Honey hole: a secret spot that has yielded mushrooms. Their locations are carefully guarded by foragers. But as a cacher I'm breaking the rules!
The Cap
- A 2- to 3-mile round trip hike, half off-trail, moderate terrain
- Collect the clue in the final for the bonus cache
- Looking for mushrooms is optional
The Stem
- Six stages, most hides are silver tags with coordinates to next stage (assume N43 W21 unless noted at stage)
- Terrain involves a 2- or 3-step tree climb, small creek crossings, and some elevation change
- Hints are fairly specific
- The cache is available year-round; the season for morels is the beginning of April to mid-May
The Spores
- Proceed down the blue trail to Stage 1. From there it is a 1-mile loop.
- From S2 to S3, choose your adventure: 1) cross creek here and again near S3, flat; or 2) go around, deal with elevation changes
- From S3 to S4, choose your adventure: 1) as the crow flies, a twisty maze of laurel passageways and perhaps a fat log crossing; or 2) go around, deal with elevation changes
- Morels pop up a few days after a good rain
The Mushroom
Last year I got into foraging and harvested 20-30 pounds of varying types of edible mushrooms (my family thought this was even crazier than caching). Foraging has many of the qualities I enjoy about caching: hiking in the woods, searching for hidden things, and the excitement of finding something. For me it was very complementary!
Morels are choice edibles and are the first ones up in the spring. If morels were caches, they'd be high-difficulty camouflaged micros. To come clean, I have yet to find one, but the area this cache encompasses checks many of the boxes for morel territory. If here during other times of the year, keep an eye out for other types of fungi. Photos encouraged! If you don't plan on eating what you find (and you shouldn't eat anything unless certain of your identification of it), please leave them in situ. Good luck!
Links to caches in the series
Placed with the approval of:
Park is open dawn to dusk. No night caching.
