Jolly Green Descent into Hell- Part 2

I'm back, with part two of the worst day of geocaching we've had yet. It started off much like normal, getting lost, being hot, eating. But it got much, much worse.

When I left off last night, we were in the land trust parking area with the infamous Frodo, who was telling us to call him if it "gets to be too much for you." As I said last night, this should have been a clue coming from Frodo, but as I also said last night, we're not real bright.

Before we set out, we decided to hit a cache right next to the parking area, one that had been hidden by Frodo himself, Ledges Edges. With Frodo looking on (and probably laughing inside at our incompetence), we looked around and finally found the cache.

Yay! First find of the day! Things are looking up!

Famous last words... In retrospect, I think Frodo may have taken pity on us, leading us to an easy cache so we'd go to our deaths with a feeling of accomplishment.

The next thing that should have been a clue to us is, just as we were leaving, another group pulled up, not to join us in doing the caches, but apparently to join Frodo in seeing us off. A smart group would have seen this for what it was; a wake. Again, we're not very bright, so we pressed on.

The entrance to the trail was across the road so we encountered our first difficulty there. After an entertaining game of "Fat People Frogger" we made it to the entrance of the trail... which was almost straight up. "I've got a bad feeling about this...", I said in a moment of clarity. But then I started up the slope anyway, passing the moment of reason off as indigestion.

We walked for a bit, commenting on the fact that this "mostly downhill" trek sure had a lot of uphill climbing. Finally, we make it to the first cache, "Jolly Green Toothbrush" and it was definitely a good one. Big, custom made cache. Easy to find because it was friggin huge! Really cool cache. As we signed the log, we heard a distinctive rattling noise. Everyone froze immediately except Ashlynne, who couldn't figure out why the rest of us were suddenly doing the Vogue.

As most of you who have read these blogs before know by now, Ashlynne is from New York, a part of the country so frigid that the only cold-blooded reptilian creature able to survive there is Senator Hillary Clinton. So Ashlynne, who ironically is the one of us most afraid of snakes, had no idea that she was listening to the sound of an irritated rattlesnake.

"Rattlesnake...", Mad Mike said, still not moving. "Over there. Damn, he's a big one..."
"How close?", I asked, still frozen.
"About 15 feet away. Peek around the rock and you'll see him. He's a big one."
"No, that's ok," I said, backing slowly away from the area where Mike pointed. "I think hearing the rattlesnake is enough for me. I don't really have to see him."

Everyone else agreed and we gingerly replaced the cache and left the rattler to his business. Now remember, at this point we're still not terribly far from the entrance. So did we go back, taking the rattlesnake's warning as a sign that maybe this isn't for us. No, no we didn't. We pressed on. We were tired already and our big backpack full of water was going away at an alarming rate, but why would that concern us? We're the Zen Bassmasters! We survived Monte Sano with no water at all.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

By the time we reached the next cache, Jolly Green Wristwatch, we were all beat, even Fish, who is our "outdoorsman". Worse, the Wristwatch was 200ft straight uphill. We sent Ashlynne and Mad Mike up to sign the log and get the picture, while the rest of us tried to keep ourselves from having a heart attack.

At this point, we decided to screw the caches. We didn't care anymore. Not even Fish, who is usually a slave-driver in search of caches. We vowed to hit only caches that were along the trail or near it, no uphill climbing, no digging through briars, just focusing on survival.

And focus we did. We tried to conserve our water but we just got too thirsty and soon we were alarmed to see that we only had about 1 bottle each left. We began to wonder, if a full backpack wasn't enough, could we even bring enough water on a trek like this to have enough? More backpacks equal more weight equal more exertion, equal more thirst. Finally, we decided that the best bet was to fit Fish's Great Dane Barley for saddlebags, figuring if he carries 1/3 of his weight, he'd carry enough to get us through. Course, he'd probably also take out after the rattlesnake and then we'd have to figure how to tote a 120 lb snakebit dog off the mountain...

The biggest problem we had wasn't the elevation, as the trek was mostly down (with some unpleasant ups in between), it was the fact that the trail was mostly made up of rocks. We twisted our ankles like crazy, bruised our feet on the sharp rocks, and were constantly off-balance. It was just wearing us down and soon, all of us looked like Tserof in that picture from the last post (which was not posed, for those who asked. It was completely candid and actually before we got to the worst of it at the end).

We noticed Jolly Green Button was near the trail so we decided (very apathetically I might add) that we'd give it a try. Again, Mad Mike volunteered to scout for it and tell us how the trail was. As he's poking around we hear "Oh shit!" and see Mike backing away from a rock. Yep, another rattler. This one, fortunately, was either dead or asleep. Mike didn't seem interested in finding out, or in finding the button anymore so we moved on.

On the way, we saw a neat rock formation on the trail. Here's a picture...



We discussed what this might be. Fish jokingly started talking about some sort of Indian symbol. I told them I was pretty sure it was Hobbit trail-language for "Abandon Ye All Hope Who Enter Here."

Finally, we decided upon what we think is right. We decided it'd been set up by the folks who did this trail in the morning hours. They knew we were coming and we figure they set this up as the over/under on where we'd die. I'd say we proudly walked past the over/under rock, hopefully depriving some gambling hobbits of their winnings but, honestly, not much was funny by then so we just took a picture to prove we'd passed it and trundled on.

At this point, Tserof remembers that Frodo told us there was a stream somewhere in this area and started lamenting that we hadn't found it yet. We walked on with Tserof talking about the stream being dried up and all he really wanted was a little moisture to put on his head.

Finally, we did find the stream, really a trickle, and we still nearly had to stop Tserof swimming in it. It was kind of sad, but we were all so hot and tired by then that even a bunch of muddy water over our heads felt so nice it was like heaven. We rested there for a while until we thought we could go on.

Near the stream was a cache called RN2B's First that we decided to grab. We like RN2B. We've met her at a couple of events and she "gets" us. No putting caches under briars, no putting caches 300 ft straight down a mountain, no tying caches to rattlesnakes, just good quality caches, hidden within easy walk of the trail, and right where you think they would be.

RN2B, we'd make you an honorary Bassmaster but we like you too much to curse you that way.

We got the cache and Ashlynne decided to place her Jeep Travel Bug in it, figuring if people were willing to hike the mountain to get it, they could (and someone did, Frodo, the next morning).

We hit one more cache, Quarter Mile Granny Gear, on our way down. I'm sorry I'm not my usual descriptive self here but the rest of the hike was kind of a blur. I remember walking, hurting, encouraging Tserof (who looked like death, not even warmed over, just room temperature death), hurting more, being thirsty, and eventually, getting to the bottom.

We looked like crack addicts on free needle day heading for the cooler. Never has water been so worshipped. Never has water tasted so good. In fact, I'm going to try to recap Tserof's little speech as close to word for word as possible, as it very nicely sums up our thoughts on the day.

Warning to my teachers who plan to use this blog for their classes. You might want to leave this part off your lesson plan. We were too tired to censor ourselves.

Here you go, the wisdom of Tserof...

"This shit right here is some good shit. You never know how good water tastes until something like this. I'm telling you. This is the best stuff ever right here. I can't believe I don't drink it more. I love water."

And if that doesn't sum up the Zen Bassmaster philosophy more than anything, I don't know what does.

Next week, we aren't caching but instead are planning to scout out some locations in Lincoln County to place some caches. We did some research using the "History of Lincoln County" book in the local coffee shop and we think we've got some great historical caches to place, we just have to see what types of caches the areas support. If anything "blog worthy" happens, I'll write about it. Otherwise, stay tuned next week as I may pull out a "history of the Zen Bassmasters" column for filler, since we've had lots of questions at the meet and greet events about it.

Stay tuned.