11 First to Finds Run

So yesterday turned out to be much better than I had planned. I had planned on a doing a single cache at lunch that another cacher had given me a hint to on Monday so when I got to work, I pulled up all the unfound caches for Bangor. When the page came up, I was pretty surprised to see 11 new caches all placed by Ediokai (Mike Marino) and all in the Bangor City Forest. None had been logged yet as they had just been published overnight and because you had to do 10 of them to solve a final puzzle cache, it involved a lot more than just a grab and go. I had a pretty good idea that on a work day, none of the usual first to finders would be able to get these done so I decided to take the rest of the day off and go for these. I took the time to print out a sheet to use through the process and asked the boss if I could take off. She had no issues with it so out the door I went at 9ish.

After going home to change and grab my bike, I got to the BCF around 10. I headed off down the trail when at one of the first corners, there was a lady walking a dog who'd said she just seen a bear along the power lines and was taking the long way back to her car to avoid it. I asked where abouts it was and how big it was and she told me where and that it was large and that her dog seen it, it would have been bad. I continued off down the trail a little worried that I might cross it's path as the powerlines did intersect where I'd be going. All the caches were along an old railroad bed so it was pretty easy biking once I got there. I was able to find the first cache pretty quickly and as I thought, no one had been here yet. The first two caches were very easy to find. The coordinates were right on so they ammo cans were easy to locate. It was great to be finding something other than micros or nanos.

The third cache was the one that made me keep my eyes peeled. I had been listening quite intently since that lady told me about the bear but now I was stopped at the power lines and had to walk about 200 feet out on them. This part of the railroad bed was in a valley so the powerlines went uphill on both sides, making it pretty easy to see a ways.It's funny when you are listening for something so hard that your eyes can play tricks on you. The bushes along these lines were a little higher than my waste in some spots and I kept stopping to look around. Once I got to the cache, I did what I needed to and got out of there just incase.

I didn't have any trouble finding any of the rest of the next locations until the seventh. This one was a pain in the ass. Up until this one, everything was right along the railroad bed within 100 feet or so. When I got to the point that my gps was pointing due right, I started to wonder how or where the heck Mike had left the bed. The whole right side of the bed was all water about a foot deep if not more once you step on the moss and about four feet wide. The cache was showing about 350 feet up into the woods. I really didn't want to have to climb through the muck and the area looked familiar. I had been this way before doing Mainiac1957's Veazie Railroad Bed cache. I wondered how far up that was as that was where the connection was to the actual gravel trails. I rode my bike up about 500 feet and didn't see what I was looking for so I turned and went back to where I needed to be. I decided that Mike must have gone this way, so I was going to have to too. My first step onto a large patch of moss that looked dry ended up being a wet one as i sunk down about 6 inches and the water came right up over my foot. Crap. I got onto dry land again after two more soggy steps and started through a really heavy bushwacking. There was a lot of pricker bushes, mud and skunk cabbage making it quite the trip. As I got to the cache location, it opened up back to the normal forest. I found the cache after getting my bearings, I realized that what I had just done, could have been avoided had I pedaled just a little farther earlier. I was right off one of the gravel trails so I followed that back down to where the railroad bed connection was.

After walking back to where my bike was, I moved along and got the last two caches I needed to begin to solve the final puzzle. At first, I put all the numbers in to my gps and the destination was 10.6 miles away. I know the BCF is big, but not that big. At this point, with my wet feet and being sweaty, the bugs where eating me alive. I decided to ride all the way back to my car so I could sit in bugless environment to make sure I got all the numbers I had in the right place. On the way out, I stopped twice because I ran into little brown rabbits at one spot and a big red looking doe. I finally got back to the car, had some water and quick snack, and refigured all the numbers. Much better. The final was only 1.6 miles away and I knew a quick way to get to it. Luckily, this was a different part of the park so I didn't have to go back down to the bed. At this point, my ass which is used to sitting on an office chair was not feeling so comfortable from thrashing around on a bike seat.

The way the final puzzle cache is set up, I can't go into much more detail other than it was pretty cool. I found what I was looking for even though it was pretty tricky making it my 11th cache that I was the first to find. Even though I scored an unactivated Leatherman geocoin (shown) for being first to find, the fact that I was first on all 11 gave me the greatest satisfaction. I don't pay for a premium membership on Geocaching.com like most so I don't have the ability to get a text message every time a new cache is published so the first to finds are rare. To get 11 in one day will probably not ever happen again.