August 2, 2009: Stoughton, Wisconsin

Wow, had it really been 6 weeks since I got out for a real hike? It gets really easy to be sidetracked by holiday weekends, spontaneous trips to baseball games, wet weather, and stuff like that. I surprised myself by getting all my important chores done on Saturday, so I got up Sunday morning and began deciding where I would visit that day. It had been 5 years or so since I last visited the trails in Stoughton, so I decided to return there.

All the caches I previously found in the area are now archived and deactivated, a whole new crop of geocaches have been hidden, and a lot of them. I downloaded coordinates to several potential finds into my GPS receiver, packed my camera gear and water, then hit the road.

I parked in an industrial park where one trail started, and began my trek. Most of the trail here looked like this.


There's my first geocache spot.




So far, so good. I walked past this fence that contains a whole lot of iron behind it.


OK, next site. My pointer on my gps receiver says about 100 feet in that direction.


Looks like it's under a log. Who would have thunk? :D




One more geocache down this leg of the trail...


The GPS is pointing into the woods that away. Glad I have plenty of mosquito repellent sprayed on my.


A quick search and by golly it's under a log! I think I see a trend. :D




It was a nice, big container so I dropped in a nice, large piece of swag for somebody else to find.


I kept on following the trail just to see where it would end. As I emerged from the woods I heard some cranes making a loud noise, so I started taking photos.




They look not so impressive with my usual wide-angle lens. The birds seemed accustomed to people being near so I changed my lens on the camera and took more photos as they wandered around business buildings.




It's a pair of sandhill cranes, as I identified them after getting home. There were several others to see too.


The view of the nearby Yahara river as I was taking bird photos.


Back to the cranes.






Time to leave the cranes alone and walk back to see another segment of trail. Of course I spied a woodpecker along the way. Another almost tame bird that did not seemed to disturbed by me standing 10 feet away taking pictures. I even used a fill-flash and he still just went about his business.












Some more views. I had to cover a couple of miles before getting to the next cache site.


Have to cross the bridge, then walk a few blocks through the city streets of Stoughton.




After walking to the park on the other side of the river and past the disc-golf course, I approached the next geocache site. Part of the story of this cache is this water pipe spewing water at a steady rate all over the place.


The GPS was pointing about 120 or so feet into these woods. I saw no trail that looped back there. This area was also partially flooded and muddy with all the water from that pipe. Treading as lightly as I could, I entered the brush.


The trees also were interfering with my location accuracy. It took a while of circling in the mud to get a proper fix on the cache location. It was across a drainage ditch on dry ground. I actually could see it from 40 or so feet away standing in the mud. I took a photo from there, do you see what I see? (middle toward bottom)


Crossed the ditch and taking a dry approach to the tree now.


Close-up view of that cache in the crotch of the tree.




So once again I find the difficult way in, and the easier way out. Good-bye old oak tree.


About 600 feet away is another cache just a few feet off trail this time.




I carried this box away to sit by the river and open it. I was too exposed to people walking by on the trail to hover over the hiding location and do that. This was my view.


There's a blue-jay over there in the distance.


I signed the log, but had to wait out several people passing by on the trail before putting the box back. I took some photos of this bee while waiting.


I started to walk the 2 miles or so back to my parking place. I saw this crane across the water and switched to my very long zoom lens to take photos.


At the same time I saw birds of prey circling overhead. I saw this vulture first.


Then this osprey came into view.


I knew it was an osprey because I had read this walking on the other side of the river.


And looked at the nest mentioned on the sign.


Now walking back to that bridge crossing the river.


Another pair of sandhill cranes. Hang on, it gets interesting.


Walked down the bridge looking for a more interesting composition.








The birds have just about had enough of this modeling business.


Just one flyby and that's it.










Well that wrapped up the interesting stuff. Five geocaches found, about 6 1/4 miles walked. It was perfect weather and a wonderful walk. I hope you managed to stay with me to the end. :)