Stones River hike, No Pain, No Gain

After many weeks of discussion, preparation and planning, we (-boatman & myself) headed out one very early morning to complete one of the 8 mile treks along the Stones River in Rutherford County.

Even prior to geocaching, I was familiar with the Smyrna area being that the Tennessee Army National Guard base is located there. And after I returned from Operation Iraqi Freedom, I take advantage of the barracks at the base and stay the night there for only $12 a night, while I in the area on my civilian job and having nothing to do with my military job. Makes my trips to Pikeville and Knoxville somewhat easier. After I begun caching, I placed Rutherford County on my target list to grab caches while I am there.

-boatman and I headed to Smyrna on Feb. 7, 2007 in the very early morning hours. We drove separate vehicles. Since I was taking the day off for caching, I decided to make my Pikeville trip the following day and stay the night in the barracks. This would later prove to be a important decision. We met at McDonalds at Parkers Crossroads and grabbed some breakfast and headed out on the road. Made a needed pitstop at the TDOT reststop in Dickson and finally arrived at the entrance of the 8-mile trail between 7 and 8 am.

We wasted little time and I grabbed a cache that -boatman- had already found and we grabbed the cache at the entrance. We started down the trail, we quickly found out that I should have studied the topographical maps, our journey began very slowing, we were literally crawling on our hand and knees on the rocks. After only a mile on the trail, it was apparent that someone would be needed at the end of the trail to pick us up, or we would go half-way and turn around and go back. -boatman- got on the phone and begun to make arrangements for his son to pick us up at the end and take us back to our vehicles. Later on the trail, JoGPS offered to transport us as well. On the trail, I realized our situation, there was no where along the trail to 'bail out', it was either finish it, or go back to the entrance.

We cached along the trail, finding 33 caches on that day. 2/3 of the trail, we did not have any DNF's. But just over halfway on the trail, we were getting tired and using the phone a friend a little more often. Since the caches were fairly new, my calls went to JoGPS to assistance. I was fortunate that my Garmin 60cs had new street software and showed the Stones River, it would be crucial as we followed the bends of the river and knew that turns would be coming up. During that hike, I realized that investing in topographical software might be to my advantage some day.

We hiked and we hiked, at times, it was nice to have some distance between caches. Since the caches were not very easy to find, the poking around and turning over everything took up valuable time. 2/3 into the hike, my knee began to give me problems. Knowing I have knee problems and back problem, I always carry a bottle of Motrin in my cache bag. I was constantly taking Motrin, but the last 2 miles, I was in severe knee pain and feared I would not make it to the end. Being that we were caching in February, we had the problem with the short day. The last mile or so, we had to make our cache searches much shorter than we wanted and DNF'd more caches.

Finally making to the end, was -boatman-'s son with his truck, we did find the last cache on the trail and I was very happy to finally sit in a truck. It took all my effort to get into the truck with my knee pain. After being transported to our vehicles, we went our separate ways, I headed towards the National Guard base. I picked up something to eat and a six-pack of pain relief. Settled into the room and didn't fully unload my truck of everything I would need, but I was in too much pain. Took a hot shower, administered liquid pain-relief and went to bed. I was not able to sleep well with both legs cramping but I knew that I would not have been able to drive home that night. -boatman- drove home after visiting his son and called him the next day to see that he made it home OK and he was OK from the hike. I went onto Pikeville the following day and remain sore all that day.

This day was one of the most memorable on my geocaching adventure. Currently, I have no plans to return to the Stones River 8-mile hikes. After my LBL trip on November 11, it's apparent that my knees are in no condition for a long drive, long hike and long drive afterwards. I have been thinking about the 8-mile hike at Mousetail Landing, it would be a much shorter drive there and back.

Land Between the Lakes

Apart of my geocaching adventure is finding caches in the US Government owned forest called LBL, or Land Between the Lakes. Caching nearly three years, I have passed through the LBL a number of times and have found numerous caches in the region, which have included three night caches. I have also attended three River Valley events in the LBL and they have been fun.

My first major cache run of the LBL was with cachestalker94 and Mackheath. I put up a notice on the GOWT forum of my intention of a cache run. Mackheath met us just before dawn in Paris and we headed to the LBL. I had met Mackheath once at an event in Memphis. Knowing he had over 800 finds at the time of our cache run I wanted to see how a professional cacher does his caching. At the time, I was at around 200 finds and still struggled with the technology, paper and no maps. Mackheath was unable to get the Pocket Quary onto his PDA and noticed, we had the same approach, a Garmin Legend and lots of paper! I did at least of Mapsource on my Legend, but no auto routing.

We cached all day long to dark, returning with about 13 finds. It was a hard day and keeping up with Mackheath proved to be impossible; found out later, he trains as a marathon runner. Overall, even with 13 finds, it was a positive experience.

This weekend, I again returned to the LBL with Pharmd93 and efbamann. We cached Kuttawa and into the northern LBL and I hit a major milestone. Number 1,500 was Toys with a View it was an awesome cache with a great view. The view was of Lake Barkley of the Cumberland River. I am thankful that I had friends alone for this milestone.

I will return to the LBL and cache more of this outstanding area.