Adventures in Geocaching, March 12th, 2015

The Thompson River

Taken March 12th, 2015

Sanders County, Montana

As my regular readers know, I've been geocaching on and off since 2006 when I bought my first Garmin eTrex Legend in Crescent City, California with the idea of it letting me know how far I was walking when hiking on the trails in the various components of Redwood National and State Parks.  Of course I quickly learned that the redwood canopy was too thick for satellite signals to penetrate.  Oh well.  Let's try something different, so remembering that Mr. Grubstake had displayed geocaching items at his restaurant high above Hamilton, Montana, I looked into a new (to me) activity.  At the time, there were over 1500 caches hidden within a 100 mile radius of my house in Smith River, California. When you consider that the house sits three miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, you have to figure that most of those caches are going to be hidden somewhere on land, that is in half that radius.  That was back in 2006.  Today, the geocaching web site doesn't allow you to search more than 30 miles from any given zip code, and there are 563 caches within 30 miles of Smith River.  Back in 2006, I was able to find 37 caches, 20 of them in October alone.  In 2007, I expanded my range outside of California and Oregon, and found 121 caches throughout the Northwest.  I took my eTrex Legend with me on the 6,000 Sunday Drive, and found caches in South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee as well.

Old Structure on the Little Thompson River Road

Sanders County, Montana

From 2008 through 2013, I found a grand total of 18, although four of those were in Florida, the furthest east and south I have been with my passtime.  But while I was not out geocaching, lots of other folk were.  Where there were barely 100 caches within 100 miles of my Missoula, Montana home, now there are thousands.  There are thousands within 100 miles of our home in Plains, and one way to get to know the area, is to go out hunting for them.  In 2014, I set myself the goal of reaching 300 lifetime finds before the end of the year.  By December 31st, I was well past that number, having found 149 caches during the course of the year, and I set a new goal:  500 total by year end 2015.

Winter weather is generally not conducive to searching for things in the woods, but I went out nonetheless and found 10 caches in January and 16 in February.  Then Winter left here in the Northwest, and March was very spring-like.  On March 12th, I set out with the idea of finding caches along a road I'd never traveled, the upper end of the ACM road  where Sanders, Flathead and Lincoln Counties meet.  A group of local geocachers going by the name Clark Fork Valley GeoCachers have placed a series of caches along the ACM road at roughly every 1/10 mile from where the road starts at MT 200 east of Thompson Falls to where it ends at US 2 east of Libby.  We're talking a 40 mile stretch of dirt road with almost 400 geocaches hidden along the way.  This has been my go-to path when I want to add a quick 10 or so finds to my list.

The ACM road was built by the Anaconda Mining Company back in the days when they were logging this area to supply support timbers for the mines in Butte.  There is a county road that parallels the ACM road just a few hundred feet away.  BUT, and it's a big but, there is a river that flows between the two:  the Thompson River.  Both roads run from MT 200 to US 2, and both are heavily salted with geocaches.  I've looked for only a few of the county road caches, but have hit the ACM road more heavily, and today I thought I'd go to the end.  The map made it look as if the ACM road skirted the southern bank of the Thompson Lakes, and I'd never been there, so why not.

Old Barn on the upper Thompson River

Flathead County, Montana

From our house, as the crow flies, it's just a couple miles to the Little Thompson River Pass Road, but it's a bit further by car.  Once on that road, it's an eighteen mile drive up and over the pass on a road that is mostly dirt, although this trip there were patches of snow and ice, and once I started down the western slope, there was a lot of rock that had fallen into the road bed.  I found myself twisting the steering wheel right, then left, then right, just to avoid the rocks.

Once down to the confluence of the Little Thompson and the Thompson, I turned north and headed toward my first cache of the day.  Kevin had bought me a new Garmin Montana 650t GPS unit for Christmas, and I was making the most of it.  For today's trip, I had programmed in some 70 caches along the last seven miles of the road.  The first was an easy find, as were the second, third, fourth, and so on.  It looked like it was going to be a great day, but then I got to number ten.  Nothing.  Couldn't find anything that looked right.  OK.  Spend some time, but then move on.  There are plenty more.  Number eleven started out elusive, but, ah, there it is!  Having found eleven, I walked back to where number ten was supposed to be, thinking that maybe approaching from a different angle would improve my chances.  Nope.  Still nothing at site ten.  And it started snowing.

Middle Thompson Lake looking North

Lincoln County, Montana

I decided to drive on to the end of the road, try to find a new cache hidden along US 2, then turn around and see what I could find on my way home.  The road dumped me out onto Highway 2 much sooner than I expected, but I turned left toward the West, and was quickly up to highway speed.  After fifty miles of dirt road, it felt good to be able to drive faster than 25 mph.  I passed Middle Thompson Lake and looked at my Garmin to find that the new cache I was seeking was still several miles ahead of me.  No, this was not what I was wanting.  I still had to get back home, and the fastest way meant backtracking on the dirt ACM road.  Otherwise, I would have to go all the way to Troy (63 miles), then south to Noxon (43 more miles), where I would still be 70 miles from home.  As an alternative, I could drive east to Kalispell (47 miles), which would put me 85 miles from home.  No, the 50 miles of dirt road seemed like a better option.

Realizing that somehow I had taken a turn off the ACM road, which is why I got to US 2 so quickly, I started looking for my original objective.  And sure enough, just between Middle Thompson Lake and Upper Thompson Lake was my road, and a geocache.  Found that one quickly (ACME 372 was its name), and just as quickly found ACME 371 and 370.  In fact, I found every cache through 364 and stopped along the way to take some pictures of the lake.  By this time it was getting late and I hadn't brought along any lunch.  It was time to stop looking for caches and head on home.

Middle Thompson Lake looking West

Lincoln County, Montana

No problems with the drive, and as I climbed the Little Thompson River Road, I met a road grader moving the rocks I had dodged earlier off the roadbed.  Didn't have to bob and weave so much, just inch my way past the grader, and from there on it was smooth sailing the rest of the way home.  All told I found twenty caches and had a great day out enjoying our beautiful northwestern Montana home.

Caches found:  ACME 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 311 (NOT 310), 364, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372.

Thompson River Blues

The Clark Fork River and Coeur d'Alene Mountains

Sanders County, Montana

December 31st, 2014

Wednesday, December 31st, was a beautiful day, clear and cold, and much too pretty to spend indoors.  Accordingly, having finished a few chores, I spent several minutes working to get the snow off my car and the ice off the windshield.  Once I could see out, I made sure I had my camera and GPS unit, and hit the road heading for Thompson Falls.  I love taking pictures of the scenery in this area, and when I saw a wide spot on the side of the road with a clear view of the river and mountains, I stopped the car and caught the scene above.  This is where I live, people.  Eat your hearts out.

Back in 2006, when I bought my first GPS unit, I managed to find 37 caches, mostly in Del Norte County California and Curry and Josephine Counties, Oregon.  My best year was 2007, when I took my GPS with me on my 6,000 Mile Sunday Drive and found 121 caches as far away as West Virginia and Tennessee.  Between May 2, 2010 and February 2, 2012, I put my GPS away and spent no time out looking for caches.  In Geocaching terms, this is called a "slump," and that period was my longest slump to date, 641 consecutive days.  At the beginning of 2014, I had found a total of 176 caches in seventeen states, but none outside the U.S.  All that changed in the year just ended.

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep

(Ovis canadensis)

Just beyond the Watch for Bighorn Sheep Ahead sign

Montana Highway 200, Sanders County

December 31st, 2014

When I pulled out my GPS on April 1, I went for a drive and found four caches hidden along MT Highway 28, all less than ten miles from home, as the crow flies.  I spent three more days during April searching for those Tupperware containers in the woods, found 27, and vowed that by the end of 2014, I would have found a total of 300 caches.  On a trip to Cranbrook, British Columbia, I got my first non-US caches, and I logged my 300th cache on December 18.  As I approached my goal, I decided that in 2015, I would find an additional 200, to bring my total life finds to 500.  With my Christmas present in hand, I set out to see what more I could find before the New Year, getting a start on my 2015 goal, as it were.

The Clark Fork Valley Geocachers, a group I really have to spend more time with, have been very active in this area.  They have hidden at least 54 caches alongside MT Highway 200 in a series they call Montana's Own Scenic Byway, or MOSBY, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.  They have also hidden a series of caches along the Thompson River, by the side of the road the Anaconda Copper Mining Company (ACM) built when they were logging in this area getting timbers for their mine shafts.  The ACM Road parallels the river for the most part on its east side, while the county road follows the river on the west side.  As a result, there are two roads running parallel to each other, roughly 100 yards apart, but separated by a river.  In Montana, this is highly unusual.  The two roads are roughly 40 miles in length, stretching from MT 200 in the south to US Highway 2 in the north.  And no, it's not a short cut to Libby as neither road is well maintained and under the best of conditions, you're going to be driving at 25-30 mph.

My Turn-Around Point

ACM Road by the Thompson River

December 31st, 2014

The cache chain on the ACM Road is called, appropriately enough the ACM Express, or ACME for short.  To date there are 372 ACME caches in place, roughly one every tenth of a mile.  If I were to spend all my geocaching time on the Thompson River, I would easily reach my 500 for 2015, and have a few left over.  Determined to get a head start on that goal, I loaded my GPS with some of the ACME caches, and set off to end the year with 325 finds.

I had already found a few of the ACME caches nearest the southern end, and roughly ten more in the middle where the cross road comes through the mountains from my home, so on this beautiful, if very cold day, I headed up the road about four miles before I turned around to work my way back.  I was wearing jeans, sneakers, a polo shirt, sweatshirt, and jacket.  I had a cap, but no gloves.  There was snow on the ground.  Am a I fool or what?  I've lived in Montana most of my life.  I know that when you go outside and the day's high is around 10 degrees Fahrenheit, you should have all extremities covered.  But I don't think I've worn winter gloves since we moved to Plains over two years ago--except for my abortive attempts at cross-country skiing around the property, and I'm not sure where my winter gloves are.  Mittens won't work when you're trying to press small buttons on a GPS unit and need to open pill bottles and write on rolled up pieces of paper.  (That's what you do to let the cache owner know that yes, you did find the thing.  You're not lying about it on line.)

They're Called The Rocky Mountains

Cabinet Mountain Range

December 31st, 2014

Most of the ACME caches are fairly easy to find.  Most of the ones I've found are hidden in something called "preforms" and are hanging from a branch on a tree.  This way they are usually above the snow line, and theoretically at least, can be found any time of the year.  The first cache I sought was ACME #24, and sure enough, there it was hanging from a branch hidden behind a tree just off the eastern edge of the road.  I found ACME #23 easily enough and began to feel that this would be a very successful day.

ACME #22 eluded me though, and after spending enough time looking that I was beginning to notice the cold, I said "Enough," and moved on down the road.  Number 21 was there, but try as I might, I couldn't find #20.  I was beginning to wonder if I would be finding every other cache, when #19 jumped out at me from the road.  I'm not used to being able to see the hanging "preform" without scrambling around a bit, so I was quite surprised to find this one perfectly visible.  All I had to do was wade through the snow and lift it off its branch.  I saw #18 from the roadbed as well, but for #17, I had to scramble a bit.  Actually I had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl up the bank to get behind the trees.  My hands were really hurting by now--or perhaps they were numb.  It was hard to uncap the container, and even harder to make my long entry legible.  I decided that if I were to not lose my hands to frostbite, I'd better call it a day.

I had set as my goal finding seven caches.  I was prepared to find more, if conditions warranted, but with fingers so numb I couldn't even attach my seat belt, I needed to quit.  There were a couple of easy grabs near Thompson Falls, so I drove back to the highway and headed west a few more miles.  At the turnoff for the High School, I turned right, then left and parked in the school's parking lot.  No one was around on New Year's Eve, except for a few families sledding down the hill on the east of the school.  I was headed for the fitness track on the west, looking for the fourth in a series of caches hidden to teach students how to use GPS units.  The hint for this cache was "Under a log," and I found it right away.  Unfortunately, the log and the associated bits of wood and bark hiding the cache were all frozen to the ground.  Even so, I was able to extract the cache, sign the log, and put the whole thing back together so that the only clue to its existence would be my tracks through the snow--easily hidden with the storm that is supposed to come in the next couple of days.

Ice on the Thompson River

December 31st, 2014

With that "Summer Fun" cache notched onto my belt, I finished 2014 with a total of 325 caches, and now have only 175 more to find for 2015.  Or do you think I might even do more?  By the way, with the addition of the caches I found with my new Garmin GPS unit in December, 2014 is now my best year so far, with 149 finds.  2015 will be even better, and I'll be keeping you informed.  Thanks for reading my posts, and Happy New Year!

Sheep on Road

Last Year's View (12/3/2011)

What the sign actually says is "Sheep on Road Next 1 Mile."  It's an electric signboard where someone can change the message, and the power comes from the sun.  For as long as I can remember, it's read just what it said this afternoon.  Usually there are no sheep on the road.  Occasionally there will be one or two.  Last winter, my cousin Ron and I slowed down to follow a pair of rams walking at a leisurely pace down the middle of the west-bound lane.  Oh, did I mention we're talking about Montana Highway 200, between Wild Horse Plains and Thompson Falls?  And the sheep in question are Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep (Ovis canadensis canadensis).  The sheep are manifest, blatantly taking their space in the narrow canyons between the Clark Fork River and the rock walls along the north side of the highway.  There are at least three sections of road between Plains and Thompson where you are likely to see sheep, and only on rare occasions have I traveled the twenty-five miles without seeing sheep somewhere along the road.

The View West from Lower Lynch Creek Road

This morning Kevin and I drove into Thompson (the Sanders County Seat) to pay the taxes on our new home, check on employment possibilities with the Sanders County Sheriff's Office (for Kevin, not me), and pick up some groceries so I can use up the Thanksgiving leftovers.  It was a beautiful morning, blue skies, sunshine, hoar frost on the trees, low clouds rising off the river, in short--a great day for a drive.  I always intend to have my camera ready, but I have to admit, that more times than not, the camera ends up left on my desk in the library at home, and I find myself staring at absolutely gorgeous scenes with no way to share them.  No so today.

After stopping at the Post Office to pick up any new mail, then hitting Sinclair for Kevin's morning Pepsi, we turned the big red wagon toward the West, and headed to Thompson Falls.  Now the way I direct people to our new home is by telling them to drive west through Plains (Wild Horse Plains, to give it the full and proper name), drive past the bank, past the hospital, past the dinosaurs (yes, there are three concrete dinosaurs next to the highway), then at milepost 75, turn right onto Lower Lynch Creek Road.  After three and a half miles heading north, you'll come to a junction with a poorly designed road sign.  That is the sign shows the names of both roads, but doesn't indicate which road is which.  Take the left fork onto High Country Road and climb the hill for roughly 9/10s of a mile.  At that point, there will be another fork, and this time you take the right fork onto Baldy View Road.  Baldy is the mountain that rises directly behind the town of Hot Springs,  about eightteen miles north of Plains.  If Hot Springs claims the face of Baldy, I guess we view the back side.

Baldy, as seen from Montana Highway 200

A little further west on 200 and you're in the canyon so loved by the sheep.  This canyon extends most of the way to Thompson Falls, with a few sections where the valley floor might be a mile wide.  Most of the way, the mountains come down to the river on the south, and climb right back up on the north. Often there are rock faces, and these are where the sheep live.  There are several places along the highway where I long to get out with my camera in hand, but places to pull off the highway are few and far between.  One of these days, however...

For this trip, I was content to set my camera on Shutter priority in order to beat the highway speed Kevin was driving, and I took my shots through the windshield and side windows of the truck.  I'm not complaining, although usually I am not happy with the results when I try this trick.  In the past, however, I've kept the camera on Aperture Priority, and often end up with very blurred foregrounds.

The River, the Railroad, the Highway, and the Mountains Beyond

In Thompson Falls, we stopped at the Court House and paid our property taxes.  Kevin tried to catch up with a colleague in the Sheriff's Office, unsuccessfully, and we headed to Genki for lunch.  Genki is an "Asian Fusion" restaurant, which means, as near as I can tell, that the menu is a mixture of Japanese and Chinese dishes, as are the decorations on the wall.  Kevin and I both had the daily special "A" which consisted of a cup of egg drop soup, a serving of shrimp and veggie tempura (one shrimp, one slice of yam, one slice of zucchini), a serving of sweet and sour chicken, and a ball of rice which served as the East China Sea separating Japan and China, at least gastronomically.  I'm not normally a fan of egg drop soup, but this was quite tasty, easily the best I've had.  The tempura and chicken were both very good, and I left pleased with my meal.  I have no idea how such a restaurant will survive in meat and potatoes Thompson Falls, but I wondered the same thing about the restaurant that used to reside in exactly the same location.  Years ago, my friend Vaun Stevens and I drove to Thompson for the simple reason that Montana Magazine had reviewed a restaurant there and named it one of the best in Montana.  I cannot at this point summon the name of that place, but I'll never forget the experience of walking in, sitting down, and having the owner ask what we wanted--refusing to give us a menu as he didn't want to limit our choices.  I no longer remember what either of us ordered, but I do remember the meal was superb, and I also remember a special treat that the owner set down before us.  Sliced strawberries in a brown liquid that he identified only after we praised the dish.  That was my introduction to Balsamic vinegar.  I asked him at the time how he planned on surviving in Thompson Falls, Montana, with a choice of entrees that would please the most jaded big city palate.  I didn't ask the folks at Genki that question, but I do wish them well.

The Thompson River at Montana Highway 200

On the way home, I grabbed a quick shot of the Thompson River, just barely catching the river in the frame as I aimed my camera past Kevin out the driver's side window of the pickup. I set the camera on the floor, content to ride home enjoying the day.  The sun was not in a spot conducive to good photography, and besides, I figured I had a nice selection of shots already.

What the sign actually says is "Sheep on Road Next 1 Mile."  It's an electric signboard where someone can change the message, and the power comes from the sun.  For as long as I can remember, it's read just what it said this afternoon.  Usually there are no sheep on the road.  Occasionally there will be one or two.  This afternoon, what the sign should have said was "Sheep on Road Immediately In Front of Your Truck and Before You Ever Actually Reach This Sign."  Kevin hit the brakes as the five sheep, three rams and a couple of ewes, raced across the road directly in front of us.  At one point, all I could see was the tail end of a sheep so close to the hood of the truck I have no idea why we didn't hit it.  But we didn't, and I guess that's what really counts.  It doesn't matter that it all happened so quickly that I didn't have time to pick up the camera and shoot the damn sheep!

P.S. If you're coming to visit, and I really wish you would, once you turn off High Country onto Baldy View, you'll drive a short ways till you see a road leading off to the left with a street sign reading Kay Wood Dr.  Turn onto Kay Wood and proceed to the end of the road. That's where you'll find us--the only house on the street and clear at the end.  The door is open and the light is on.  Ya'll come!