thinking to make the find. We also found Roberto, a beautiful, six-foot black rat snake, who seemed pleased to have some friendly visitors. We sat and chatted for a while, but the conversation was, admittedly, somewhat one-sided.

A neat old, abandoned bridge we encountered along our way. It's not far from collapsing
into Morgan Creek, it would seem.

Roberto

Three-quarters of Team No Dead Weight: Bloody Rob, Diefenbaker, Old Rodan

From here, we made our way to several other caches, most of which proved relatively easy to find. We had spent quite some time on the trail by this point, so we headed to Cerritos Cantina for a late (and very satisfying) Mexican lunch. Scott and I both had the Tacos Diabla, which, I will tell you, are not even a little bit not-hot. They are hot. We hollered for happy. And just hollered.

All day, Ms. FDTS had been clamoring to hunt an underground cache. The NC Triangle has plenty to choose from, most courtesy of Mr. Vortexecho (a.k.a. Christian) his very own self. And there was indeed one that looked tantalizing. It's been staring at me from the map for many years now. We did notice that it had not been found in almost six years, and you never know how a cache in an extreme environment is going to weather the years. But we decided it was worth a shot. I won't post the cache name/GC number here, although by way of deduction, I'm sure some geocachers might determine which one it actually is.

Old Rodan at the cache

Our destination turned out to be an underground passage, about 50 feet wide, into which Booker Creek flowed. Old Rob, being intensely un-fond of such grottoes as this, opted to remain outside, while Diefenbaker, FDTS, and I made our way into its shadowy confines. We had to walk on a narrow ledge along one wall, a few feet above the rather disturbingly deep water. The first thing we found inside was mud. Deep, slippery mud, all along the ledge. We also found lots and lots of huge spiders, which made for pleasant enough company, as long as they didn't try to hold our hands. After going some distance, we spied a foreboding object ahead — a long, narrow pipe that spanned the passage — which we suspected would host our quarry.

Indeed it did.

It was decided that Old Rodan would do the retrieval honors. Why, thank you so much, my friends. Getting onto the overhead pipe and scooting out to the container indeed proved physically challenging, but as we were this close, there was no way we were going to let this thing get away from us. I persevered, and a few minutes later, I had the container in hand and Team NDW scrawled on the log.

Then I had to make my way back to the narrow space by which we had accessed GZ. What fun! Scooting backward, I can tell you, is somewhat more difficult than scooting forward, particularly so close to the rafters, which constantly threatened to gong me in the head. Happily, Diefenbaker did a fine job warning me when I should duck. Soon enough, my feet were back in the deep, slippery mud, and we trudged once again into the hated heat and brilliant, blazing sun.

And that, my friends, is what geocaching was all about. After that experience, I felt enervated for a short while, but I've recovered nicely, and tomorrow there is a lengthy kayak trip on the docket. It's gonna be another scorcher too. Hooooeeeey.

And g'night.

Albert, a great big snapping turtle we made friends with at North Carolina Botanical Gardens

Team No Dead Weight

Team No Dead Weight Does Dr. Evil (Almost)

Team No Dead Weight. Bloody Rob is beaming because he is bloody well bright.

The other day, Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie) let it be known that there should be beaucoup trail caching this weekend. So, this morning, Ms. Fish, Bloody Rob (a.k.a. Rob), and Old Rodan (yours) joined up to form another incarnation of Team No Dead Weight (the customary moniker for whatever poor, unsuspecting geocachers we can round up for a day of forced hunting). Off we headed to a section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail around Falls Lake, just east of Durham, NC. The day started out rather chilly and quite foggy, but by the time we hit the trail, the fog had lifted and the temperature had risen above the 40-degree mark.

Old Rob remains behind, guarding the
entrance to hell

There were an even dozen caches on the trail, and we conquered the lot of them without undue difficulty and in fairly good time. We found ammo cans, camouflaged lock & locks, bison tubes, rubber chickens, and dog chew toys, one of which I swear was an alien dildo screwed to a tree (that one wasn't actually a cache; it was just taking up space for whatever reason). Our favorite, though, was a very small human skeleton sitting in a holly tree. It was.

From there, we ventured forth to Trali Irish Pub, which has been a favorite dining destination both with Ms. Brugger and on various geocaching expeditions. I had a wunnerful, wunnerful lamb burger with fries, and a kick-ass Bloody Mary. Ms. Fish and Bloody Rob tried scotch eggs, which is one of God's most delightful concoctions: a hard-boiled egg encased in spicy Irish sausage, breaded with panko, and deep-fried. They might ought to serve it with a side of defibrillator, but my lord is it tasty.

After lunch, we decided to head after a handful more caches, the most enjoyable of which was one called "Number Two Goes for a Walk" (GC3AAMM). It's one of those "Dr. Evil"-type caches (almost, anyway) — meaning that, to get to it, you're going to want a flashlight or several, and you do NOT want to go after it during or immediately following any substantial rainfall. It rained like the devil the past couple of weeks, but we happily found the culverts reasonably dry and quite comfy. The trip underground wasn't as long or as difficult as most of those "Dr. Evil" hides, but it proved challenging enough to be memorable. What was kind of funny was that, just a short time earlier, both Ms. Fish and I were wishing we might find exactly such a hide at some point during the day. Now, Old Bloody Rob doesn't care for such underground shenanigans, so he guarded the entrance to the underworld while we explored it. Yeah, he knows what he's missing, which I guess is exactly why he is missing it.

Coming home, we drove toward a spectacular blazing sunset. It was a good day on the geocaching trail, the downside of which means it flew by, and next thing you know, it's another flippin' work day. Boogers.

Over and out.

Falls Lake out yonder

Driving into a spooktacular sunset

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

There's a nice new multi-cache in town called "Greensboro Underground," and guess where you get to hunt. Yes...down there. So, right after work, I met up with friends Night-Hawk (a.k.a. Tom) and the Sneaky Bulldog (a.k.a. Ethan), all of us dressed for the occasion and armed with several flashlights. Thus, we commenced our journey. To my chagrin, halfway through the adventure, my brightest light began to dim rapidly, even with relatively new batteries; happily, I carried a spare, and between us, there was no shortage of lighting.

At the first of the three stages, we snagged the coordinates for the next, held our tongues just right, and made our way into the earth's depths. Here, the diameter of our conduit was only about four feet, so it was t-i-g-h-t. And then what should our lights reveal but...spiders. BIG FAT HAIRY BLACK F-'ING SPIDERS—of the four-inch leg span variety—in mass profusion, hanging on every surface; up, down, and all around.

Night-Hawk and the Bulldog gently suggested that I go first.

All righty then! Only ever-so-slightly daunted, onward I went. You should have heard the Bulldog scream when one of the spiders passed right under his legs. Still, at a junction, he bravely took the point and found the requisite clue in short order. Another stage down. By now, it was nighttime, and when we burst exuberantly free of the depths and barreled onto the nearby sidewalk, we surprised an elderly woman walking her dog. Her cry of alarm may still be echoing somewhere out in space. We apologized and explained that we were running from a tunnel full of giant spiders. She made haste to part company with us.

For the third stage, we found ourselves with lots of ground—or rather, underground—to cover. At several junctions, we had more than one choice of tunnels to take, and it paid to choose wisely. At least in these, we could mostly stand upright. For a long distance, we were able to straddle the narrow streams flowing beneath our feet, and we began to think we might actually come out of this endeavor without getting soaking wet. However, came a time the water grew wider and deeper, so we finally said the heck with it, and now my boots are drying out for the next couple of days.

At long last, and lord knows how far in, I spied the cache. But it was here I made a grave mistake! Night-Hawk had kept right on going, but in my enthusiasm, I blurted, "It's here!" Had I not, he might still be down there having scads of fun while I'm lounging around above-ground, enjoying a post-cache martini. I'm sure I'll do better next time.

Actually, I'm glad Night-Hawk is still with us because he documented the whole journey with pics. I was reluctant to take my camera with me because I am a devout klutz, and probably would have dunked it.

At least I am a wise klutz.

Wait, what...?

The Bulldog wanted to play ball, so we let him.

On and on it goes...

Success....