Hello, hikers,

It was a wonderful day for a hike! I was joined by Vanessa and Carmen and an unexpected gadget. For those of you that think hiking is getting a little boring, Vanessa introduced us to geocaching. Vanessa turned this somewhat routine hike into a fun little treasure hunt. We set out on the trail and started looking for the first of six geocaches only to be unable to locate it. That did not stop us, we moved up the trail and were successful in finding all of the remaining 5 treasures. For those of you that have not been exposed to the fun activity of geocaching, check out their website at www.geocaching.com. We completed the entire trail which lead us through the abandoned "town site" with it's artifacts and old lime kiln. We saw a buck, half a salmon, and a newt. We heard many birds including an eagle which was most likely snacking on the half a salmon before we took over the gravel bar for our lunch. The hike back to the trailhead was uneventful other than one more attempt at locating the first geocache. Vanessa, with much more experience at this point, was determined to find it. However, it proved to be a little too elusive and we were unsuccessful. I am sure Vanessa will be back out there someday to find it.

Thanks to Vanessa for the adventure and I hope to see more of you on my December hike (TBA).

See you on the trails,
Janice.