Sunday April 18, 2010: Cross Plains, Wisconsin

Here we are at the last of my 3 stops this past Sunday. After setting up for nature photos at sunrise in Token Creek, then hiking 2.2 miles through the Pleasant Valley Conservatory, I had 4 geocaches on the list to find in nearby Cross Plains.

In the end, I only logged one geocache and attempted to find one other.

Like the last place, it was kind of hard to see the entrance to the trail from the road. You actually need to walk across some private property to get to the trailhead, but apparently there is public easement for the access.




Going along the fenceline back to those trees, and we have a trailhead. This is the Glacier Valley Conservancy which apparently encompasses 2 bluffs overlooking the south end of the village.



Just around 600 feet from the trailhead was a geocache location. No photos at this point, and I failed to find it. It's a micro-sized container, and I am not very good with those hides. I find less than half of them that I attempt to log. I would not have bothered with this, but it was on the way to a bigger geocache.

Some trail at the top of the bluff.



Somewhere here is the 2nd geocache.



See it yet?





I decided I liked this trail and location a lot. I kept following the trail even deeper to see how much there was. Scared up this snake along the way.




 I kept finding trail markers that led me down the bluff and behind some residential buildings. There was a clear marking showing the trail goes up another adjacent bluff. I had already gone 1 mile in on this trail, just decended a steep slope, and was thinking I would have to come back this way anyhow. I decided to not continue and make my way back right then. Back up the slope, and checked out the views.







So at this point I have tracked almost exactly 4 miles walking up and down 2 different bluffs twice at each location. That was enough for me. I decided I would just have to return to Cross Plains to explore the rest of that trail and get the 2 other geocaches I had on the list some other weekend this summer.

My walking route at the Glacier Valley Conservancy.



For good measure, here is the walking profile for both Pleasant Valley and Glacier Valley. It shows altitude for distance walked. If I had graphed it as altitude for time walked, it would show all those rest stops I took for heavy breathing climbing those hills. lol