Fall Creek Falls State Park

Working in the Juvenile Justice field of DCS, I have the opportunity to attend a few Juvenile Justice Retreats. Two of those retreats were held at Fall Creek Falls State Park located in East Tennessee and regard this park to be one of my favorites. On my two trips I did manage to conduct some geocaching after seminars. My first trip I was unable to find a 4-star terrain cache due to the poor reception of my Garmin Legend. I did manage to find the virtual Smoke Signals. The memory I have of that visit was dealing with a score of dogs at the bottom of the fire tower and climbing to the top of the tower with the wind whipping around.

My second trip to the park, again I attended seminars and the classes lasted much longer in the day and prevented me from venturing far from the park. During lunch, I transported two other DCS workers to the Fall Creek Falls Earthcache and viewed the waterfall. I obtained information for the earthcache and took a photo.

There was one cache about a quarter mile from the inn called Yogi Bear & Boo Boo's Stash Cache along a walking trail around the lake. While the GPS noted the cache was well under a 1/2 mile, the walk was much longer and due to long classes, I hunted this cache at night. I found the cache with aid of a flashlight and returned after reseting the odometer on the GPS. I returned with a Red Jeep Travel Bug that I showed to some DCS workers interested in the GPS game. One worker was particularly interested and wanted to go find the cache. Since I check the distance the night before, I told the worker that the walk would be .75 of a mile. I had known this worker since the days I transported students to the Memphis Group Home and used to be in the Marine Corps and US Army as an Armored Cavalry Scout. We left the starting pointed and walked around the lake. There was no moon and not much light at all. We chatted much of the way and when I realized we were getting close to the place we would leave the paved trail, he abruptly stopped and said "we are here". I asked what his GPS told him, he replied he was unable to see the GPS due to the night conditions and but knew that we walked exactly .75 of a mile. I checked my GPS and he was correct. We found the cache and headed back to the inn. Being that he was a Scout in the Armored Cavalry, he knew how to tell distance without the aid of electronics and counting steps. I did find that amazing.

Ghost River

Last year I was determined to take geocaching to the next level and work on caches that require special equipment. I tried out an inflatable kayak and succeeded finding once cache with the craft but was not overly impressed with the craft thought about a different approach. This year using gift cards, military discount and tax return, I purchased a 9-foot plastic kayak from Gander Mountain in Jackson, TN. The kayak had it's maiden voyage at Garrett Lake in Weakley County, TN and used it for caching at Lake Graham in Jackson, TN and Kentucky Lake. I had planned to attend the Ghost River Geocaching event on May 2 of this year but was cancelled due to severe weather. The Ghost River is a trail on the Wolf River.

Chimps8mybaby took the bull by the horns and set up a Ghost River cache run. He selected July 3rd to be the date. I set aside that date on the calender. The day prior, pcsenn and I were talking about caching and told him of the Ghost River trip. After some planning, he called me back and finalized transportation plans and that he would share a canoe with Kailuasquid. Pcsenn and I met at McDonald's in Martin, TN just after 5 am and headed towards La Grange, TN to be at the boat ramp at 8 am. We arrived on time and were also joined by chimpsm8.

We put our boats in the water at about 8:45 am and headed west, down stream. Initially, the river calm and no major issues. We paddled a long team on the river admiring the view and getting more experience with my kayak. Chimps8mybaby is far more experienced on the kayak and gave me some pointers. The first cache, Nerodia Sipedon was over 3 miles from the starting location and took some time to get there and would prove to be the most difficult. Having topo maps on my Garmin 60csx and waypoints for channel entrances didn't seem to help. We were unable to find the correct channel to this cache and ended up parking the boats about 360 feet away. The just over 100 yards of overland travel was very difficult dealing with cypress stumps, mud knee high and a lot of water. After much effort and determination, Kailuasquid found an easier route and we waded through swamp water nearly waist high and mud to find the cache.

We moved on along the trail onto Tiger Celebrates and found it with no trouble. At this point, we gathered the boats together for a food and water break. I am thankful we took a break. Chimps8mybaby informed us the trail was going to get rough and will get the feeling of a pinball. We went on downstream and found the Ghost River trail and thought "What have I got myself into?". The entrance was just enough to get a canoe through and we went through a maze of Cypress tress and we constantly banged the trees and limbs. All the time I kept a look out for the water moccasin. We banged around and finally got out into a little more open water and found Legend of Ghost River Howler. I had been in the middle of the pack and saw the canoe with pcsenn and Kailuasquid move away from the cache and appeared to look of the correct channel. Seeing on my GPS the cache was less than 300 feet away, I took a bee-line towards the cache and found it. While signing the log, the rest of the armada showed up.

This being our last cache, I slowed my pace and paddled onto the end of the trail where we gathered to talk about the trip. This has been one of the best adventures I have had geocaching.