Chattahoochee Overland

The first visit to the Chattahoochee Bend State Park, Georgia's newest state park, had us playing in the playground and taking a walk along the river trail.  Yesterday I headed back there by myself with a list of hidden caches that were put out along a different trail.  I would end up at the river but I'd get there via an overland route, over hill and dale.  I had my list of cache coordinates and took off to see how many I could find.  Turns out it was my best day by far in terms of number of caches found... seven!  It was another beautiful day weather-wise and again going on a weekday I had this big, beautiful park all to myself.  Never saw another person aside from the ranger in the information center where I started out from.  I ended up being out a bit longer than I had anticipated -- took me a bit to find the caches once I was in the vicinity -- but it's not like I'm on a schedule.  Total trek was just over 6 miles over terrain that wasn't all that bad.  Of course there were ups and downs over the hills and such but nothing like the weekend adventures.

Caches 1 and 2.  The first one was right at the information center and was one of the most clever jobs of hiding I've encountered.  Talk about hiding something in plain sight!  It's a PVC pipe and screw on lid just like those around my own house and was located not far from a downspout.  It actually took me longer to discover this one than any of the others... go figure.  I walked past the 2nd one but found it when I turned around.  I covered it a bit better before I left.

Numbers 3 and 4.  I'm not real big on sticking my hand into holes in the ground or in a tree trunk or the like.  I use my walking stick to poke around for living things first.  I was a bit surprised that with the cool mornings and very warm afternoons we've been having I didn't see a single snake.  I would have thought they'd have been out sunning themselves to warm up.

Numbers 5, 6, and 7.  These were some pretty good hiding places but the gps unit was working pretty well and I was rather happy with myself that I found every one on my list.  After the last one I turned around and headed back.  Funny how the hills get steeper later in the day.