The Magic Kingdom

The news this morning said there was about a 40% chance of rain today and I couldn't decide whether I should go hiking or not. When I looked out the window I saw nothing but blue sky and some clouds looking east, but nothing too nasty. I packed up my backpack, put my rain gear in the pack, and Zuleika and I set off to find some caches this morning about 8:30am. Why waste a day off from work?

I ended up going to the same area I hiked yesterday, but parked at the trailhead that I had found a few weeks before with Hope. I figured this would be a less tick-prone area as it was more of an open meadow. It was probably a little over a mile hike out to the bridge I was at yesterday from where I parked. Here are a few pictures of Zucchini at the bridge, this will give a better perspective as to how big that bridge really is. Granted, she is not a very big dog at only about 48 lbs, but she couldn't even reach the top of the bridge wall when I asked her to do an "up".


The first cache we found was called Camp Nowhere (GC4615), it was a small container hidden up in a tree. It was easy to spot, not so easy to get as I had to actually climb the tree to reach it. It wasn't that big of a climb, but I sure had a hard time hoisting myself up the tree to get it, boy do I feel old!

Next we headed off on a really nice trail to find a few more caches. This area is getting to be known as the Magic Kingdom to the geocaching world as there are a bunch of caches with Disney related names (Fast Pass, Magic Kingdom, Mickey Mouse's Wild Ride, etc). The first cache we found was called "Fast Pass" (GC184ZK) that was at the trailhead, mother nature's version of a ticket booth I guess. Next, we hiked up and down the trail to find "The Magic Kingdom" (GC180GD) cache. This was a cache that is called a Letterbox Hybrid. Usually, the coordinates will get you to the starting point to find the geocache, the cache description gives instructions for actually finding the cache container.

For example, here were the directions for finding this cache: "You start by standing at a trail sign with you BACK to it. Follow the trail down the hill and cross the creek (about 100 or so feet). Then continue following the high trail. Continue along this trail for a little ways. You will come upon a very large tree that has fallen across your path. Don’t worry the seven dwarves chopped out the part that would have hindered your way so you have an easy path through it. Stop here… Why, because you are going to need to count your steps from here. Ok. Once at this spot continue up the trail for another 21 paces (my paces are 3.5 feet or so each). STOP. Look to your left. You should see a couple of snags about 30 or so feet away. Now go and look around. You will find the treasure amongst the snags."

It is a normal cache, but inside the cache is a rubber stamp and inkpad. In order to log the cache, you must sign the logbook with your own rubber stamp (lots of people leave a thumb-print if they don't have a stamp) and you can stamp your own logbook with the stamp in the cache if you like. I love these types of hides because its fun keeping track of the different letterboxes that I have found in my own logbook. This is a picture of the logbook from the cache that shows a few signatures with stamps that people have left. On the right is my own personal logbook that contains the stamps of the letterbox caches I have found. The Disneyland Castle stamp is the stamp that was in today's geocache.



I was about .6 miles from the next cache up the trail, but the gray clouds that were moving towards us were a little concerning so I decided I better start heading back as we were probably three miles out. Here's a picture of Zucchini I took on the way back....TIMBER!!! :-) Its amazing to see how many trees look like they may have just fallen in the latest series of storms a few weeks ago. Doesn't it look like she just knocked the tree over?


It started sprinkling on us as we approached the trail to get to the bridge and there was another cache nearby that was about .5 miles from where we were, in the opposite direction. What the heck, I had my rain jacket and it wasn't raining THAT hard, why not? I hiked up and down some more hills on another trail to find the cache and then we headed back across the bridge to the meadow to the car. As we were driving down the road, I stopped at another trailhead and found 2 more caches, the 2nd of which required a short hike up a steep hill...poor Zucchini, the trail was really narrow and had lots of stickers, but she was good and just kept going. We had a great view of the whole area we hiked at the past two days, it was worth the climb just for the view.

Another good day, 6+ miles of hiking, 6 caches, and about 800+ feet of vertical climbing. I gave Zuleika a bath after we got home and didn't see any ticks, yay!