Caching in the Eagle Cap Mountains - 8/3/2012

I was excited to be geocaching with my youngest brother and my Dad while on vacation in Eastern Oregon.  On this particular day, I had plans for the evening, so I wanted to hunt a few geocaches relatively close to home.  I'm caching low-tech these days, because the Palm Pilot that I stored cache data on bit the dust not too long ago.  My brother had recently acquired a Garmin Montana, so I loaded our cache data on it.   It's a nice piece of equipment that has everything you need on it except a phone.

We started the morning with a nice breakfast in North Powder, OR.  We got the breakfast special, which was a 1 pound slab of ham, two eggs, hashbrowns, and toast.  It gave us p[lenty of energy for what was ahead.

First cache of the day was in Haines, OR and was called Coyote Peak Panorama by The Proebstels |(GC1RVMF).  It is high on a hill overlooking the town.

 [ Haines, OR - "The Biggest Little City in Oregon" ]

There used to be a silver mine up there, but we saw no traces of it.  There was also a large pit up there where they mined rocks, possibly granite.  My Dad and I tried to hunt this one before, but didn't take the right road.  This time I had better intel and a good 4-wheel drive truck to make the fairly steep climb.  Once at the top, the cache was a quick find and we paused to survey the valley before leaving.

We headed East along the Medical Springs Highway and along the Powder River to hunt our next cache - April Fools by littleredscout (GC2RD2).  I had looked at the area on Google Maps, but didn't realize the terrain changes.  I guess the terrain rating should have clued me in better.  It was a rough ride. 

We parked at what my GPSr told me was the closest parking and headed down a steep hill to find the cache.  Once at the cache, of course, we realized the "April Fool" part was another road nearby.  We took that one up, and I  was clobbered by exhaustion and an inability to catch my breath.  I took longer and longer breaks until my brother went up alone and came back for me in the truck.  I was only a few hundred feet away from where we had parked when they got to me.

[ Parking area - the cache is downhill. ]

Next, we drove up into the Eagle Cap Mountains.  There were five caches grouped pretty close together, but it still was a long drive on gravel roads.  By the time we got to the first cache - Taylor Green
by Pstip (GC1WFNH), I was rested and ready to go.  This cache is in an area for snowmobilers to hang out.  The cache was a tough find, but my brother has learned well!

 [ Glad to be on better roads. ]

The next cache was called On Top by Mr. Picks (GC1WFP4) and was rated a 1 / 5. Some cachers are more generous on rating terrains, because we drove straight to this one with no trouble.  The cache also qualified for the Forest Fire Lookout Tower series I'm trying to complete.

 [ Nice, peaceful view from where a lookout tower once stood. ]

Next up was summer, winter , view by justus2, Brad & Friends (GC312E) which was basically a roadside ammo can.  Finally, we hunted Eagle Meadows, Ore. by Justus2 & Friends (GCGK0Y) which involved a short hike down a trail.  The cache was an easy find and the view across the meadow was beautiful.  There was another cache across the meadow, but the ground was swampy and I had to be back home to get ready for a party I was going to that night.