Beaver's Playground

Here the other day it wasn't raining out for a change when I got off work. I really need to mow the yard something bad, but really wanted to go for a little hike. I have a couple of caches I hadn't done yet in an area in Central City. There's a park to the south east side of there that is really a neat tucked away place. I saw a couple of car's in the parking area's, but never ran into anyone. I was thinking they where mushroom hunter's.

I went and did this two stage cache. A really neat one. Stage one was a mask hanging up on a tree. On the back of the mask was the cord's for the final location, which turned out to be a well hidden ammo can. The sketter's where pretty bad and I haven't fully loaded my cache bag for summer yet, so I didn't have any bug-spray or anything with deet in it. So I had to fight my way threw them. The weed's in the wood's where up to my knee's and I saw a lot of mustard seed plant's and a lot of neddle's. Lucky I had one jean's.

I found a nice animal trail to follow on my way back form the final and if I would have spotted that I could have avoided walking threw the weed's. Oh well, what fun is in that.

Then I was off to this one called LCC 50th Beaver's Playground. I headed off on the main trail and found a spot on the trail that looked like it went back toward's the cache. Some of the brush there was up to my armpit's all ready. But shortly after I made it threw the thick stuff and it was easy walking under the tree's. I got closer and closer, and then I saw swamp water. I looked down at my GPSr and saw only 400 feet or so away. I seemed to have walked out to a "peninsula" (for lack of anything better to call it) as I had to follow the water almost all the way back to where I left the trail. But I kept on following the side of the water hoping to find a low spot to cross. I think in a few week's the water level will go down and the route I tried to take will be passable.





As I was walking along the edge of the swamp, I looked over and saw kind of a clearing threw the tree's. Sure enough there was the trail it had twisted and turned and was going in the direction I wanted. So I hopped back on the trail and follow that till I came to a stream. Now it was a big decision time. Don't cross on the trail and hope the cache was on this side of the stream and swamp, or cross and hope I can find a way to wrap around.

I finally decided to cross the stream and found an animal trail that went the way I wanted to go. I followed that all the way to the edge of the park and the edge of the swampy water. Then wouldn't you know I found another clearing. Only this time it opened up to some farmer's field. I keep to the edge of the wood's and closed in on the cache.



When I was about 50 feet away I found a neat stream I had to cross. Luckily there was some stick's, mud, and clay, that it kind of formed a natural bridge. But I didn't see that till I took the old "leap of faith" across. I was able to hone in on the cache itself easily enough. But I did spot a much easier way to get to this cache. It wouldn't have been as much fun though, but it would have been an easy walk.







I traded some travel bug's, signed the logbook, and returned the cache how I found it. I ended up take the same way I came in all the way back. I'd have to say it was a fun day in the park, and the weather was perfect. Just if I would of had the bug-spray with me. The funny thing though, is I didn't pick up any tick's. I thought for sure I would have picked up a few going threw some tall grass. I'm not complaining at all, just thought I would have a couple to toss out the window as I drove home.