Caching at Arkabutla Lake - September 20, 2008

My good buddy jbgreer had contacted me earlier in the week to ask if I'd like to go geocaching on Saturday. When I asked if he had an area in mind, he said he would be busy all week and would call me on Friday. I was busy as well so I only spent a little time trying to find an area to cache in that would meet his goal of hunting high difficulty/terrain caches and my goal of hunting as many caches as possible.


I picked the Arkabutla Lake area knowing that if we had time, we could eat lunch and cache in nearby Hernando, MS as well. We had both cached in the area before and the familiarity would help us on this day.

We met at the casa de jbgreer at 8:30am on Saturday and after fueling up the cachemobile, began our day's adventure.

Heading south on I-55, we passed several new caches in Southaven in order to have sufficient caching time further south. We decided to approach Arkbutla Lake from the south via Coldwater, MS and our first cache was The Arkabutla Walk by Team140 (GC1FHBC). We had hiked these trails before, and on this occasion, noticed a sign that made us both laugh.


It had rained a bit on Friday and that made the terrain a bit tougher everywhere we went. Spiderwebs were also a nuisance. After finding the first cache and returning the way we came in, we headed for Blue Hole #1 by mrjlsmith (GC1FHA8). When we got to the area of the cache, we noticed that the area was off-limits. We failed at a quick search and when we got back to the truck, we found a ranger driving around. We decided to skip the nearby Blue Hole #2 and move on.

We headed northwest and hunted Coyote Hill by Duckman63 (GC1AYTC). It was a nice hike and even though the coords were off, we were rewarded by find a nice ammo can. The ratings seemed a little high for this cache, but no big deal.


Going up the road (Hwy 304) a little further, we made a quick find of Wolf Creek by Duckman63 (GC1F767). We then headed east to a cluster of three caches in a recreational area. Hiking along muddy trails, we found Baldwin Rd. Dead End by Duckman63 (GC1AY5G), Baldwin Rd. Dead End #2 by duckman63 (GC1F75X), and JBSB#1 by mrjlsmith (GC1FFC7). These were all great caches and we enjoyed the hikes to find them. At one point, we heard people riding ATVs and the occasional rifle shot, but we managed to get in and out of there without being noticed or shot.


Our final cache in the area was Old 304 Access Area by bomb280 (GC11Z4J). After a brief hunt for the access road, we were rewarded by finding the cache. I took a few pictures of the area while there.


We were happy with the caches found so far. Most were by new cachers and recently placed. Most were in excellent containers and well-stocked.

At this point, we were hungry so we headed into the nearby town of Hernando.

[to be continued]