September 6, 2009: Portage, Wisconsin

When I last visited the Pine Island Wildlife Refuge over a year ago, there was a single geocache hidden in the area. I cut my exploration of the location short after looking at thunderstorm clouds approaching. As it turned out, that was the leading storm in a wave of storms and heavy rain that brought about the great flood of 2008 in Wisconsin. This was the very area where the Wisconsin River spilled it's banks and flooded a stretch of I-90/94 and forced it closed for a couple of days. Weird how things like that happen right after I visit.

Checking on geocaching.com I see 4 new geocaches placed in this location since I was last here. There has been no rain at all for over a week, so I expect there will be no problem with walking in ordinarily marshy areas. As it turned out, everyplace was rather dry.

Got going later than I wanted to, and arrived at the first location after 11am. Backed down the last bit of gravel road to have an easy time driving out.


This first cache has "log pile" in the title. The gps receiver was still settling down, it's not this log pile that was in the circle of error.


The pointer began to indicate it was this log pile on the other side of the trail. However I spent 15 minutes crawling over it, poking around, moving logs, and did not see any geocache.


OK, there is another geocache further down the trail, I'll try this some more when I walk back since it's right by where I parked. This other cache has "swamp" in the title.


Thankfully, it's dry with hard soil today. An easy 1/4 mile walk down the wheel ruts, then cross-country for 0.15 mile. The stump seemed like the obvious place.


Being under debris in that log, it was a lot harder than you might think to find.


Just a log sheet inside to sign.This one was logged at 11:59am.


Back down that access trail to where I parked.


What I didn't search in that first go-round with the log pile was the front face. One of these logs almost looks like it does not belong.


I plucked it out (a very short log) and discovered something way inside.


A coffee container-turned-geocache. Logged this one for 12:20pm. I was the 2nd signer (I think it's a replacement log book) and nothing else was in it. I stocked it with a bouncy ball and some sports trading cards.


There is no other direct trails to find the remaining 2 geocaches here. I had to drive to the next location. The closest parking area was not the correct starting point, as I discovered each trail ran abruptly into thick vegetation. I then drove on to the next parking area (1/3 mile from the hiding spot instead of 1/4 mile) and discovered a nice access road that went in the correct direction. There was also other cars here. A house on the property that abuts this parcel had several tents and motorcycles here, this must have been the overflow parking for the party going on this weekend. Nice Cutlass convertable, a car I lusted for as a teenager.


Not a bad walk down here.




The trail was literally alive with hundreds of these leopard toads hopping all around. I was scaring them up all over.


The gps is pointing right at that stump 30 or so feet off the trail.


It was there all right. Another Folger's coffee container. Logged at 1:06pm, added some more sports trading cards into the collection of trading items.




Walked the entire length to where it emerged into a different parking area on the south side of the reserve.


After driving a mile down the road to the next parking area, I'm on my quest for the last find in the location.


This one was, well, poorly hidden.


Note even coordinates that were over 20 feet wrong could keep me from spotting it. The sun was shining right on that bright red coffee container.


It's a neat little spot in a woods. Personally, I would have hid this one in that much bigger tree you see back there to the right side of the frame.


I kept exploring the trail to see where it would take me. A tracked vehicle came through recently from what I could tell. Then I saw this warning sign.


Looks like they killed quite a bit of vegetation here with Roundup.


Quite obviously, this was the reason for poisoning the earth. They missed these plants out by the levee.


Speaking of the levee, I'm in an area right by the Wisconsin River. After walking back out of the trail I decided to get in some more walking. I just crossed the road and walked along the top of the levee for a while just to see if I could spot some wildlife from the elevated position. The convertible was about the most wild of life I saw. Well there were some more toads. The woods have a pretty good sized population of orioles too, but I did not get a good photo-op.










I walked back to my Jeep, estimated about 4.25 miles walked today. I stopped and investigated a geocache at a historical marker wayside along US 51 on the way home. I read a series of "did not find" logs for it, and I decided to see if it was missing so I could mark the cache for maintenance. It was missing, I flagged the cache, and sent a message to the owner. That wrapped up my expedition.