What the Well?!? - Enumclaw Plateau Trail Letterbox Hybrid

This cache has been archived.

benandjayme: The time has come for us to bid farewell to this series of caches and open this awesome trail up to some new hides. These had a great run of success, but we now live much farther away than we did when we placed the caches so it has proven more difficult for us to maintain them as well as we'd like to. We'll be out soon to pick up the remaining containers. Many thanks to everyone who found these caches in the past 4+ years!

For anyone interested in a few fun stats about the series, check out our log on the bonus cache. [:)]

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Hidden : 3/14/2013
Difficulty:
2.5 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size: small (small)

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Geocache Description:

Enjoy a flat walk on a quiet, undeveloped trail through the countryside.

The Cache

The cache is not at the posted coordinates. And there's not really a well at this cache; we just liked the silly cache name. But once you get near GZ there is an interesting bit of water-related infrastructure there!

Start your journey at the posted coordinates and use the follow directions to guide you to the cache:
  • Enter the trail by going around the nearby gate.
  • From the gate, travel SW approximately 925 feet at a bearing of 205 degrees until you reach a small footbridge over Watercress Creek. (Get necessary info for the multi cache here!)
  • Cross the footbridge, climb up the opposite bank, and stop at a large rock in the middle of the trail. (Find a traditional cache here!)
  • From the rock, travel approximately 0.25 miles at a bearing of 205 degrees until you reach a wide path cleared on the west side of the trail. This path may not be so clear in the summer/fall, but you will know you are close when you find yourself next to much larger trees to your west.
  • Turn right and follow the cleared path to its end approximately 90 feet ahead, where you'll find the aforementioned water-related infrastructure. (Get necessary info for the multi cache here!)
  • To find the cache, turn around and reverse course approximately halfway back toward the main trail. Look under natural camo in a nook at the base of the large tree on the south side of the cleared path.
  • Please do not remove the rubber stamp and inkpad from the cache. These are letterbox supplies, not trade items.
Now, back to that water-related infrastructure. What, you might ask, is an access point for the City of Tacoma's Water Department doing way out here more than 20 miles away from that city? Answer: you're currently standing on top of Tacoma's principal drinking water supply!

Tacoma gets its water supply from a diversion of the Green River just east of Palmer. Once the water is diverted from the river, it is preliminarily treated and sent for miles through two pipelines to Tacoma. Pipeline No. 1, the older of those two pipelines, runs beneath your feet parallel to the trail. In addition to sending water to Tacoma, Univeristy Place, and Ruston, Pipeline No. 1 also provides water to wholesale customers such as the cities of Cumberland, Enumclaw, Bonney Lake, and Puyallup, as well as several water districts in unincorporated areas. For an above-ground peek at Pipeline No. 1, look to the east as you drive along highway 410 just south of Enumclaw. Learn more about the pipeline here if you're interested.

The Series

If you walk the entire series, the total distance is about 1.8 miles one way. You can work on the series from any direction you like, of course, but if you're trying to do all the caches we'd suggest starting at the north end and working south. There are a few reasons for this:
  • The waypoints for the multi and the letterbox are designed to be followed north to south.
  • On a clear day, you will have a nice view of Mt. Rainier to the south as you walk.
  • The nicer part of the trail is to the north and we'd love for you to see that first.
You can find parking at either end of the series of caches. Waypoints for those spots are included on the pages for each cache in the series. If you park at the north end, please make sure your car is off the pavement, do not block the mailboxes, and leave enough space at the trail's entry for horse traffic to pass easily. If you park at the south end, please park in the paved area outside the fence. It is difficult to find good parking near the trail where it crosses SE 424th Street and SE 432nd Street.

As we planned out our series of caches along this trail, we decided to go for variety: different containers, different hides, different difficulties, different cache types. There are relatively easy hides and there are pretty challenging hides included in the series. No two hides are identical, although some are a bit similar. If you complete the whole series, you'll get four cache types: traditional, multi, letterbox, and unknown. We like variety in our caching adventures, so hopefully you do too.

When you find the caches, be sure to write down the clues you'll need to find the bonus cache. 8 of the 13 other caches have clues in them that you'll need. You're not likely to run into too many people out here, but as always watch out for potential muggle eyes. Be aware of possible horse traffic and please yield the trail to any passing riders.

The History

The trail follows the former route of the Northern Pacific Railroad line that used to stretch from Enumclaw to Palmer and beyond. The railroad first came to the Enumclaw area from the south in 1885 and the line was later extended to this section north of Enumclaw in the 1890s. A branch line was extended into the city in 1910.

The Northern Pacific Railway eventually merged with other rail lines to become the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1970. As rail use in the area declined throughout the 20th century, Burlington Northern officially took all lines around Enumclaw out of service in May 1982. The tracks in the area were removed for salvage in March 1985.

As the land from the former routes sat unused, local government entities began to use the provisions of the federal Railroad Right of Way Abandonment Act to gain ownership of the former federal lands no longer being used by the railroad for rail transport. King County, Pierce County, Enumclaw, Buckley, and other area cities were all able to obtain ownership of the former railroad lands under the federal statute. King County had to prevail in a lawsuit against Burlington Northern in 1994 in order to gain ownership of the abandoned section in unincorporated King County. In the trail's very recent history, we were successful in getting the county to remove an outdated, railroad era "no trespassing" sign at the north end of the trail on SE 416th Street. Hooray!

Today, most of the section of the trail that the series of caches covers is owned/managed by King County Parks and is completely publicly accessible. Part of the section south of SE 432nd Street is owned/managed by the City of Enumclaw and is also publicly accessible. For now this trail remains undeveloped and seldom-used, but in the future King County hopes to incorporate the old railroad right of way into the county's Regional Trails System. If that plan is carried to completion, this trail would be linked to Pierce County's Foothills Trail to the south and King County's Cedar River Trail (and other regional trails) to the north. We'll be keeping our fingers crossed for great things in this trail's future!

Good luck with the caches and enjoy your walk!

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Frr yrggreobk vafgehpgvbaf

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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