Having enjoyed our first geo-caching trip last month, John and Mary and I decided to make a day of it and look for as many geo-caches as we could find.

Prior to leaving the house on our adventure, John hooked up his GPS to the computer and loaded a number of geo-cache coordinates into it.  He also printed off a few geo-cache location descriptions to make it easier for us to find those hidden treasures.  (If we had done that the last time, we would have found that cache in the White Tanks!)

Aside from looking for geo-caches, the plan for the day was to hike the Deer Creek Trail #45 - a trail that we had hiked several times before.  We had selected Deer Creek because it wasn't very far from home, and because John discovered that there were several caches for us to find along the trail.  In addition to that, John's parents were going to be camping in their motor home along Sycamore Creek, and they had invited us to join them for dinner that evening on our way back into town.  Sycamore Creek wasn't too far from Deer Creek, so that sealed our decision to do that trail.

On Saturday morning, March 3, John and Mary and I loaded our hiking gear and our geo-cache information into the 4Runner, and we left the house to begin our hunt for buried treasure.

We headed out of town on SR 87 around 8:00 that morning.  En route, we tried to figure out which "Sycamore Creek" turn-off we had to take to find Bill & Erika's campsite; there were several along the way.  Fortunately, their motor home made it easy to find them; after all, there aren't very many motor homes with skydivers on the back!  They were parked less than a quarter of a mile off of the highway, just before the town of Sunflower.  Now that we knew where they were, that would make it easy for us to find them in the afternoon, after our day's adventure was over.

Our first stop was at the rest area outside of Rye, at the junction of SR 87 and SR 188.  Not only did we have to stop to use the facilities, but there was also a micro-cache for us to locate...and that micro-cache proved to be a difficult one to find.  Even with the hints, which only seemed obvious after we located the cache, we had trouble finding it.  We looked under rocks, under trees, around drains...nothing!  It wasn't until I tapped a light base with my boot that we realized where it was. 

After signing the log and putting the cache back where we had found it, we jumped back into the 4Runner and continued on towards the Deer Creek Trailhead.  We would find our second cache there.

When we arrived at the Deer Creek Trailhead, we parked the truck then geared up for our hike.  Instead of stepping off onto the trail, though, we lingered around the trailhead to look for our next geo-cache.  This cache proved to be easier to find than the first one; instead of looking for a micro-cache, we were looking for a fake rock, in which we would find the treasure.  The fake rock had a cap on its underside; when we unscrewed it, we found the treasure inside.  Unlike the micro-cache from the rest area, this cache had a log and several trinkets inside.  The idea was to take a trinket and leave one behind, which is what we did.  Then, we put the fake rock back where we found it.

Having completed that task, we started hiking along the Deer Creek Trail #45, which, many years ago, was a lovely riparian hike along Deer Creek.  The trail goes into the Mazatzal Wilderness Area and eventually climbs to the top of Mount Peeley.  Three years ago, a large portion of the Mazatzal Wildernss burned in a huge wildfire that nearly caused the city of Payson to be evacuated when the fire skirted the Doll Baby Ranch.  Three years later, the land is still scarred and barren; some of the landscape has grown back, but it is going to be many years before the area is restored to its original beauty.

About a half of a mile into our hike, we started looking for the next geo-cache.  This one was located off-trail, and we would have to follow the GPS to find it.  When we got to the coordinates, we searched under trees until we finally found it. 

This geo-cache was different from the other two caches; it was made from an old ammo box and buried under a pile of wood and rocks.  The khaki-green of the ammo box blended in well with its surroundings, and that made it hard to spot right away.  If you didn't know it was there, you would have never found it by accident.

After doing our trinket exchange, we continued on our hike along the Deer Creek Trail.  Our plan now was to hike until lunchtime, then turn around and head back to the trailhead. 

We broke for lunch around 11:00 a.m., after finding a lovely, sunny spot under an old leaf-bare sycamore tree, about fifty feet from Deer Creek.  There, we took a long rest and feasted on sandwiches and apples and granola bars while we warmed up in the sunshine.  (It had been a cold morning, but in the sunshine, it was just warm enough to be pleasant.)

We were there for about forty-five minutes; after all, we weren't in any sort of hurry to leave there.  While we were there, John found an old Jeep trail to explore; it took him up a hill that overlooked our picnic spot.  Aside from the fact that it was scenic, there wasn't anything else of interest up there.

Meanwhile, I walked over to Deer Creek to take some pictures.  Thanks to all of the rain and snow that we had had this winter, Deer Creek was flowing with lots of water. 

At 11:45, we packed up our gear and started hiking back to the trailhead.  It didn't take us very long to get there; we completed the trail around 12:30: a bit earlier than we expected.  We weren't planning to join Bill and Erika until 3:00 or 4:00; we now had several hours to kill.

Naturally, that was not a problem with us. We had a GPS loaded with geo-cache coordinates and an adventurous spirit; we were going to look for more treasure!

As soon as we completed our hike, we climbed into the 4Runner and drove off to find our next geo-cache.  This one was located off of the road to Gisela; although we didn't print off the location hints, we were determined to find it anyway, just by following the GPS. 

This cache was much like the one that we had found off of the Deer Creek Trail; it was created from an old ammo box and buried under a pile of wood and rocks, under a tree.  To find it, we followed the paved road to Gisela then turned off onto a steep, dirt road.  When we had come within twenty feet of the cache, we got out and walked around the area until we found it.

Where the cache was buried, we adults couldn't get to it, because the growth of the tree was in the way.  Mary, on the other hand, was the perfect size to go and retrieve it for us.  That was exciting for her; it was like finding a pirate's booty! 

After doing our trinket exchange, Mary buried the geo-cache again, and the three of us went to look for our next geo-cache site.  This one was located off of Cane Springs Road, a few miles away, and it would involve some rough roads.  Again, we followed the indicators on the GPS to find it, because we had not brought along a description of the cache.  Even without the description, though, we located it; it was in an old coffee can, wedged under a rock. 

As we left that site, we determined that we still had time to find one more cache, so John searched the GPS for another one.  This next one was located off of the old SR 87; based on the coordinates, John determined that this one was probably close to the Cross F Trailhead, where we had once hiked the Little Saddle Mountain Trail #244, seven years ago.  In fact, when we found the cache, we were less than a mile from the trailhead, so that was a good guess.

With that said and done, our day's quest for buried treasure was over, and it was time for us to meet Bill and Erika for dinner.  We returned to SR 87 and drove back to the Sycamore Creek turnoff where we had seen the motor home parked. 

And there, we relaxed with them well into the evening.  We had a nice steak dinner in the motor home; then, at dusk, John and Mary and I headed home...

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