It was a good day for caching with temps in the high 20s and about 1" of new snow. Today's attempts:
| Listing | Date | Log Type |
|---|---|---|
 Woodland Micro - Buck Hill | 2/3/2010 |  Didn't find it |
| Beyond Benson Mountain | 2/3/2010 |  Found it |
| Buck Hill Bunker | 2/3/2010 | Found it |
| Quaddick Quest | 2/4/2010 | Found it |
| Quaddic Reservoir | 2/4/2010 | Found it |
It was easy enough to get to Buck Hill Rd but I drove past Wood Rd. It turns out that's it is a dirt/gravel track with only a generic "Buck Hill Management" sign nearby. Easy to miss in the winter with an inch or so of fresh snow. I got turned around and managed to turn in on my second try. I was the first to use it since last night's snow. It looked reasonable so I gave it a go in my Mazda 3 and managed to navigate to parking at N41° 59.1100' W71° 47.3433' without incident. This would be a cinch in no snow.
Woodland Micro - Buck Hill - DNF. Mark was delayed (lost, he drove past Wood Rd. as well). While I waited I looked for "Woodland Micro". It was an easy short walk through less than 1" of new snow to GZ. Unfortunately, GZ moved around by 20 or 30 feet or so notwithstanding the generally clear sky. Despite almost 40 minutes of searching I couldn't locate the cache. If it is on the ground then with the new snow it would be very hard to find.
Beyond Benson Mountain - Found it. Mark finally called and with a bit of local knowledge got to the parking area about 50 minutes late. We quickly organized ourselves and started toward "Beyond Benson Mountain." With the recent warm weather and little new snow walking along the 'road' was easy and we quickly got to the place where we needed to turn off trail. A bit of bushwacking followed and we quickly got near GZ. As I was studying my GPS Mark found it. The cache hide would be a challenge in deep snow. I left
That left the cache over full so I took A Stitch in Time so I could close it. SL/TFTC.
Mark was up for a bit more of a hike so we headed out.
Buck Hill Bunker - Found it. We bushwacked back out to the main trail and continued N toward the cache. We got near GZ and bushwacked to GZ through reasonably open wood. The cache is in an interesting geographic location. A bit of searching got us to GZ. At first I couldn't find it but a second inspection and a bit of rock shuffling found it. This is an interesting hide and excepting deep snow access would be reasonably easy to find even in deep snow. I left
SL/TFTC.
We bushwacked back out to the main road and after a bit of discussion decided to call it quits for the day as Mark had a 3PM appointment and an hour drive. It took some while to walk the 1.5 miles back out. We said out goodbys and went off.
While I was in the area I took a moment to check for access to TGM-5 Rocky Brook Bonanza!, and the two RI - CT- MA Tri-state Marker caches. It looks like there is good access from E Thompson and New Rd. It looks like about 0.5 miles to TGM-5 Rocky Brook Bonanza! and another quarter mile or so to RI - CT- MA Tri-state Marke.
Since I was in Connecticut I decided to find a CT cache or two and add Connecticut to my list of cache states.
Quaddick Quest - Found it. I first tried Breaults Landing Rd which is just north of Quaddick park. I drove a bit south to the park at xxx. There's good winter friendly parking here. This is a really lovely little park on Quaddick Reservoir. A quick walk down the road and then cutting NE on a red blazed trail lead me to GZ. There were recent footprints of someone searching (I don't think they found it) and I followed those without any luck. Then I searched the North side of the wall toward the road and with the help of the hint found it. Deep snow would make finding the cache difficult. SL/TNLN/TFTC.
Quaddic Reservoir - Found it. This was more or less on the way home so I decided to try this one. A quick drive to the N end of the Reservoir got me within 200' of GZ. There is reasonable parking just off the road (not winter friendly but OK today). This cache is a nice 'park and grab.' There is a lot of brush piled along the road but the cache stood out and was easily found. Deep snow would make finding it difficult. SL/TNLN/TFTC.
I was a bit tired at this point (5+ miles of hiking in snow and cold) and decided to head home with four finds, one DNF, two new cache states, 5 TBs moved along, and 1 TB to move! All in all a good day.
Here's the photo log of today's adventure. As usual no spoilers and click through to see full size photos.
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