Our First Geocaching Part Three

Of course we had to push our luck and try for three in one day and this last one was at a favorite spot of ours right down the road in Sprain Ridge Park so we packed up and headed out of the Hillside Parking lot. Sprain Ridge Park is in a bizarre location situated on a ridge between the north and southbound lanes of the Sprain Brook Parkway. The Park consists of 278 wooded acres and a developed portion with a pool and picnic tables. The hiking trails are nice though one is constantly reminded of the highways on either side as well as of the massive stand of high voltage power lines overhead at the top of the ridge. The park also attracts some insane mountain bikers and is a major migration stop and breeding site for many birds including Wood Thrush, Orchard Oriole, Pileated Woodpecker, Scarlet Tanager and Rose-breasted grosbeak.

According to "Where To Bird In Westchester"

"The park is excellent for spring and fall passerine migration. Some hawk migration along the ridge in the fall. Sunny days warm up the edge of the power-line path and woods at first light, concentrating migrants there." They go on to say, "Great-horned Owls are year round and can be found in the pines in the southern section of the park and the Cedars can hold Saw-whets in the fall and winter. Wild Turkey is becoming common"


Back to the hunt. When we arrived there were a few cars in the huge lot. It seemed that a Westchester utility was using the lot to park their bucket trucks and there was a guy alone in his car smoking a cigar. They must get bus loads of kids in during the summer that take advantage of the huge pool and recreation area but despite having been there a handful of times we have never seen the place when the pool was open.

We parked and entered the coordinates on the GPS. This time we would let the kids lead the way so we gave them the programed the GPS and handed it over. This cache was a "Multi" which meant that there were two parts. When you found the frst it led you to the second which was the main cache. In this case the first was a "micro" but the second was an ammo box filled with goodies (or so we hoped).

The boys looked like staggering drunks trying to follow the arrow but we let them get us toward the general marker area before we pulled out the seeker page to check for our encrypted clue. It read: [Part 1] In a tiny cave on the NW side of the rock outcrop (facing the pool), near the top.

We walked toward the pool then went characteristically off the path and hiked up the face of the rocks. We were feeling confident as we had accomplished the previous two cache's that day and went right to the apex of the coordinate. It was among an impressive outcropping of rocks with potential "caves" all over the place. We stood staring at the area when we were almost run over by a group of mountain bikers. We were standing right in the middle of a proving ground where the bikers were accelerating to jump on to a huge log that sat across the top of the ridge. One of our boys looked like a deer in headlights as the bikes zoomed around him. I heard one of the bikers yell "he want's to ride our bikes!". I think he just wanted to run for cover.

We checked all over. We looked in little rock crevices. In divots, cavities, openings, pit's, cracks, crannies, pockmark, chasms, clefts and certainly caves. Nothing. We were getting tired and hungry. We gave up.

It had been a great day. We were 2 for 3 and had discovered this great new twist on the oldest of pastimes. Walking. When I got home I looked online at the comments for this last failed Geocache. It said the following from July 4, 2008

"Spent about an hour and even with the hint, no luck."

I guess we weren't the first to have given up without location the first cache. But reading further the blog raised my hopes for a return. This one from October 2008 after someone mentioned they updated the hint to be more accurate.

"FINALLY!!!!
This cache has been giving us fits since we started caching 3 years ago, especially since we have never found this kind of multi until now (the ones we have found involve getting numbers from a spot and doing math to get the final coords). In that time we have made 2 attempts as a group and 2 by myself ("Ha") to find part 1."

We are definitely going back.