October 04, 2008: Middleton, Wisconsin

Looking for something someplace within an easy drive today that I had not been to before. I found a series of 4 geocaches placed in 3 areas just a few miles from each other in parks that I had never known of before. All reasonably close to home in the township of Middleton, Wisconsin. Mostly along Old Sauk Road west of Madison.

Started on the eastern-most stop, and also possibly the most interesting park I never knew about before. Pope Farm Park.



As you can see by the trail map, there are a lot of points of interest here. The geological interest is the double-moraine that is evident here, and all the rocks deposited by the glaciers at these moraines. There is a considerable amount of educational signs placed to tell the story of the land here in terms of the geology and natural history.


However, the first point of interest is man-made, a erosion-control spillway built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1938. This was a working farm then, and the spillway was meant to check the topsoil erosion down into this gully.



The 1st geocache of the day was about a quarter-mile away.



Believe it or not, I've never had my own wiener whistle before now.



I'm starting to notice just how high above the surrounding land I am here. Neat!



Following the coordinates to another cache in the park, I just run into a stone wall. Well, so to speak.



It is an old stone fence built for the farm that this park was originally. All plowed up and removed from the crop fields.

There are also a dozen or so informational plaques here telling the story of the park, information about the stones, the moraines and the glaciers that formed them, and other natural history information specific to this location.



The geocache I had targeted is a special king called an "Earthcache" where there is no physical container. Instead it is meant to take you to some special location. To get credit for the find, I had to email the Earthcache's owner with the answers to some specific questions I can only answer fully by visiting the spot, which I have done.



The autumn wildflowers are in full bloom. I see a few varieties that I have growing in my flower beds at home also.



Getting near the end again, with a commanding view of the coutryside to the north.






With that tour done, time to visit the next park just a few miles down the road.



The feel of this park seems to be an extension of the neighborhood it is located in. There are mansions bordering around the park, and this one has the feel of a golf course minus the tees and greens. Perhaps a little too manicured for my taste.



There is even a vineyard in the middle of the park. Don't see that every day.



Well, there is a semi-wild wooded area, containing the geocache. They apparently do clean out the brush regularly though. (again with the golf-course atmosphere)



The cache was not difficult to see.



Here is one of the mansions overlooking the park. There are several others.



Well, time to leave that park and go a few more miles further west and north. The next place to visit is state-owned land that has dual use as public hunting grounds and hiking trail. It also has a fantastic gorge in it that descends over 70 feet.



This location contains a puzzle-cache. I had to solve a logic puzzle in the published listing in order to get the correct coordinates to the container. Well, I was not sure that I had the right coordinates going in, and my search in the bottom of that gorge pretty much has me convinced that I need to work harder at the puzzle. I found nothing, but the view was great. The climbing down and back up was not as much fun though.





On my recommendation, my sister did not go down into the gorge with me as she was going to be the one to call for help if I wound up tumbling down. No incidents other than me having to stop a time or two to catch my breath. I will try to solve that puzzle correctly later with an eye to returning in the spring to get the cache. With an early gun-deer season coming up soon, I don't want to search in here any more this fall. I do want to explore the trails more though, as it is just beautiful in a way that I could not capture in 2-dimensional photographs properly.

Here's the hiking overview on the aerial photo of the area. Covered over 3.5 miles once again with a good deal of elevation change in all 3 locations.



With the autumn hunting seasons, I will be doing more "urban" hikes in the coming weeks where there is no hunting allowed. Getting shot while geocaching is not my intended way to go. I would much rather tumble down a cliff.