Geocaching near home

Today's geoadventure was a bit of a mixed bag with a couple of park and grabs, a bit of hiking, and a puzzle cache.  Here's the story.

Childhood Park - Found it.  SL/TNLN/TFTC.  I'd tried this cache during winter but did not attempt because the parking lot isn't plowed.  After the recent warm weather and rain the parking lot is clear so I started today's adventure there.  It was only a short walk in to GZ.  Today it was in the pool of water.  I resorted to the clue and quickly found the cache.  Everything is in good order.  The cache would NOT be snow friendly.  There's a good deal of poison ivy around so some care is appropriate.

TE #4 - Stone Challenge - Needs Maintenance.  GZ was behind an ice wall from plowing the parking lot.  I climbed over to access the stone wall.  DNF.  Mine is the most recent of several.  Perhaps the owner should check it?

IN THE "HAM" - Found it.  SL/TNLN/TFTC.  This is an interesting park and grab.  I checked the usual under the light pole skirt.  Not there.  A bit of searching though found it though it was a bit of a reach to actually get hold of it.  It's not snow friendly.

Netty's Nest - Found it.  SL/TNLN/TFTC.  I parked per the description and crossed the brook/chasm on the bridge.  I missed the trail at N42 17.4739 W071 29.5796, part of the Bay State Trail and continued on the road.  I suspect this may have been constructed since the description was written.  Having followed the wrong rode I ended up bushwacking to GZ.  The cache is in good shape although much of the hide material had fallen away over the winter.  Given the hint and cache location this one is plausibly findable in snow cover.  I bushwacked out and eventually encountered the trail just as I was approaching the road.  It goes through a rather interesting stand of birch and I'd imagine in the fall it is lovely.  There are also a few glacial erratics and many large boulders from erosion of the nearby rock outcrops.  All in all an interesting walk.  I hope the cache location will not be compromised by the ongoing construction.

It is Low, It is Near, It is Orange - Found it.  SL/TNLN/TFTC.  This is another of the wonderful Sudbury Valley Trustee conservation lands and like the others I've visited it's just delightful.  Access today was good but I don't think the parking lot is plowed.  It's a reasonably short walk in and the cache was an easy find as some of the cover material was gone.  It is NOT snow friendly.  The owner may want to check the cache placement as it is adjacent to some orange flags that look like one of the abutters was surveying the area.  While it is outside the marked area it's within only 10' or so.

Parmenter Cache - Found it.  SL/TFTC.  Took 'Main sign post' TB.  Left 'Chucke' TB.  I hiked in looking for Gallons of Cool Drink and this cache.  It's about 1.5 miles from parking but the walk is over relatively easy terrain.  I was somewhat surprised to see others about this afternoon so I guess this part of the Bay State Circuit is popular.  I got to GZ easily enough despite my GPSr jumping about among the trees and cloudy skys.  It finally settled down and a brief search revealed the cache.

Gallons of Cool Drink - DNF.  With a couple of hints from BugTracer I have a set of coordinates that seem plausible.  The puzzle was a special challenge for me on several grounds.  First, I've a degree in mathematics.  This is definitely NOT an advantage as I was able to resort to all manner of math operations that were NOT right.  Second, I've done some crypto work.  This is even more of a handicap as it encouraged me to try a number of code and cipher schemes when the right approach was much simpler (there is NO relationship between the number of columns and the number of rows and the solution).  Finally, I'm sometimes just dense.  Hats off to those who found it without help.  At any event, even though I'm fairly confident in the coordinates I DNF.  With the trees and cloudy sky my GPSr did not stabilize.  I ended up searching 30' or so on both sides of a T intersection of stone walls (that's not much of a hint as the area is covered in stone walls).  No joy!  I'll try again when the rest of the snow is gone and the sky is clear so the GPSr is more likely to be stable.

That's five finds for the day and two DNFs.  Picked up a TB.  Dropped off a TB.  I ended up walking about 6.5 miles in my adventure.  Hopefully I lost a bit of weight along the way.  My legs are certainly tired enough.

As usual, I took photos.  If you want to see the full size images click through.