Day 5 - GC17

Continuing on with my story of August 2024 road trip to Oregon, I next set my sights on finding GC17 and also GC12.  GC17 was the top order of the day, having been hidden in June 2000.  Finding this cache would complete my Jasmer Challenge (finding a cache hidden in every month since geocaching had been around). GC12 was the oldest geocache hidden in the entire state of Oregon. It was hidden in May of 2000, a month that I'd already completed by finding the oldest cache in Kansas. Still it would be helpful for other challenges that I was currently working on as I continue geocaching in the coming years.

As with the other caches in this area, I had good intelligence as to where to park for quick access to this particular cache. If you asked me how I got there, I'd answer Google Maps.  I just put the coordinates in for the parking area and said pretty much, "lead the way Google." It was a Sunday morning, so traffic was fairly light, but once I got close to the area, the roads became more winding and there were lots of areas where there were plenty of cars already parked. I thought there were going to be a lot of hikers out here.  Boy, was I wrong about that.

Getting to the parking coordinates for GC17, there was only one other car there and it was more of a wide spot in the road, so I found a convenient spot to pull over and gather my stuff together for the quarter mile hike up to the cache. As soon as I got out of my car, I was met by a couple of very aggressive dogs from the other car who just happened to be coming down the trail. The guy told me it would probably be better if I got back into my car and wait until his dogs were back in their car. Seriously?  Leash your dogs up if they are that aggressive. But I digress.

Once the dogs were safely in their car, I got out and left them behind and started my hike up to the geocache. The first thing I noticed was the trail head was littered with thousands of used shotgun shells and old targets of various sizes. I could also hear gunfire in the distance, but at least there was no one here shooting, so that was a good thing. Eventually, I left the sounds of shotguns being fired behind and had the trail all to myself. It had rained the previous day and the trail was very narrow, so I was very glad I'd brought my rain jacket along with me as it kept me fairly dry as I walked up the hill. The first photo was at a wider area of the trail. There were literally times when I was brushing against the bushes on both sides of the trail as I steadily climbed the hill.

Eventually, the trail opened up and I could see from my GPS unit that I was getting close to the cache. I should have stayed on the trail, but I decided to take a more straight line approach to where the GPS unit was saying the cache was. Once I got over there, I saw that I was now standing on another trail that came down from a ridge just above, something that I would have noticed had I just stayed on the original trail and made my way up to the ridge. Geocachers are like that.  Straight line usually means bushwhacking and if you're patient, you'll usually find another trail that will take you there. Was I patient? Of course not. 

Eventually I spotted the cache and opened it up. I got the log book out and signed in, having now completed my Jasmer Challenge. I decided to leave a travel bug in the cache so that some other geocacher who came after me would pick up and move along. I took my photo at the cache then re-hid the cache and hiked up to the top of the ridge. The entire ridge was covered in fog, so I didn't really know what I was missing up there, but had the ridge been clear, I would have had spectacular views of Mt. Hood. And yes, I know the photo looks like it's starting to clear, but the entire area where Mt. Hood was, was filled with fog. At that point, I decided to take the trail back down to the car and move it over to where I would be hiking up to the oldest cache in Oregon.

Unfortunately, when I got over to where I would be starting the second hike, there were shooters there, firing out where I would be hiking.  I decided to pass on the oldest one. I figured I'll be back there sometime in the next couple of years. I suspect that going to that one on a weekday, there'll be less of a likelihood of shooters since most of them are probably working during the week to pay for all of the ammunition that they used up on the weekends. I spent the rest of my day geocaching around the city of Portland. I would be leaving the next morning and heading south into eastern Oregon for my geocaching adventures.