UTAG Event and Cache Day
Prologue
Friday night. - The Drive
Well after a quick review of things with my wife, I got the green light. So Friday night we headed south to Kanosh. He has a little cabin there.
The drive was a long one, about two hours. Ok well it was not really long, but it was long enough for me. I am not big on many hours in the car. The plus is that I was able to grab caches on the way south. Normally that is a no no. Kids are not fond of stopping for a lot of caches. We took the time to find a mystery cache in Nephi, then stopping in Fillmore to grab another cache.
When we got to Kanosh, Utah just as it was just getting dark. He showed me around the area, inside and out. There is a great view of Utah's West desert with various cinder cones and old extinct volcanoes.
PeanutsParents had a ton of caches. And I do mean a ton. So we spent a good part of the night talking and putting together many of the containers for his cache run.
Sunrise over Utah's west desert. Saturday Morning
The next morning is when the adventure began. We left early in the morning. About 7:00 AM if my mind is correct. Things are fuzzy for me early in the morning. We packed things up, and got everything ready. Neither of us wanted to sleep too long.
There are no stores in Kanosh. So food is what be had brought with us. Well, that was some Jolly Ranchers and a few V8's. what more could you ask for.
Our drive began and we stopped for one or two caches that Peanuts had never grabbed before even though he was nearby. He had left them for the perfect moment. Now.
Then our drive included him placing a number of caches. So as we headed into town and he took me to a few caches, we started to see many of the nice caches that I had never been to.
Then off into the desert.
The desert west of Kanosh is pretty sparse. This year as you walk around there are a number of desert flowers blooming, and a little green. It has been pretty wet (for a desert) this year.
We headed to a string of caches that had been placed earlier this year down a little dirt road. Well that is where things got strange. The road was no more than a few car tracks into the desert. We needed to go three miles. So off we went in our truck. (Bad Idea #1) Those car tracks dwindled until we were on a ATV trail. That was getting a little nerve wracking. Then it turned into a cow trail only a few hundred yards from where we were going. Then little by little a few tracks joined ours. (We did get the caches)
I am not sure that was the wisest choice, but it was not our last dumb one.
The race to the event.
The roadless road.
We headed off to the event so we would not be late. The event was about 30-40 miles to the north. Well we were heading west. In the desert. At one point we had a choice. Head south, 8 miles to the road, or take a dirt road to the north.
Well I voted for north. It seemed logical, we were going that way.
Bad idea #2 - Eventually the road got nasty. very nasty. In fact it was not there. You could see remains. It had been a road where they placed a power-line up out in the desert. in the 70's. but not much of one now.
I admitted that I had made a bad decision. Peanuts decided perhaps we would drive on. (Bad Idea #3). So off we went. I snapped a pic out the window. You can see where the road was, but not much of a road, and few have traveled it in years.
Happily we reached the rail line and there was an option to go North or South (there was a road there). Well once again, why go south to reach or destination in the North. (Bad Idea #4). It was 7 miles. but the roads were even worse. I wish I had taken a photo or video. Eventually the road turned into a two-track trail, then a single track. We could see where the road had been. It would have been in the 50's. We traveled wash outs and horrible ledges. And eventually it faded to a cow trail. Eventually as we came within a mile the road started to appear again. People had traveled it from the other end anyway.
We got to the event an hour late. Oh yea... did I forget to mention we had a flat? When we finally hit the highway we found out that we had a flat. The tire was so hot I could hardly touch it. Same with the lug nuts. Ahhh life int he desert. Welll not many were at the event, but it was nice anyway.
Hunting for the benchmark.Drive home
The drive home was an afternoon with benchmarks. Peanuts was putting caches near them. We actually found three that were placed by other cachers doing the same thing. So we were pre publishing ftfs on them. Ahhh the joy of people with the same ideas.
We had fun hunting for them on the way. Especially the ones buried, that we actually had to find.
Benchmarks can be way off anyway. A hundred feet or more. If you can find the sign marking them you may be in luck. But even then they are buried in the sand in the desert. So we had to work to drag them out.
That was the afternoon drive home. We found another 10 benchmarks, making for about 20 benchmarks on the day, with about 50 caches. Plus Peanuts placed another 25-30. So it was a long fun day. We were tired when we made it back home.