Wolf River Wildlife Corridor - 11/27/2010

For the 6th anniversary of jbgreer and I discovering the joys of geocaching, we naturally celebrated by hunting more caches. Because of the cool temperatures and relative dry weather, I suggested that we hunt a few caches in the Wolf River Wildlife Corridor in Collierville, TN. We met up at jbgreer's house around 8:15am.

We have hunted caches in this area at least three different times and under varying seasons and conditions, and knew that this could be a tough area to traverse. Most of the caches were way off of the main trail, and depending on the time of year, many caches could involve wading in swamps.

As we were approaching our destination, I noticed a cache that must be fairly new, because I didn't know it was in the area. We stopped and hunted The Life and History of Toys and Games by ItchyScratchyBumpy (GC2AKGP). It was a nicely-stocked cache and easy to find. I like starting the day with at least one easy cache.

[ nice place for the first cache of the day ]

After a minor routing error caused by old mapping data, we made it to the parking area on the northwest end of the Wildlife Corridor. Hopefully the county will make a better parking area there, but it was fine for our purposes. We had both brought tall rubber boots, but decided at the last moment to no use them. All of the caches we went after in this area were created by peanutpapa.

The first cache we went after was Beaver Falls Cache (GC1WGTW). During our previous trips to the area, this one always got left off of our list. Mostly because we were exhausted from hunting other caches. We took an interesting path to this cache, and at times couldn't see our feet. We found the cache and then spent some time observing the handiwork of the beavers.

[ no beavers in sight today ]

Next on the list was Slough Cache West (GC24H48). It was a short distance to the southeast and we encountered no difficulties reaching it. After finding it, we used a provided waypoint to lead us south to the main trail.

[ the dry sloughs made hiking from cache to cache very easy ]

From the main trail, we used another provided waypoint to lead us to the entry point for Old Logging Road Cache by peanutpapa (GC24CVR). We saw were the logging road started, but it was easy to lose track of where it went on the way to the cache. It was the lowest rated of the caches we found, but on this day it seemed no easier than any of the others. Once back on the main trail, we hiked east until we found an entry point to go for Slough Cache (GC1PP10). This was one we hunted on two other occasions only to be stopped by high water. On this day, it was a simple walk in the park. This cache was maybe 20 feet north of its posted coordinates, which might have been another reason we didn't find it before, but on this day it was easy to spot.

Our final cache of the morning was Cotton Farm Cache (GC1W34K). This area gets deep during the rainy time of the year. This day was definitely a good day to hunt it.

[ most of the caches in this area are obviously subject to flooding ]

After finding the cache, we headed north to the cotton fields and took the trail back to were we had started.

[ north of the cotton fields and an easy hike back to the truck ]

We got back to the truck around 11:30am and since we were going to move the truck to a different area for our next group of caches, we decided to grab lunch in Collierville first. We had many delicious options and finally settled on a fast lunch at Lenny's Sub Shop.

[ In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday - a big turkey sandwich ]

After lunch, we decided we had just enough time to tackle three caches in W.C. Johnson Park. This park is just to the south of the area we hunted in the morning and on the other side of the Wolf River. These were the only three caches we had left in this park to find, and they were deep in the wetlands.

[ W.C. Johnson Park wetlands feature nice boardwalks ]

We took the boardwalk from the parking area all the way north to the Wolf River before cutting west and paralleling the river. All of the caches we went after here were created by peanutpapa.

Our first find was South Beach Cache (GC1PY9F). It wasn't too far off of the boardwalk and was an easy and dry hike.

[ This possum seemed oblivious to our presence ]

Slough Cache South by peanutpapa (GC1Q1VB) was next and was another great cache and hike. The most difficult cache of the afternoon was Weir #3 Cache by peanutpapa (GC1PYBM). The terrain was tough in spots and could have been a nightmare if there had been any water around. From here, it was a 0.83 mile hike back to the boardwalk. Just before reaching the boardwalk, we spotted a trail that we didn't notice on the way into the woods.

[ spotted on the way out of the woods ]

Before leaving the park, I took one more picture from the boardwalk. This picture is more representative of what the area normally looks like.

[ near the entrance of the wetlands - the most water we saw today ]

We were very impressed by the quality of the wetland caches we found on this day. All were in water-tight containers and were tethered to their locations to prevent them from floating away during the times the area is flooded. There were a few that were exposed due to lack of available natural covering. Some could be spotted from a good distance away at this time of the year. I don't know if hunting game is allowed in the area, so I imagine that not too many people wander this far off of the main trail system.