Be sure to visit www.santafetrail.org/geocaching to learn about the PASSPORT ACTIVITY to accompany this Geo Tour. In this area, the two routes known as the Wet Route and the Dry Route associated with the Santa Fe Trail merged once again. The Wet Route maintained a course near the Arkansas River from near present-day Larned to this area. Another, slightly shorter route, but one that often lacked water and therefore known as the Dry Route, followed a ridge that ran north of present-day Garfield, crossing the Hillside Cemetery, northwest of Kinsley, to Coon Creek Crossing, located one mile southwest of the cemetery. Once the Coon Creek was crossed, the Dry Route went to the south of present-day Offerle, KS and then on to the Dodge City, KS area, where the two routes once again merged. This area was well-known as a large campground, where wagon trains would layover and allow animals to graze, humans to rest, and all to prepare for the rigorous journey that lay before them.
Containers on the Santa Fe National Historic Trail Geo Tour are military ammunition canisters, or Brochure-Holder boxes, with an identifying Santa Fe Trail Association yellow sticker on the top of the box, under the handle and the dark green geocaching.com ID is on the side of the boxes with the information that provides coordinates, who set the cache and who to contact for information. Each cache contains a logbook to sign, a variety of items that provide information about the Santa Fe Trail as well as swag items. If you are participating in the Passport activity, the code word is located on the inside of the box, on the top of the lid and is clearly identified as Code Word. Permission to set caches has been obtained. We ask that all cachers please respect all property at the sites where our caches are set.