"Easy Caching"

All photos taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8.

Robert and I decided to go and find a few easy geocaches on Friday. In my terminology, an easy cache is one that sits right off the road and all I have to do is get out of the vehicle and walk a few hundred feet, on level ground.

The first one was in a residential area here in Payson, Arizona and I didn't take any pictures. I did find out that people are pretty creative in their ideas for their cache containers. This one was named "One in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush". This is a great title for the plastic dove that is sitting in a tree that took us forever to find. It is placed in a beautiful area but you just know the owners of the cache are also the owners of the house nearby with the big windows they are looking out of, laughing at you because you are running around like a little bee trying to zone in on these things. This was what I would call an easy cache.

The second cache we went to was in a paleo site where all kinds of fossils can be found if you look hard enough. It's really a great place. This is the kind of stuff you find a lot of geocaches in:

Okay, the second cache wasn't exactly what I would call easy but it was about a medium.

The third cache was near Kohl's Ranch and we walked across the bridge overlooking beautiful Tonto Creek. I got a picture of the Lodge but forgot my camera when I left the car so I didn't get shots off the bridge. I will make up for it later. This one I would consider an easy cache although it was so small that it was hard for us to find.

For our fourth cache we crossed another bridge where Horton Creek runs into Tonto Creek.

In the directions for this cache, the owner wrote that there were switchbacks going up the mountain and that it eventually leveled off into a wonderful walk in the pines. Oh boy, someone does not know what switchbacks are not to mention that you had to hike, uphill, to the campground before these "switchbacks" even began. This went pretty much straight uphill and was not what I consider an easy cache. (I really was hoping to save my energy for tomorrow's quad ride, but oh well we have to find the cache). We did have some really great views from up here though.

As I was recuperating from the fourth cache we drove up towards the Tonto Creek Fish Hatchery to find number five. Now this was more like it! We had to walk a few hundred feet from the road and it was on level ground. Yay! As Robert was hunting through the boulder piles for the cache I got distracted by black and yellow stripes and had to get a macro shot.

After we found number five we got to sit and watch the water flow down Tonto Creek. We even found a poor tree that had been carved in multiple times. Everyone just had to leave his or her mark at one time or another.

On our way back towards Payson we hit our last geocache for the day. Number six was NOT an easy cache either and it was so hot. (My friend, Chuck, would just laugh at me now since he hikes nearly every day and is used to it). At least I got to hike uphill on an actual road this time. It was a little easier on the feet. This one was described as an old bomb shelter from the Cold War days but it's actually just one of several old seismographic stations in the area. I'm really surprised that these are left open as they are but it was still really cool.

Here are a couple of pictures from the residential area that we had to drive through to get to the trailhead for number six. This is high dollar stuff and each side road is blocked by gates and keycard access. All these homes are surrounded by a beautiful golf course. Aw, they can have their rules and regulations and home owners associations, I don't want it. The houses are gorgeous though.

Well, other than not having "easy" caches for the most part, we had a really good day together geocaching and we picked up six more to add to our finds. This is so addicting it's pathetic. LOL.