Franklin Mountains

The 1171st Transportation Co. flew to Fort Bliss, TX on December 4, 2009 and soon as I got off the plan I saw the Franklin Mountians and immediatly wanted to go caching in the mountains. I did manage to get away a couple of times to cache with two trips into the mountains from El Paso, TX.

After completing training, the last group was at Ft. Bliss awaiting a flight to Kuwait, the motor sgt. arranged for a group outing to take a trolley up one of the mountains (Ranger Peak). We took the trolley, a couple of people were a little nervous but we were safe and arrived at the scenic platform. Four of us immediately set out to find Take a Hike OR Get taken for a Ride. The GPS was going nuts with all the metal and antennas on and around the platform and we searched and searched. A ranger noticing we were searching for something inquired what we were doing and I told him about the geocache. He remembered something about a geocache and called the office at the bottom of the mountain and turned out the cache was located in the gift shop that was closed. After contacting the cache owner of our issue and showed pictures of us on the mountain with GPS, he allowed us to claim the find. With that aside, the views from the top were breathtaking.

Being held back again, this time for a medical issue I saw my friends leave again. This did give me one more chance to visit the mountain range. The last full day before departing for Kuwait, I went after Backyard Fun. This cache gave me a solid workout and I was huffing and puffing on he way up the mountain. Found the cache after some searching and sat to admire the view of El Paso from high up.