Pine Droppings

Every now and then you have to stop and marvel about nature.  Nature creates some isolated patches of wonder that will catch your eye and you just have to enjoy them.  This past weekend I was able to get out for some geocaching and one of the last caches we found that day was hidden at the base of a Coulter pine tree.  I love Coulter pine trees for a couple of reasons.  First, they have an awesome pine cone and second is I have a couple of friends who resemble the tree in some way or another.  They'll understand.

If there aren't any pine cones around the pine tree, it's sometimes difficult to identify the Coulter pine.  Not so when there are any pine cones either in the tree or on the ground.  In fact, when you see them on the ground, you instinctively look up.  These cones are massive.  My pictures don't do them justice, but the first one was probably close to 9 inches long.  They weigh a lot too, so looking up is really a good idea.  If one should fall and hit you, you're going to be severely damaged.

The damaged tent came from a small sugar pine cone that a squirrel chewed through and ended up dropping onto our tent when we were camping in Sequoia National Park.  We'd been out caching and hiking that day and came back to camp.  I looked at the tent and couldn't tell what had happened at first, but when I got closer I figured out quite quickly.  Not only did the pine cone go through the side of the tent, but it had enough force to go through the bottom of the tent as well.  And where it landed was about a foot away from where my son would lay his head while sleeping.  That particular pine cone probably weighed no more than a pound or so.  Imagine a 4 to 10 pound Coulter pine cone coming down.  It's no wonder the Coulter pine was nicknamed the "widowmaker."

The Coulter pine is found in the coastal mountains of Southern California and Baja California.  It has a very limited range, but is not threatened or endangered and you can find isolated groves as far north as the Bay Area near San Francisco.  They are pretty plentiful in our local mountains.  I've hiked through one small grove on a caching expedition near the Devils Punchbowl, which is located north of me on the desert side of our local mountains.

I can remember as a child going out on outings with my parents to our local mountains near Big Bear, California.  My mom was always collecting Coulter pine cones to create Christmas decorations.  She'd spray paint them green and create miniature Christmas trees out of them.  They usually have a large base on which they stand and when not their natural color do resemble a squat Christmas tree.

I'm not sure how many people outside of Southern California are familiar with the Coulter Pine.  It's probably not many, but then again, I'm pretty sure I'm not familiar with all of the native flora that grows only in other areas of the country.  This particular pine is rather distinctive.  Just make sure if you're walking through a grove to watch overhead.  You wouldn't want to become the latest statistic of a Coulter pine.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
A Forest Adventure - by Kit Fox
California Hoax - by Radikel

Prescribed burns

I think I'm rather fortunate at this point in time to be back at school.  Working in an air conditioned building right now is a good thing when the outside temperature is around 104˚.  The heat always gets me thinking about fires since this is also our "fire" season.  This wouldn't necessarily be the case if we didn't have nutcases who get a thrill out of starting fires and if we'd had a better fire management system in place over the past 100 years or so.

When we visited Lassen last month and also when we visited Crater Lake last summer, there were prescribed burns happening in the parks.  Over the course of the last hundred years or so, we've had a policy within our country of any fire being bad, and so therefore the fire was suppressed almost immediately.  I can remember reading back in the early 1970s about forest fire management and how prescribed burns were now being applied to areas to get the forest back to where it should have been all along.

Clues that helped fire management personnel figure things out were burn scars on the bark of Giant Sequoias and other trees.  This indicated that the big trees had survived many fires in the past.  However, after many of the trees were protected within national and state parks fires were suppressed in order to protect these same trees.  Park rangers were unaware at the time that they were doing more harm than good to the forests.

My family took my camping all over the western United States during the 60s and 70s.  I grew up thinking that forests were deep and dark and very difficult to traverse except on trails due to the heavy underbrush and the think canopy of trees.  Very little light penetrated to the forest floor, so very few plants grew.  Many forest had uniform thick trees due to all of them sprouting around the same time.

Eventually, fire management teams realized that fire is a good thing for a forest.  It clears out much of the over accumulation of pine needles and other forest duff that accumulates over the years.  It was discovered that many forest had small fires burn through them perhaps as much as every 10 years of so.  Think about a forest that had over a century of forest pine needles accumulated waiting for a small spark that would start a conflagration.

This is what happened in September 1988 in Yellowstone National Park.  Several small, lightning started fires were allowed to burn.  Then, the fires got out of control and much of Yellowstone burned.  The fires probably helped in the long run, but it was a catastrophe at the time.  I had visited the park in 1987 and I remember watching the fires come ominously close to many of the places I had been barely a year previously.  It was a very sobering sight to say the least.

In Southern California, we have an entirely different ecosystem, with many bushes and a lot less trees.  When we get fires, they tend to get ugly very early.   We haven't had a fire in the foothills behind our house in about 7 years.  I've hidden a geocache puzzle up in those hills, which was originally entitled The Dead Forest? mainly because there was very little vegetation up there following those fires, yet the question mark at the end held out for the promise of new growth.  The cache is now called Cobol Canyon Cache, because the forest is definitely not dead any longer.  Whether prescribed burns would work in this area is another story.  If the area wasn't so urban, it probably would.  Saving houses adds another layer of complexity to fire management.

The prescribed burn in Lassen was right along the Manzanita Lake trail.  The fire wasn't very big, but then again, most forest fires, if they're actually allowed to burn naturally, shouldn't be that big.  They're usually just enough to burn the lower branches and the pine needles without scorching the land.  We probably have these damaging images of Yellowstone and other costly forest fires etched in our minds and think to ourselves that fire has to be bad.

Yet here we were, walking along a trail, with little areas slowly burning.  I spotted a couple of spots where I could see some tongues of flame, but none of the pictures came out where you could even see the flame.  The burn had worked its way down to the lake edge.  Because there was little to no breeze blowing, no hot embers were flying through the air.  The fire would eventually die at the water's edge having cleared out a small patch of forest to regenerate.  In fact, as we got over to the other side of the lake, I ended up taking a picture across the lake at the prescribed burn.  I think most people would be hard pressed to even figure out what part was actually burning.

Yosemite National Park actually has/had a small demonstration forest in their Wawona Big tree grove to show the differences between the two different types of environments.  The Wawona grove is a two tiered grove of trees, so it's easy to demarcate the boundaries and show the differences.  The upper grove, which had been burned through by several prescribed burns over the course of several seasons, had lots of small bushes and grasses growing throughout.  The trees were widely spaced, giving the grove a light airy feel to it.  It was very easy to walk through this grove.

The lower grove had trees packed closely together and it was very dark, with very little sunlight reaching the forest floor.  Consequently, there was little grass growing, providing little food for grazers.  Because of the accumulation of forest litter, there were few sprouting trees.  Had a fire started here, it would have probably killed many trees, possibly some of the Giant Sequoias as well.  This happens because the fire burns so much hotter with all the additional fuel.  I think the eventual plan was to slowly clear the lower grove out as well, getting both groves back to where they should have been all along.

The prescribed burns keep that fuel down, taking the forest back to the way nature intended.  At least that's the hope.  Only time will tell whether this way of managing the forests is any better than the total fire suppression we had in the early part of last century. As it is, we still get major fires, but I think the hope is eventually, we'll not have to be so aggressive in fighting fires and allow them to burn out naturally.  That will make for an better forest for all of us to enjoy.

On a side note, the National Park Service celebrates its 94th birthday today.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:

Pumice Castle and the Old Man of the Lake - by 47Dad47, KollyWobbels, Sally, and Russ
Loomis - by 2dogs and mtnsteve

A tree grows in Brooklyn

Well, the tree doesn't really grow in Brooklyn, but actually grows on the top of Devils Postpile.  The first time I was at Devils Postpile, we climbed up to the top of the postpile.  It's like being on top of a large patio terrace in someone's back yard, with the major difference being if you take a wrong step, you're falling a long way.

10 years ago, I took all three kids camping in Yosemite National Park.  On one of our hikes, we hiked up to the top of Vernal Fall.  The hike is strenuous, with lots of stair steps rocks to negotiate.  There is a guardrail along that part of the trail, and once you get to the top, the guardrail had a screen wire grate along the bottom portion of the rail to prevent anyone from slipping out and falling over the waterfall.  The viewpoint is right on the edge of the waterfall as you can see by the picture.

The Tadpole, at the time was four years old and when we climbed to the top of the fall, he dutifully held my hand, mainly for safety, but also because he wanted to feel the support of Dad as he made his ascent.  It was at the top when all hell almost broke loose.  In every parent's worst nightmare, he broke free of my hand, just as we crested the trail and the viewpoint.  I hadn't seen the wire mesh grate, but even if I had, I probably would have freaked a little bit.  Because I didn't see the wire mesh, needless to say I freaked a lot.  Suffice to say, nothing happened that day and the Tadpole is still around, as am I.

One of the things I noticed about the Tadpole on this past trip was his willingness to just take over things that I normally did when we camped.  He decided to be in charge of the food storage box.  In California, most campgrounds in bear country are outfitted with metal storage lockers to prevent bears from raiding your supplies and also to keep bears away from populated areas.  Bears that feed on people food, as opposed to what they're supposed to be eating isn't good for either bears or people.  The Tadpole decided that the storage box was his territory on this trip.  He organized it, he got the supplies out when it was time to cook dinner, and he put the supplies away at the end of the meal.  It was nice to not have to do everything this time around.

I think I might have been more nervous on the top of Devils Postpile back then had we gone there.  There is no guardrail and not anything to remind people of a steep drop.  Everyone knows it's there.  I didn't even think twice about walking around up there nor did I worry about the Tadpole.  His maturity, at almost 15 now, is showing big time and he's turning into that responsible young man that we all hope our sons turn into when they reach that age.

One of the things that I wanted to show the Tadpole at the top was a small tree.  I'd photographed this tree back in 1977.  As you may have noticed if you're a regular reader, I enjoy seeing the struggles of like, especially when plants grow where you don't think they should grow.  The tree that used to grow on the top of Sentinel Dome is one good example.  When I took that photo, I figured this tree might be something along that line and I hoped that someday I might get back to see it.  As you can see, the tree hasn't grown much.  By comparing the two pictures, I think it's safe to say there's about a foot of growth on the tree.

I guess I was overly optimistic when we came back this summer.  I think I was expecting the tree to be several feet higher.  After all, it had 33 years in which to grow.  I forgot about where it was growing.  It had two major disadvantages going against it.  The first, and probably the most important was the fact that it was growing in very shallow soil.  There were a lot of nutrients at the top of the postpile and so it's growth would probably be microscopic.  Because it's so readily accessible during the summer months, I'm sure it gets beaten around by all the people that make the short trek to the top of the postpile as well.

Still, the tree had grown a little and that was promising.  It also showed, that it would be a long time before this little tree towered over anything else in the forest.  It has its foothold.  Now, hopefully, it will continue to send down roots and continue to thrive.  The Jeffrey pine tree on the top of Sentinel Dome is no more, but it lived a good long life and never got more than about 12 feet tall at best.  The living conditions up there were probably harsher.  I have hopes for this little tree.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Mist Trail Cache - by V-man
Devils Postpile Glacial Polish - by TerryDad2

Spring is starting to spring

In Southern California, we seem to be having a delayed spring this year.  Granted, our seasons are not the normal seasons that most people would associate with the traditional spring, summer, fall and winter type seasons.  Winter is the rainy season.  In the past two days, my rain gauge in the back yard has registered slightly over a third of an inch.  That doesn't seem like much, but for a desert, it's a goodly amount of rain.

We've had some warm spring days, but we've also had some unseasonably cold days mixed i there as well.  The overnight low yesterday was 39˚.  For Southern California, I can tell you, that's a Three Dog Night.  The cold has kept some of the flowers under wraps a little bit longer than usual, although some were making an appearance last weekend when we were out in the desert.  I don't think the peak of flower production has hit yet, although it seems close.

Getting back to seasons.  I think in Southern California, summer starts in late June and continues well into September, when it starts to cool down.  "Real" fall, happens usually in December.  The deciduous trees need that nice cold weather which we don't really get until after Thanksgiving for them to drop their leaves.  Winter is our rainy season from December to March, but this year, it's obviously leaked into April.  Spring happens anytime between February to June, depending upon the amount of rain.  We actually get a second flowering season in the fall as well after we get some monsoonal rain during August.  Allergy sufferers get hit twice each year.

With really wet winters, and this is above average (slightly above 20 inches of precipitation with 15 inches being "normal"), although not extreme, we'll expect to see more and more flowers, which will bloom and die quickly once the heat starts in.  Seeds will be spread everywhere and next year might even bring a bigger explosion of color.  Hiking on the trails right now should be very enjoyable.  They'll be dry in a couple of days and the flowers should be just about right.  It's a good time to be out and about.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
BIG BURL - by Big Eagle
The Pit Stop - by Dah Mooser and MsPea

Black birds, barrels and butterflies

For the most part, the desert seems to be a pretty barren place.  When one thinks of the desert, usually one thinks of drifting dunes, camels and not much life.  Contrary to what people think about deserts, California's desert has a high degree of life.  Plant life, though scattered is plentiful.  Cactus are around and there are animals, be they elusive.

Sometimes the animals almost come to you, usually it's the flying animals, the butterflies and birds.  On a hike in the desert recently, we spotted a raven on top of a Joshua Tree.  Actually, we heard it first, probably angry at us for intruding upon its territory.  We spotted it, then immediately, noticed a second call.  I thought that the second one would also alight on the Joshua Tree, but the first took off quickly after the second and they soared across the desert floor together, looking for another place away from the intruders.

Springtime brings out the flowers in the desert.  Driving north this weekend, we saw the wildflowers on the hillside in full color.  This was not the desert per sé, but I'm sure the desert this weekend would be in similar fashion.  When we'd been out in the desert a couple of weeks ago, the flowers had just been about two or three weeks from being in full splendor.  Several barrel cactus would have been especially pretty with a ring of flowers around each barrel.

In late afternoon, we spotted a butterfly looking for a place to bed down for the night.  There was a slight breeze which probably hampered its ability to find a suitable spot to grab hold for the evening.  I enjoy watching butterflies and will, if given the chance, take pictures of almost any butterfly that will pause for even a moment on a nearby branch.  The coloring on this butterfly was a little different than what I'd seen in the past, so I was naturally excited about taking a picture.

Once if finally settled down and found a branch, we approached it cautiously, for fear of disturbing it and having it fly away.  It appeared that it definitely wanted to bed down for the night as it had its wings closed up tight.  I got a couple of pictures of it, but it wasn't going to show us the top part of its wings which would make identification difficult, even with the glimpses that we'd gotten while it was flitting about.

Still, after looking at the pictures, I was pretty sure we'd seen a Desert Marble Butterfly of the genus Euchloe lotta, but it could also be a California Marble.  As noted above, there is some uncertainty because it wouldn't cooperate with us and show us the top part of its wings, but that's sometimes the way it is in the real world.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Groundspeak Series - Stealth - by HDGC
Groundspeak Series - Lifeline - by HDGC

Soledad Canyon

Driving through Soledad Canyon last weekend was an enjoyable experience for a variety of reasons.  The canyon runs basically eastward from the 14 freeway toward Acton, California.  As one nears Acton, the road starts to bend towards the northeast and continues that direction until it connects back up with the 14 freeway as it makes its way north toward Palmdale and Lancaster.  When we got to Acton, we turned north in town and went back up to the 14 by a different route since we were heading back home after our trip through Acton.

An active railroad right of way also runs parallel with the canyon road through the canyon.  There were several caches along the road that had train themes to it, including a tunnel view cache.  We heard and saw two trains go through the canyon while we were caching, but unfortunately, we were not in a good position to get decent pictures of either one.  In fact, we missed a trail going through the tunnel view cache by a matter of five minutes.  We kept hoping to see another train, and we eventually did, but the cache we happened to be near at the time didn't put us in a good position to train spot.  Sometimes caching is like that and we accepted it.

The seasons in Southern California are relatively delayed as opposed to other areas of the country.  We actually have two big blooming seasons, one in the springtime and one in the fall.  Our fall colors (what we have of fall colors) usually happen in late November/early December lasting into the new year.  It's finally getting cold enough at night that the trees are starting to drop their leaves in force.  I have a silver maple tree in my back yard and while it doesn't have any leaves on it now, most of them were knocked off by several good winter rainstorms that came through this area over the past week.  I would imagine the picture of the tunnel view would look something a little different this week with some of those trees being a lot more barren, leaf-wise, after this last series of storms.

The road we traveled on had several old bridges on it.  We were in a canyon, so we crossed Soledad Creek several times and also crisscrossed the railroad tracks in certain areas as well.  I kept looking for benchmarks along the way and I found a couple, but nothing that was in the geocaching benchmark system to log.  With the railroad tracks in play in the canyon, we both suspected that the benchmarks were probably tied to the tracks in some way and after getting home and doing a little bit of investigating, it became obvious that many of the benchmarks in the canyon were indeed along the tracks and not along the roadway.

The bridges we did cross were old enough they were dated.  I can remember growing up, the sidewalks had dates on them in several places.  The company that poured the cement would put some free advertising into the sidewalk along with the date the sidewalk had been poured.  I hadn't seen this type of dating in a long time, as the other areas I've lived in were newer neighborhoods and the practice seems to have been abandoned over time for some reason.  The neighborhood I live in now does have dated sidewalks however, since it's an older established neighborhood.

Bridges seem to have this same kind of dating system too.  The company that built the bridge didn't put their name on the bridge, but at least a date could be seen on several of the one we crossed.  One appeared to have been replaced as the bridge itself looked to be of a newer type of bridge, but the piers on which the bridge rests seemed to be the original pilings. Again, I found a benchmark near this one, but it was a small one and not listed in the system.  The one that was listed in the system near this spot, was down on the railroad tracks.  And so it goes sometimes when you're looking for benchmarks.

As I noted in one of my previous logs, the road was busy last week. There was an accident on the 14, so there were lots of cars using the canyon road as an alternate route to get around the backup on the freeway.  Since we didn't get all of the caches in the canyon, we plan to go back in the future.  Hopefully, the road will be a little more peaceful.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Train Tunnel View - by Yosemite John and Debbie
Thirties Train Tunnel - by Yosemite John and Debbie
Bridge to Shambala - by Yosemite John and Debbie

Mushrooms

Hiking in the Redwoods is usually an enjoyable experience.  Most of the time when Chaosmanor and I were hiking, I kept thinking about the Lord of the Rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien.  Hobbits like mushrooms and they will do just about anything to get a mushroom.

When we were hiking, there were signs announcing that it was mushroom season and apparently, there were lots of people who harvested them.  I'm not an expert on mushrooms, so I'll partake of ones that I can purchase in my local grocery store.  I can also remember my first college roommate harvesting mushrooms but for an entirely different purpose.  We went to school at Humboldt State University and the area had lots of mushrooms, including several psychedelic "shrooms."  To each his own, but at that time I didn't understand the attraction of mind altering substances, nor do I really understand the need to partake of any today.

I prefer to look at plants for their intrinsic beauty.  Yes, I believe even mushrooms have an aesthetic value to them.  These were just some of the ones we saw along the trail while on our hike north of Santa Cruz.  Interestingly, although there were signs announcing mushroom season, we saw very little evidence that the locals were harvesting the mushrooms.  I was also somewhat surprised at the amount of mushrooms that were growing out of the bark of some of the trees.

Yes, I know they are part of the decomposition needed in the forest and although they usually don't work very well on Redwoods per sé, since redwood trees have so much tannin in them that they decompose at a very slow rate.  The fungi does help improve the soil by helping decompose other plants that have died.  The one picture I really enjoyed was the one that included the banana slug.  I hadn't even noticed the slug until after I got home and downloaded the picture on to my computer.  As a size perspective, I figure that banana slug was about 6 inches in length.

I'm not sure where this one is going.  I actually just wanted to share some of the pics from that hike and figured this would make a decent subject.  Please enjoy.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Rising Stump Cache - by Chickasaw of ynots4
Down By The (Fall) Creek - by iwikepie and company

Lamp Post Flora

Sometimes, I end up finding lamp post caches. It doesn't happen that often and usually I don't have a lot to say about them, since they seem to be so pervasive in an urban area and usually pretty routine. One lamp post cache find did catch my eye, not because it was different, but because of the experience. Last Saturday was my first full day of vacation, so I figured what better way to spend it than to go out caching with my good friend Chaosmanor.

We met over near a park and ride off of the 118 Simi Valley Freeway, otherwise known as the Ronald Reagan Freeway. We've utilized this particular park and ride in the past and we both commented that it was surprising there wasn't a cache hidden in it since it's a large area, with several landscaped areas that could hold a small cache (not a micro as I don't hide micros). I even came up with a clever name for it should we decide to come here again as a base camp.

This particular park and ride is literally under a transition road for the freeway and so the geocache map would be interesting, making it look like the cache could be in the middle of the freeway, depending upon placement. It's probably because of the proximity to the freeway that there hasn't been a cache placed there. It is pretty noisy and not the most scenic spot in the world, but then again, there are quite a few caches that fit that description.

Which leads me to this lamp post cache we found after we'd dropped off Chaosmanor's car at the park and ride. This was our second cache of the day. We weren't sure what the cache was going to be when we first got there. That's often the case when you run a circle PQ for an area. You go out and you find caches. Some are interesting and some are...well, let's just say they're not as interesting as others.

As we pulled into the parking lot both our GPSrs were pointing at this particular lamp post, so I slowly approached it in the car, looking around to see where the concentration of muggles were, in order to position my car in a good spot to use it as a shield if need be. Once I had parked the car, we were out and had the cache in hand very quickly and then it got interesting. Chaosmanor was about to put the cache back when I warned him of a muggle that had just pulled up behind him in a car. So now we had to go into stealth mode, or actually diversionary mode. I've written about how I've used my camera quite often to distract muggles into thinking that I was only there to take pictures, as opposed to that more nefarious activity geocaching.

I'm not sure this time it worked very well, because the muggle just seemed to be interested in me and Chaosmanor for the longest time as she sat in her car. Perhaps she was wondering what two middle aged men were doing walking around in the planter looking at various weeds and other plants, but eventually she got tired of it and got out of her car and went inside the store. However, there were other muggles about as well, so we had to wait them out. I think this was the first time where I had more trouble replacing the cache than in retrieving the cache because of muggles.

We eventually got the cache replaced when I spied some clover growing near another lamp post further down. This particular clover was immense. The bud was at least quarter in diameter if not bigger. Most of the clover I've seen in lawns in this area are usually small white balls of little flowers. This purple bunch really took me by surprise. Couple that with the other pictures I took of the iris and the dandelion and I actually got some really nice photos at this rather average lamp post cache.

I guess I really need to thank the muggles though. Had they not been there in force, we'd probably have been in and out very quickly and we would have missed these little highlights. Eh. It's a weed some people might say. Yeah, it's a weed, but it made for an interesting picture, so I'll take that weed any day of the week. I still don't particularly like to find a lot of lamp post caches, but I'm pretty sure that I'll look at them slightly differently in the future because of this experience I had with them on Saturday. And that's what it's all about really, enjoying the experience.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocache:
Greens - by shirconn

Foxtails, Foothills and Flora

Most of my articles seem to be inspired by the pictures in my gallery, and this one is no exception. Earlier, I posted about animals that I’ve encountered while hiking and caching. I guess it’s about time I wrote about the plant side of hiking as well. Animals get more notice, because outside of the bug world, they’re not nearly as plentiful as the plant world, and yet the beauty of the plant world is amazing when you stop and take a look.

Many times a hike becomes more than a hike, just by that little bit of accent color of a wildflower by the side of the trail. A dandelion, while viewed as a weed in our back yard, is an unexpected bonus while out on a hike. Other times, it’s the magnificence of a Giant Sequoia that you’ve encountered, either where it’s supposed to be, or more curiously, where it’s not supposed to be. Now I don’t claim to be a botanist, no do I play one on TV or anywhere else, but a little plant knowledge can usually enhance a hike and make it more enjoyable.

Even if you are not into plants, it’s usually wise to know a few of the ones that can cause problems, particularly, those nasty “leaves of three” varieties that can cause all kinds of skin problems. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve encountered poison oak while hiking and searching for caches. I can tell you how many times I’ve broken out because of an encounter with poison oak – exactly one time and it happened in the fall after the leaves had fallen off the plant. Yep, even the stems can cause problems. For the most part though, poison oak is one of those minor annoyances that you encounter when you’re hiking that can easily be avoided once you’ve educated yourself on what it looks like.

I would be remiss, if I didn’t mention one other annoyance that I don’t enjoy while hiking and that is foxtails. I have a cache dedicated partially to foxtails and I’ve had friends of mine threaten to name caches after my least favorite flora. Some people in Southern California even know about my running commentary in my cache logs when I encounter foxtails while going for a cache. It’s really become something of a standard joke. “Have I ever mentioned how much I hate foxtails?” But even foxtails can sometimes hide those little wildflower gems that might go unnoticed.

But enough of that. I think those little surprises, a wildflower at the side of the trail, a plant, growing where you wouldn’t expect it to be growing, are a few of the reasons why I enjoy hiking to find caches. I view the hike as part of the experience, not just a trip from point A to point B with nothing in between to enjoy except the found cache at point B. No, rather, the slow walk through the woods will bring all sorts of enjoyment, from the tiny sprout of a pine tree just starting its life, to the dead snag that houses an azalea bush up in its crown and after it falls, will nourish other plants that will start the forest anew.

I can attest that while hearing and seeing a coast redwood fall while out on a cache hike was a sad experience, it was also an experience that I wouldn’t have wanted to miss. Since we heard it, the definitive answer whether a tree makes a sound when it falls if no one is there goes unanswered. However, a tree makes an awful racket when it’s plummeting to the ground, and after it hits, it seems the entire forest holds its collective breath for the briefest of moments, and then the natural sounds of the forest begin again.

And yet, most people, if asked to color a forest, would probably color it a dull green color. With the different wildflowers that grow in the forest, or meadowland, it is definitely not all green. I’ve seen riots of purple and orange, with sprinkles of red and yellow many times. But mostly, the colors are subtle, announcing themselves to the pollinators saying, “Here I am, come and get it.” The subtlety of the colors makes the experience enriched, in my opinion. You have to look for them, discovering how the veins of a leaf intersect, how the colors of an iris blend together in different shades of purple. Looking at that creek bank, you see a hint of brownish orange and only upon closer inspection do you realize that you’re looking at a multitude of tiger lily blossoms.

And once again, it’s because of geocaching that I have these memories. I fully admit, I wouldn’t hike along the trails in the foothills behind my house. I had no interest. I basically thought that there wouldn’t be anything of interest, instead preferring the grandeur of places like Yosemite or Yellowstone. Over the course of the last seven years, I’ve come to appreciate the natural beauty that can be found in my own backyard. I no longer need to travel hundreds of miles to find nature at its best. I’ve also decided that I want to share these little hidden gems with others as well, by hiding caches up in the foothills near my house so that others can seek the beauty to be found here at home. And the beauty of their hike is that it will be different than mine. The seasons will change, the colors will change and then it will renew again, a little bit differently each year.

I believe that cachers, on a whole, are nature lovers, wanting to enjoy those unknown pockets of wonderment, to take the road less traveled and enjoy the walk as opposed to the number. It’s the local cachers who make it all happen. They know the area. They know where the trails are and what lies down that hidden path. If those local cachers continue to share their knowledge of their area with the larger caching community, through their hides, we will all be better for it.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:

Oak Trail - by Lab Rat
Hermosa Falls - by Team Chloe
CV Trail #3 - by BrianK124 & Tomahawk chop shop
Mountain's Majesty - by Mandy's Mom
Cucamonga Creek - by Team CEREO