Abandon Hope

I have been browsing the discussion on the GOWT forums of the Abandon Hope group cache run, but only just reading. Dalls called me up and asked if I wanted to attend and thought more seriously about it. I saw some advantages. One being it's a 5/5 cache and this opportunity will not present itself very often. Second, being about 10 or so miles, it would be a prelude to test my equipment, conditioning and my knee for the Walls of Jericho cache run that I hope to be apart of this month. I met with with Dalls at the JEA customer service center on Vann Drive, parked my truck there and he left his JEA hat on my dash. We dashed onto the starting point, a Lowes Home Improvement Store and met up with the rest of the crew, endoriders, tinksdad01, Mindless Focus, itcomagic and Hoot Owl. After gathering out gear and group photo; we headed off. We covered just over 9 miles of total hiking, I did reset my GPS as we were headed to the posted coordinates. I had a memorable time and feel like I could write more, but that could give away the number of stages and hide techniques. This was an adventure that I won't forget and the conversations that took place on the trail.

As for the prelude to Walls of Jericho, I found my knee did not give me any pain, taking Motrin (Ranger Candy) prior and during prevented any knee pain. However, Abandon Hope was on soft terrain, Walls of Jericho will be rocky and far more elevation changes. This week I have also begun taking Glucosamine and that should help my knee. I took along 76 oz. of water and had about 16 oz. left at the end of the hike. Temps did reach into the 70's. If temps reach into the 70's at Walls of Jericho, I might be in trouble, maybe I should take water purification tablets with me so I can re-fill on the trail?

This was the only smiley for me on this cache run but that was OK with me. After the hike, Dalls drove on back to Jackson, stopping at Backyard Burger for a pit stop along the way.