SFGT: Ralph's Ruts Traditional Geocache

This cache is located on a well-maintained area designed for visitors to the various markers for the Santa Fe National Historic Trail.  Parking is off the road in a grassy, well-maintained area and visitors are invited by the landowner to go into the pasture and walk in the Santa Fe Trail ruts.  If cattle are in the pasture, be sure to maintain your distance and be respectful of this opportunity to get onto private property and walk in the ruts.

This cache is set near the ruts 4 miles west of Chase, Kansas, on US Highway 56, then 0.75 mile north on the Ralph Hathaway farm. The seven parallel trail ruts are some of the finest examples of pristine trail remains any place along the entire route. Visitors to the site have easy access, a turnout for parking, and a DAR marker to point out the location. In addition, evidence indicates that the so-called Plum Buttes Massacre of 1867 occurred near the eastern boundary of the Hathaway quarter-section. Extending westerly from here, the ruts continue on intermittently for another 2 miles, where they form the spectacular Gunsight Notch, a ridge worn away by 60 years of commercial and military traffic. 

This container on the Santa Fe National Historic Trail Geo Tour is a large Bison canister, and contains a logbook to sign, as well as swag items.  If you are participating in the Passport activity, the code word is located on the inside of the canister--look at the inside, top of the lid. Permission to set caches has been obtained.  We ask that all cachers please respect all property at the sites where our caches are set.