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I packed gear for a multi-hour trip, downloaded a few extra nearby caches to my GPS receiver, and off I went to Lodi. I took a longer approach along a country road to the south because of a couple of caches along there I had been noticing for a couple of years. They are in public hunting grounds. I looked around as I drove by, did not find any off-road parking. I think the owners intended for people to just park on the shoulder and just dive into the woods to grab the cache. I didn't feel like playing that game today, and drove on.
Arrived at the parking lot for the Ice Age Scenic Trail - Gibraltar Segment. It's on a dead-end road just off of the county road that leads to Gibraltar Rock (a place I've visited and posted pics of here a couple of times before). I just read the information board and started off.
Had an uphill walk to the geocache site. However, I could rather plainly see the cache container peeking out from 50 feet away. There was trail maintenance done here last weekend, perhaps that had something to do with the very-visible placement.
Well, the location does have a view!
And a place to sit and look at it.
I took advantage of that to open the cache and compose a log entry. I added a Star Wars pen inside.
I'm still using the 18-270mm lens I bought last December. Giving the zoom a workout here. That is the Merrimac ferry down there. My last post I finished by taking photos from the ferry.
That is the general direction of Devil's Lake in the next photo, I think we are looking at the entrance in the background. To the right out of frame Devil's Head ski resort was clearly visible across the river.
The hike here was not too far, about 2/3 mile. I'm feeling good, and was curious to see just where the trail leads to. I think I read it goes all the way to the ferry, but I don't really know at this point.
There was another bench further down with a view.
If I had a trailer hitch for my Jeep, I could have a nice chipper right now. LOL Did I see this used in the the film "Fargo"?
Found the far-side of the bluff, and it drops off very steeply here. The only thing to slow your fall is the trees.
Going down the hill was a series of 4 switchbacks on the trail. I was very mindful that I had to climb back up again when I returned. Still had only gone 1.5 miles at the bottom.
The markers now direct me to cross the road (Hwy 113).
And the last yellow trail marker was right at the wayside next to the ferry crossing! about 2.25 miles to here.
I'm here, so I went down to take some pics like I never think to do when I'm driving, and waiting to cross.
In this infrared photo of the ferry, I kind of like how the red stop-lights are still visible as red.
I was tempted to ride the ferry across to get an ice cream cone from the place on the Merrimac side. I decided to just reverse course and go back. There was a hawk and a vulture hunting near that first scenic overlook.
It was a 4.5 mile round trip back to my parking spot. Possibly 2 miles longer than I really intended to go when I left home. I was certain I would feel this tomorrow. But, I have one more nearby geocache to go log. The last one was number 199, the next one was placed by a couple that I've know for years. An appropriate #200 by my measure. It is a 2-stage multi-cache. However, the first stage was described a little in the listing, and I knew what and where it was. I had a clear photo of it from 2007. I only needed information from it to find stage-2, so I just used the picture instead of walking all the way up Gibraltar Rock again after this long walk. The final place was along the road down underneath the towering cliffs of Gibraltar Rock.
Actually down at the bottom of the stop-sign.
Turn around, and you can see the left-face of Gibraltar Rock. I've taken plenty of photos from the top of that bluff.
Now it's time for a story boys and girls. I carried that cache to the front bumper of my Jeep and signed the log. It was a convenient place to set down my camera and gps receiver. When I went to put the cache back, I grabbed the camera again to take the pics of the views above. Apparently, I forgot all about the Garmin Legend HCx unit. I took my pics, sat back down in my Jeep, and drove off. Had to do a U-turn, and take some sharp curves in this road going back to Lodi, then all the way home on the back roads. Still had not thought of the gps unit when I got home, but I noticed a fresh message waiting on my answering machine. It was from a stranger, he was in Lodi, and found my gps receiver at the intersection of Hwy J and 113.
Now a bit of back-story. When I first bought the receiver, I must have read some advice somewhere about adding a custom message to the startup screen when you turn on the gps. I have had my name, phone number, and a "return if found" message on the startup screen since I first bought it. That was a pretty good tip, I got a message about finding it before I even realized it was lost! Interesting that it rode that front bumper for at least 2 or more miles before falling off at the turn onto highway 113. Even better that it was found immediately without any damage done to it, and the finder chose to return it. I called back, and drove all the way to Lodi again (the fast way this time) to retrieve it. Thanks Mister! (he declined my offered reward too).
So that added another hour to my adventure. But it did allow me to retrieve my walking tracks and overlay into Google Earth.
It was just a nice day to go for a walk, and it ended good even though it could have taken a bad turn. Thanks for hanging with me on this report.
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