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Realtime Content, Tales From the Trails

The Woronoco Dragon

By Jim Edwards (caching as EyeD10T)   Fri, Jan 28, 2011

The Woronoco Dragon

I learned about Geocaching by reading a post made by a friend of mine on facebook. I spent a couple of weeks researching the hobby/sport/obsession and set out with my wife and 2 youngest daughters to log our first find on 8/12/2010.

One thing that you should know about me is when I get interested in something, I have a tendancy to jump in full force and take a "learn as I go" approach. To me, this is the best way for me to learn. I feel I am way too ADD to try to take my time (plus patience is something that took me a long time in life to learn and is something that I dont have a lot of when I get my sights set on something).

Needless to say, this approach to learning geocaching was probably not the best approach, because on 9/4/2010 I learned a hard lesson in preparedness. Looking back, it was kinda comical (and seems to be the norm on the rare occassions I can convince the girls to tag along with me when I want to do a unique cache). This is the story of:

 Return to Tradition, The Woronoco Dragon
(its a premium member cache on http://www.geocaching.com/ #GCTP6M)


My wife, our 2 youngest daughters (12 and 8), and myself headed out on the Pawtuckaway trails to seek out a few geocaches. This one looked like it would be a fun one, so I had it as one of the tops of my list. As we got closer to the area, I was a little puzzled that my GPS said the cache was over 300 feet from where I stood on the trail, so we passed this up and went for the next one on the list, thinking we would pick up an alternate route to this cache. Heading back from the other cache we still didn’t find another trail, so we decided that when the GPS pointed us to the woods we would head on in hopes we would come across it (or I was getting a bad reading). The going was a little rough, but I was happy to see that we were closing in on the area where the cache was. We were way past the point of no return, so I was more determined than ever to find it. (Although they were good sports about it, I could tell that my wife and daughters were simply humoring me at this point). Well, once we got within 20 feet of the cache, it was a fairly simple find. We logged our name, swapped our swag, and that is when my wife called me over and whispered, "There is a big animal over there!"

Sure enough, I looked in the direction she was pointing and I did see a large, four legged beast of some sort trouncing around about 100 feet away from where we were (and it was closing in). Not wanting to alarm the girls, who were checking out their new swag finds, I started toward the area where the beast was in the hopes that I would get a better look at what it was. When there was about 50 feet between myself and the beast, I realized it was a dog....a really BIG dog. I turned back to where my wife was and mouthed the words, "Don’t worry, its just a dog...". I then turned back around and started running through my head the rules of engagement between dog and man in the woods. Realizing I didn’t know what I was going to do, I migrated around the side of the tree hoping the dog wouldn’t see me. It stopped dead in its tracks, pricked up its ears, and stared right at me. So much for the "stealth technique". I was relieved to see that the girls had not seen it and the dog didn’t seem too interested in them or my wife. I wasn’t too thrilled to see that it looked very interested in me! :-P

Although it seemed like we stared at one another for hours, it couldn’t have been more than 10 seconds before I heard more trouncing from behind my new nemeses. "Oh great," I thought, "what now?" My heart started beating a little harder and I was about to dive on top of the family in order to save them from this pack of dogs that I knew were about to head my direction when suddenly, from behind the dog, I hear, "Come on boy!", and a whistle, and around the corner comes a young lady jogging down the trail that we now realized that we should have been on to begin with. Both the jogger and the dog passed by with a friendly hello and they continued down the trail along their merry way. Whew! Bad situation avoided - all danger was over!! Or so I thought.

Now, keep in mind that I have already hauled the family out through the woods, over fallen trees and stones, past tons of various foliage types in a wrong-way trek to this wonderful cache. I also didn’t come as prepared as I now know I should have been (in other words, I didn’t bring the map, extra water, magnetic compass, etc). All we had was a small amount of water left, my GPS (which I am learning still how to use), and a cell phone with a battery that was now dead. Our choice was to either trek back the way we came or try out the new trail. We opted for the trail and started out. The going went well for a while (and I do mean A WHILE)...we walked and walked and walked, knowing that we would eventually get somewhere, but not knowing where or how long it would take to get there.

The trail twisted and turned, but was marked well so we continued on. Keeping our eyes out and following the trail markers. That was, until the trail markers ended and so did the trail. I turned to the family, and realized that 2 of them were now in tears and the oldest daughter was on the verge. Here we are in the middle of the woods with no map, no water, and very little humor for dad anymore. After spending a few moments collecting ourselves, I decided to set the GPS to fix on a cache that we had already been to. It zeroed in on the spot and I could see that we were about a mile away (as the crow flies). All I could think of was walking that mile through the same overgrowth that we had followed a mere 300 feet to get to the cache to begin with. This is the point that I started thinking that there may someday be an "I can’t believe I survived" story made out of this adventure.

We headed off toward the direction of the cache I was now fixed in on. In my mind I knew that we might have a few roadblocks (or would that be forest blocks?) along the way. I noticed that my GPS was showing that we were in a area where there were a ton of caches showing up, so in an attempt to make the best out of this situation I asked, "Is anyone interested in finding some of these caches along the way?" In which 3 voices (that I no longer recognized) replied, "NO!!!"

It was at this point I realized that if I knew what was good for me I would get everyone out and quick! We were about 1/10th of a mile into the trek to the cache destination when I looked up and saw the white trail marker and a trail under my feet. Thank goodness - we were back on the trail. This was a relief for us all and we started back on the trail. The voices of my sweet angels slowly started to return and I knew that there might be hope for me yet. About 15 minutes along this path and we came across a main trail. Not the one we came in on, but it was a main trail (one that had now taken 2 hours to find). I looked at the GPS and got my bearings and we started down the trail. We came upon a paved road and I knew at this point we were going to be okay. It took me a moment to realize where we were, but once I figured it out I knew that we were on the same road we had parked, but were a little over a mile away from the car. The girls started walking and I started jogging up the road (something I have not done in years).

This, by far, is the toughest cache I have done so far. Not the fault of the cache, just my lack of preparedness. In all, we probably put in over 5 miles on this little hike.

I have learned a lot of lessons from this adventure and will not be repeating any mistakes <yeah - right!>. ;-P
I also think it will be a long, long time before anyone in the family will want to "Grab a quick geocache" with me. ;) (hmmmm....maybe a couple of easy urban finds will help).

My advice to anyone that wants to set out for this one is to pay attention to the description - the correct trail was clearly stated in the description.
 
Originally posted Monday, January 3, 2011, in the author's blog: wherethecacheis.com

By Jim Edwards (caching as EyeD10T)

My name is Jim Edwards (caching as EyeD10T)

I started geocaching in August of 2010.  I mainly started as a way to get some excercise and I fell in love with geocaching right away.  I have designed a couple of geocoins and have a small online shop (more of a hobby than a business).  I have 5 kids, 3 of them are grown and the other 2 are caching kids.  I also have a grand-daughter.  I usually go caching by myself, but my wife and younger daughters come with me when they are able.  I have hidden a couple of caches in the area - my first was a multicache that has gotten a few favorite points.  I am spending my time this winter working on my blog, my website, and planning a couple of good multicaches to hide when the snow melts.

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