A year ago, if you had asked most cachers about Bangor, Maine, they proably couldn't have been able to tell you much, but thanks to Maine cacher Ekidokai, that's no longer the case. In June, 2009, Mike, as he is also known, spent 19 hours placing a series of 135 caches along an area called the Stud Mill Road, and now, Bangor has become one of "the" place for those seeking a lot of finds to visit.

People from as far away as New York and beyond have heard of the area and have or are planning on visiting.

A lot of numbers runs are placed in urban areas, but not the Stud Mill Road. With the exception of about 20 caches, most of them are placed along dirt roads. The area is mostly used for hunting, boating and logging, so there's not much traffic to deal with, and you don't have to worry about stop signs or red lights like you do in a city.

I recently had the opportunity to cache in the area with 4 other cachers, bubba42e, Skippermatt, Tree Man and zaverj. We made the 7+ hour trek up from Connecticut and arrived in Bangor about midnight. Of course, we cached and stopped for food along the way, which added to the travel time.

We stayed in a hotel in Bangor and got up early the next morning and began our journey. The first caches are about an hours drive from Bangor, but there are plenty of caches to find on the way. While doing this series, you are out in the back woods of Maine, and there are no facilities of any kind nearby, so you need to make sure you have food, water, gas and enough gear to make it for several hours.

The Stud Mill Road itself is wide and can easily accomodate two cars passing by. We were in a Jeep Cherokee, which has a stiff suspension, so the road seemed a little "washboardy" to me. I talked to a friend who did it afterwards in a Subaru Tribeca, and she said she didn't feel any bumps at all, probably because of a smoother suspension. Our Jeep got really dusty (inside and out) because it was quite dry, but others didn't experience that problem.

The downshoots are narrower and rougher, with some pot holes and other more difficult terrain. I've heard stories about the area "claiming" cars. A Connecticut cacher who recently visited lost his exhaust system and had to do an emergency repair at night. The repair held, and they were able to finish the series, though.

One of the greatest things was the wildlife and the views. We saw wild turkeys, moose, tortoises, birds and others. There are many lakes in the area, with magnificant views, and we stopped near one for lunch.

That's one thing we did. After doing about 1/3 of the run, we stopped for about 30 minutes for breakfast and hung out and just relaxed. It recharged us and made the next part of the trip enjoyable. We also stopped alongside a lake at a picnic area (complete with a picnic table) and had an enjoyable lunch, relaxing and doing nothing.

Overall, this was one of my favorite caching trips. Yes, it was fun getting so many caches, but the real fun was hanging out with friends, seeing a beautiful place that we wouldn't have known about otherwise and building memories. My son, Matt (Skippermatt) is nine and still talks about it. Oh, and wouldn't you know it. Now that we're back home, more caches have been and will be placed in the area.

If you'd like to see pictures of the trip, please visit my photo album of the area or the one by wandering4cache, and of course, if you have any questions that I can answer, feel free to contact me anytime.

By Skippermark