Sunday June 5th, 2011: Cross Plains, Wisconsin

Wow, it's been a long time since I did this. I actually have been chasing a couple of geocaches the last couple of months. I just have not been documenting them. One was a wild goose chase after dark, and others were not very "adventurous".

So this weekend turned out to be dry. I got all my important chores done on Saturday. Time to get out for some real hiking. I chose Cross Plains, Wisconsin. I wanted something that was a little challenging, but also wanted to control the distance as I am out of walking shape. I had briefly visited one bluff overlooking this village-in-a-valley a year ago, and I left 3 geocaches un-found. Today I wanted to find those caches.

The geocaches are spread around in the bluffs overlooking the village, so there is driving in between each segment. I started on a short walk on the east side that leads to a scenic vista.

Trailhead, right next to a driveway for an expensive home at the end of a cul-du-sac.

Somebody was burning across the valley.

Yes you can look down over the town.

I also created a panorama from here. It's too wide to fit this post neatly, so I needed to shrink it down a lot.

Before I forget, there is a geocache just over the edge and downhill a bit.

But...somebody didn't seal it up correctly. The log book inside was soaked and ruined to the point of being too fragile to turn a page now. I just photographed and didn't sign.

Please don't eat the daisies!

That segment was about 0.45 miles of mostly even terrain. Next I drove on to the base of a different bluff north of town. This one had a lot more trail to explore.

A long and steep climb up with a surprising amount of trail to follow at the top.

That's a funny-looking tree on the right.

The old, decaying utility poles lead to the site of what appears to be where a home once stood decades ago. This trail is actually still displayed as a road with a name on my gps map.

The old place used to have quite a view.

Just a short distance away in a wooded area is the geocache.

Well that log was dry enough to sign. It was crowded inside, so I took a pencil out.

There was a fork in the trail earlier, so I doubled back and explored that. Discovered it is a segment of the Ice Age National Trail. Goes a bit over a mile.

It actually goes down the bluff and out to a residential neighborhood about 5 blocks from where I parked. I looked at the map, and decided to back-track on the trail and return to my parking that way instead of pounding pavement.

That brought my walking distance up to 3 miles. I was feeling it a bit, had originally intended to try to go about 3.5 miles. I decided to try to get one last geocache. It was on the bluff trail system on the south side of town, but only a short distance into the system, and less than half-way up the ascent of the bluff. I remembered the place because I tried for what felt like an hour to find the cache last year and failed.

Here's the trail entrance. It is unusual because...

You have to walk along a fence behind some apartment buildings to get here. Here's the view direct behind that last photo.

The woods get thick fast.

This is a nice trail, but my legs were warning me not to try climbing all the way up now. I found "ground zero" pretty much as I remembered. The description had me thinking this container was disguised as a pine-cone. I don't believe I was thinking along those lines last year, and was looking for an ordinary type of micro-sized container. It only took me about 10 minutes to find it this time. Right at high-noon.

Pine cones don't normally stand straight up-down like that in a hole in a rock.

That is an interesting camouflage. I signed the log, walked back down, dropped the top on the ol' Jeep and drove for home.

Here is the Google Earth view of my walks. First stop was the red trail on the right, green in the foreground was the second leg, and the last leg was the blue line in the back on the right.

But, I had one more place to stop first. I did a modification to an old camera recently to allow me to take near-infrared photos. I meant to carry it with me on the hikes, but forgot and left it in the Jeep all 3 stops. I decided to stop at the Culver Conservancy at Token Creek, WI and try some photos there.

Near-infrared photography is meant to create a surreal image. Chlorophyll in plants are nearly 100% reflective to infrared light, so leaves will look pure white. True color photography is not possible.

For the day, the walking distance was a bit over 3.5 miles. It was getting hot so definitely time to go home and hit the shower.