The Cathedral

 The Cathedral was a great one. As usual, we made it much harder than it really was. After the long, long hike, we went the long.long way the last few hundred feet. Just that part took over and hour. We eventually found the right path, on the way out.

Drift Creek Falls

There were two caches here  -- One at the Trailhead and one at the end of the trail at the bridge.  Drift Creek Falls is beautiful and well worth the hike in. It's about 1.5 miles one way.  The way in is mostly downhill, so that of course means the way back out is mostly uphill.  It's not difficult, there are a lot of switchbacks. Elevation: Trailhead – 911 feet, At the bridge – 630 feet, River’s edge – 532 feet. Absolutely gorgeous trail and the bridge was awesome.

Updates

I haven't had any "favorite" caches for a couple of weeks now. It's not that we haven't found some good ones, it's just that nothing has said "WOW" to me. We did see some great scenery on the way to caches and here are a couple of photos.

Southern Oregon

Our favorite cache this week was Spring has Sprung. This is another of the Oregon History Challenge caches. We don't care so much about the actual challenge, but we do like to visit the caches since we know we are going to find one that is located and placed the way we like them -- the way caches were done when we first started caching.

This one and it's companion Sprung-A-Creek, we great. The drive to them both was on Forest Service Roads. Sprung a Creek was at a beautiful viewpoint that looked out over the other cache.

Spring has Sprung was located down more Forest Service roads and at a campground that appears to not have much use anymore. We arrived, drove around, got within .25 and couldn't find a road to it. We drove around more and parked at an overlook that put us on the wrong side of the creek (which is actually river-width). We kept this parking spot and walked down to where the spring actually started -- bubbling up from the ground -- and crossed there. We hiked along the banks, scaring up dragonflies, until we cut into the woods to get the cache. GREAT place. Gorgeous!

GC12 and GC17

Saturday was a hike up to GC12 and GC17. GC17 was the favorite. It was in the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness. It was uphill all the way. For the route we took, the GPSr said 1.3 miles, but since some of it was winding around, it was likely a little bit more than that.  As we got deeper into the hike, the trail changed to single track. There were ripe mountain huckleberries and a breathtaking view of Mt. Hood. Two thumbs up for the great cache.

The Big Smiley

Oregon's Biggest Smiley

We camped at LaPine State Park. What a great weekend with great people! This weekend's favorite cache was a series of caches. This was actually more fun than the Peace Sign Series in Seattle, Washington. The Peace Sign Series was all urban and stressful. The Smiley (GC1PB2F: Oregon's Biggest Smiley) actually left us with a smile. We didn't see or hear people the entire day...until we got near the final cache at the end of the day and it sounded like we were in a war zone -- people target shooting close by. Other than the end, it was a wonderful day with rtmyss and sprite4. We spent about 8 hours bushwhacking through the desert -- no trails -- only sage, lava and occasional trees where we took "shade breaks." I drank more than 10 bottles of water during the course of the day.

We did other caches this weekend also, and some of the photos are below...

Only one cache today

We only went for one cache today, but it's one we've been meaning to get to for some time now. LiefPhoto's Puzzling Double Century Cache.It was a long uphill walk. We interrupted a bull snake about to eat a lizard. We saved the lizard's life when we came around the corner and distracted the snake.

Gold Ray Dam and the Wild and Scenic Rogue

Weekend of July 31, 2010...We didn't really have an overall favorite cache of this weekend. Nothing stood out as "WOW." The most interesting was an earthcache, Gold Ray Dam and the Wild and Scenic Rogue. The reason this one stood out was that they are in the process of removing the dam and the river is going to reclaim the area. We also saw some beautiful ospreys. Along with the dam, we did see some other interesting things during our travels around the Rogue River area.

HUGE Madrone tree

Central Oregon Art Gallery

Without a doubt, the best cache this weekend was Central Oregon Art Gallery. I have had this on my list for years, and finally got the chance to get out there and get it this weekend. It was better than I expected and I was expecting something great.  When you arrive at the parking spot, it's really just a wide spot with a bunch of obsidian cliffs. Of course the obsidian is very cool, but you can see it all over the place.


Just a short distance from the parking area, you start on the trail. It's behind a huge obsidian boulder. You can see the trail goes downhill. When we got to the point where the trail starts downhill,  we stood there and literally gasped. Amazing. I can't believe that this gorgeous, lush place is at the bottom of an obsidian field.  We spent a long time here....looking at the pictographs, watching the frogs, hiking around. This cache lived up to my expectations and more. Absolutely wonderful.

Pathway

The pathway to the beach for In Their Honor, GC11XZT was amazingly beautiful. This was one of our favorite caches of the weekend.

Once we got down to the beach, the walk across the dunes was peaceful. No one else was around so early in the morning. It was fun and a little strange to watch the wind cover our footprints with sand just a few short minutes after we walked by.

History

We've been geocaching for a long time -- since September 2, 2002 to be exact. We've seen some awesome caches and some awful caches. I might write about both....but my purpose is more to log some of the photos I have taken while on this journey.