Great Copper Rush July 31, 2010

July 31. 2010

Well today we decided to do the caches around Princeton because most of the cachers we were with yesterday were going Quading on the Old Kettle Valley Railway Trail. We took Henry to do some town caches because I had promised my dear husband that I would not take the HHR on any off road caches. One of the first caches of the day was the downtown Princeton at the fountain. BajaBetty's mom found it right away, but she didn’t know it, I kept telling her the clue to look under the rock and she kept saying I did, holding a rock in her hand, she said this is all I found. I just kept repeating look under the rock and finally she turned the rock in her hand over and there it was. Great camo on this cache

We continued on from there, checking out caches around town and in the surrounding area. We did find a few on some back country logging roads, but nothing that Henry hadn’t seen before and Lenny we did not do any four wheeling. BajaBetty decided to try a bit of horseback riding. After finishing up the day around Princeton we headed back to fairgrounds to see what was happening.

We stopped to check in with Chris of the Tulemeen Turtles to see if anything exciting was happening. She let us in on a secret, nobody had found a number of new caches up on the way to Springer Lake. Chris asked what we were driving and if we knew how to drive in Four Wheel Low. BajaBetty said she had her FJ cruiser and that she was born in Four Wheel Low. So BajaBetty, her mom and I started off at 6:00 pm to do the first cache, Halfway to Stringer. We took the turn and headed straight up the side of the mountain. We were going along fine in two wheel drive and then suddenly we came to the giant moguls in the middle of the road, we started to slip and slide, luckily we managed to only slide into the side of the mountain and not down the side of the cliff. We got over the humongous bumps and stopped, looked at each other and said “ Holy Crap, Why are we doing this?” After we caught our breath and stopped laughing from extreme fear, we decided that we didn’t want to go back down the way we just came up and supposedly there was an easier way down, so up we headed again. We were concentrating on the road so much we almost missed the beep of the GPS to tell us the cache was near. We stopped pulled off to the side, putting the parking brake on, got out, kissed the ground and went forth to find the cache. One down, more to come. Onward and upward we headed

This is Baja Betty’s version of events “ What a road! Off we went to get some FTFs out here, and experience a crazy adventure. WeedwackerLenny's husband thought we'd behave, since my Mom was with us, but we just stuck her in the back where she can't see out, and off we went. I think I'm going to enter Tiajuana in the Molgouls contest in the next winter olympics. She handles them well, even when I have my eyes close. And I think the prase I used was a lot more graphic that the one WWL said in her log! Lol

The next cache on the list was Please don’t let Mrs. Turtle drive. It was going to be a first to find.We started up the mountain again, this time in 4 wheel low and we came up to some more giant moguls. This time Betty stopped and we got out and surveyed the terrain before she took the FJ any further. We figured out the best route, hopped back in the FJ and up the mountain we went right to the cache. BajaBetty jumped out and rushed to be the first to find. I in the mean time stopped to take pictures of the fantastic view. All of a sudden there was a small scream when BajaBetty realizes that someone had already written in the log book. This was supposed to be a first too find, were we out of luck. Then she read the date, and the name, and she starts breathing again. It was Goaliegirls log from the original near death trip up with Mrs. Turtle. So she signed the log, I took a picture and we were off again.

The next cache was Stringer Lake itself, a very nice little lake with a forestry campground. BajaBetty’s mom was quite surprised that this being a long weekend that there was not some hearty sole up here to take advantage of the fishing. Took a picture of our own version of the Lady of the Lake and we were off again.

The next stop on our excellent adventure was called the Easy Way to Stringer. I don't know if there is such a thing as an easy way to stringer, cause we sure didn't find it, now if we followed all the directions we might have found it but then what kind of adventure would that be. BajaBetty had to fight off killer spiders in order to get at this cache. It was another FTF for our crazy little group. So we jumped back into the FJ and we continued further up the power line when we decided to try a few more caches before it gets too dark. We knew that we couldn’t make it all the way to Butler Lake, but we could at least get another FTF at Shrek’s home. So now it is onward and way downward to the swamp. This is a beautiful location. BajaBetty was on a roll, this was here fourth first to find in one night.

We were headed out the power line when we looked at the GPS and discovered that we were close to a new Earth Cache, Olephant Rock. The rock was very cool, but the mozzies were ridiculous, this is why the picture I took is a little blurry but I will post it anyways, BajaBetty and Mom look quite cute. So now we had to figure out how to get back down the main road. We were traveling down the power line when we looked the left and there was this great logging road. After what we had been driving on it looked like a four lane highway. So we continued on, conveniently ignoring the sign that said the road was closed ahead, so about 3 miles down the road there was some huge boulders blocking our way. We got out of the FJ and looked, someone had moved two of the boulders out of the way, leaving a big enough path for the cruiser. So we continued downwards, we could hear the traffic from the main highway, we were almost there. We get to the bottom and what do we find but a gate across the logging road. Who puts a gate across a road that is supposed to be blocked? Now what, it was getting dark and we really didn’t want to go back up the road and we couldn’t go forward. We looked around and there was a house in the next lot, so we sent BajaBetty’s Mom to see if there was anyone home and if they might have a key. Oh no, there was no one home but a very large barking dog. BajaBetty and I walked up to the property and could see that there was an ATV trail around the house and then went into the driveway and out to the highway. It looked like that it was big enough for the FJ. We decided that it was worth trying, rather than hitch hiking back to town. So BajaBetty and I jumped into the FJ and went down the ATV trail. All was well until we got to the end and saw that we had missed the huge rock on the side of the gate. We couldn’t stop, but somehow we managed not to get hung up on it and we got out to the driveway, picked up BajaBetty’s mom and took off down the road. It was then back to town to sign our names to the FTF logs and claim our victory. This little trip earned BajaBetty the Terrain challenge with a score of seven. A cache Terrain of 5 and a difficulty of 2.