Friday, September 24, 2010

Wilderness and waterfalls

extreme geocaching in remote northern Cape Breton

P7090427

Puskin's Pilgrimage - hidden waterfalls in the wilds of Cape Breton

Summer 2009 I was leading bus tours around the Maritimes. The trip ended with a two day spin round Cape Breton – driving by those hills and valleys week after week, peering out the window at the woods and rivers, i had decided i was coming back when i had time, and i was going to hike the hell out of the place.

July 5th I had a week off and headed for Cape Breton. I spent a day in Canso at the Stan Rogers Folk Music Festival, I spent two days in Pollets Cove and Pleasant Bay. After some great geocaching up there, I decided maybe I could find all the caches north of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

im talking about geocaching – using a GPS to find hidden logbooks – geocachers like me have hidden over 700,000 containers and log books around the world. check out www.geocaching.com for more info.

northCBfinds

Smileys represent the caches I have found. Green boxes are the ones I missed. Today there are more green boxes up there. The T-ratings (T5, T4 etc) indicate how rough the terrain is on a scale from 1 (flat and paved) to 5 (steep and wild). Click for a closer look.

my goal on this trip was to sign all the logbooks on the northern tip of the western half of cape breton island. (see map).

On July 9th, I finished the caches on the west side of the peninsula and started across to the eastern side. some of these are pretty remote and hard to reach. There’s one of them, Im the only person who has found it so far.

here are the logs with fotos added:

(GC1HNJC) Be there or be square

7 AM

spent a lot of time looking under every maple. i even did check this tree late in the search-but blindly.

slept on in it. back first thing this morning and found it pretty quick. that’s all the cachesnorth of the park on this side of the island cleaned up.
now for the other side…
T4TC
“D

P7090387

Early Morning at Beuchlan Ban Falls in Cape Breton National Park

T4TC means thanks for the cache.

(GC1QTDT) It’s Your Fault! Cape Breton Highlands Ntl. Park

7:30 AM – stopped on way from cleaning up all the caches north of the park on the west side, heading over to clean’em up north of the park on the east side.

answers sent.
photo coming.

thanks for the lesson ( i actually stop here almost once a week when im working – im a tour bus director – they always like this one )

Stopped at BEUCHLAN BAN FALLS in the park and then looked for the cache below in vain. DNF means did not find.

(GCNTE9) Sunrise Valley View

DNF

found the green string too.
no cache :(

this little darling is the only thing between me and a DNF free sweep of northern Cabot Trail caches… very close to having found them all north of the park (7 more to find tomorrow and this one)

but i guess this will be a good reason to come back again (that and the years park pass i bought)

(FYI: Pushkin is the game name of the person who hid the next couple caches. He is reknowned in Nova Scotia caching circles for his remote, hard to find, waterfall caches…)

P7090396

Gray's Hollow Falls - in the wilds of Cape Breton

(GC148DV) Gray’s Hollow Falls

9 AM
two quick finds, a waterfall visit, one DNF and then the real fun starts…

i approached the falls by asking the woman at the white house on the corner, 2nd from the end of northside road, if i could cross her land… she said i could use the “road” and since i have the only 4wheel drive civic ever made i jumped at the chance (thats a joke but i like to pretend she has four wheel drive… only ever got stuck once but that is another story)

had a lovely walk up the brook – i love walking brooks (flusslaeufer means riverwalker in german) – no bugs, still cool but sunny and then the wonderful falls.

pushkin i have to tell you i was the happiest man alive just to sit there and enjoy those falls…

a bit of scrambling around looking in all the wrong places. finally ignored the GPS and just asked where would pushkin hide it. that didnt help but then i thought where would i hide it.

wouldnt you know it? great minds think alike. haha
quick find for a pushkin…
you can probably guess where im headed next – on a pilgrimage for an FTF…
T4TC
“D

(FTF means first to find. naturally there is a bit of a race to see who will FTF a cache. The next cache hadnt been found before i went after it – but since i had been on the road for a week, i had no way of knowing if someone had grabbed it before me, til i opened the log book…  These two caches are very remote and the normal cacher does not go after such caches. Gray Falls for example was hidden in Sept. 2007 and now, three years later, it has only been found by 5 people. I was the fourth.)

(GC1H6AA) Pushkin’s Pilgrimage

WOOOhooo YEEEhaw yabba dabba doo

FTF

the story goes like this. every year we go to stanfest and last year some friends invited me to go to pollets afterwards. they wanted to make that a tradition too. well after 3 days of getting drenched at stanfest, they all ran for halifax. but in the meantime, i had promised to replace a cache in pollets cove for the owner who couldnt make it.

P7090405

The lower half of Pushkin's Pilgrimage... now to find the cache...

so i went to pollets anyway. alone. and then just kept caching. some where along the line i decided to try for every cache north of the cape breton highlands national park. including these two great waterfalls.

and guess what i found them. i described the land crossing permission in gray hollow falls log. continuing up to this one was a no brainer. very exciting to follow pushkins footsteps up to this isolated backcountry spot. and climb around on slippery cliffs. and .. a quick easy find… lots of photos… a little breathing in and out and then off for more caches.

thanks pushkin. they truly are a beautiful falls and a wild wild spot fully deserving of a geocache.
THIS IS WHY I GEOCACHE: to see spots like this.
more please
“D

(This cache had been hidden six months before i found it on November 10th, 2008. Now, another year later, Im still one of only two people who have found it. Though six people have placed the listing on their “watch list.”

This was a big deal for me. I love Pushkin’s caches and I loved being the First to Find his Pilgrimage Cache – a waterfall hiking caching pilgrimage – that sound likes my kind of religion.)

I guess a normal person might have called it a day, but I had some more caches to find. I drove down to the tiny fishing village of Bay St. Lawrence and had a $5 breakfast at the community centre. From there it was a 6k hike over the mountains to Money Point and more caches. (blog post about the hike and fotos from Money Point.)

The logs from the second part of the day:

P7090455

At the end of a 6k hike through the hills, the Money Point Light finally comes into view.

(GCWXRX) Lighthouse Ruins

guess what history dude: it’s there.

actually an easy find
ONCE YOU GET THERE !!
a monster hike. monstrous. up up up down down down.
but then… geocachers paradise.
i hope to get back and maybe add some more caches.
windy sunny cool no bugs and no muggles at all.
just me and the ghosts. beautiful summer day on the coast.
thanks so much for bringing me over that crazy trail to this wild spot.

THIS IS WHY I GEOCACHE.
thanks

(This above cache was hidden in May 2006 and as of Sept. 2010, it has only been found by 6 people. I was the fifth. A kayaker found it a month after me. So far in 2010, no one has signd the log. FTFTY in the log below means first to find it this (now that) year. Two more people found it that year, for a total of ten. No one has signed its log in 2010 either.)

P7090430

Looking back at Bay St. Lawrence on the way to Money Point, I decided this look-off deserved a cache (End of Up).

(GCQD5G) Hey Look……..An Island

FTFTY
(like being the first in any given year to visit a cache.)
what a place. cool eeerie freaky
this is one of the top 5 days of caching i have ever had.
sunny windy cool perfect no bugs no muggles
but lots of ghosts im sure

what a zonky place. planning figuring dreaming about coming back again… with friends…

T4TC
“D

After that i turned around and hiked the 6k back out, hid a cache on the way, ((GC1VXJ2) End of Up ), and drove over to Meat Cove. Just before the village, I pulled over to the side of the road for this next cache:

P7090541

On the way to Meat Cove, I climbed up here for a cache and got my first view of Nova Scotia's northernmost community.

(GCG407) Northern Tip of Cape Breton

this was a fun cache towards end of day.

id already FTF’D a pushkin, was over to money point light for two caches there and … well… had a little energy left

great wild climbing spot. great view.

word to the wise: if youre tired of having your legs scratched to heck, go ahead one power pole past the pull off and start climbing the rocks there. if you do it right, youll never have to step in the tuckamore at all.

thanks heaps
“D

And finally, I got a camp site at the very end of the road in Meat Cove, had supper at the little take out there and it was getting on for 7 p.m. Id been going steady for 12 hours. I really should have settled down for a long summer’s nap. But nah… just one more:

P7090560

Jumping Brook Falls on the beach near Meat Cove; as of Sept 2010, Im the only one who has ever found this cache.

(GC1VHBP) Jumping Brook Falls

FTF
a second pushkin FTF in one day??!!
surprised the heck out of me too

i was setting up camp at the meat cove campground when i noticed the falls but i didnt put two and two together.

then i thought why not one more cache before bed. thats when i realized i didnt have the coordinates.. – see i did my pocket queries quite a while ago (ive been on the road) but i was just checking my route and scribbling down notes on a map the night before i left… i wrote down the clues and the parking coordis and assumed the cache was in my pocket queries…
nope. somehow i also had the parking coordinates wrong?

but there arent that many houses along the road. found the trail… but without coordinates it dumped me in the middle of a bramble patch. fought my way to the beach. assuming the falls i had seen were the falls in question. lovely photos. climbed up the bank and took a look but nothing obvious. wondered if maybe the “falls” were farther up the brook. walked the whole thing. no falls. back to the bottom.

checked everywhere. even the cache location.

not sure how or why i finally spotted them. just an inkling of how cruel pushkin can be if the mood strikes.

hard work paid off in super luck today. then my pen broke. painted my signature in book. it might be a little messy.
nonetheless a great ending to a fantastic day hunting plastic.

T4TC
“D

Bivysunrise4

Watching the sunrise over St. Paul's Island from my bivy in Meat Cove. The start of another caching day...

Slept soundly that night in my bivy sack under the stars. the next morning though i was awake before sunrise, which was exactlly 5.17 am. I know cause i took a bunch of fotos from my bed… and then i headed off to hike round Cape St. Lawrence… but thats another story…

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