Trail Hound

Marching toward a milestone on Martha's Vineyard

Geocachers place a special significance on milestones, usually every hundredth find.  Some crank through a few hundred finds on a single, intense, "power trail" excursion, while others only pass that magic 00 number once a year.  Geocachers are generally a supportive bunch, though, and celebrate each others' milestones online, whether they're number 100 or 2,000.

For me, it's not just about the numbers, so it's taken four years to approach even the pedestrian milestone of 300 finds.  But I seized that opportunity this week, when my plans for a few days on the Vineyard abruptly changed, and I had a full day to explore.

Number 298, "Place of the White Stones", was just three miles down the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road from the B&B where I was staying.  Located next to a historic Wampanoag trail and one of several local sites commemorating Native American culture, it was a quick park-and-grab find.  The area also seemed to be a favorite beer-drinking spot, judging from the bottles on the ground, but the cache was still securely in its place and in good shape.

Continuing east toward Edgartown, I set out for Number 299, "Pond Pursuits."  The challenge of this cache wasn't the search at ground zero; it was the search for the appropriate access road that didn't trespass on aggressively-patrolled private roads or dead-end at Edgartown's Great Pond.  After driving by some impressive horse farms and island mansions, I wound my way down dirt roads to Wilson's Landing, a quiet spot that led directly to the cache.  Again, the beer drinkers had been here and left their cans just a few feet from the cache, but didn't disturb the hiding spot.

With many great caches on the island to choose from for the magical Number 300, I figured I'd circle around Edgartown, have lunch, and then pick up the milestone at a scenic spot in Tisbury - either at "Lake Tashmoo - Hey, There's No Ice Cream!" or at "Island Roots" in another historic conservation area called Christian Town.

A casual swing by South Beach in Katama, for a view of the surf and dunes, brought me unexpectedly right up to another park-and-grab cache, "South Beach Hide."  This may be more difficult in peak season, when the non-geocaching "muggle factor" would be high, but on a gray November day I had the site to myself and quickly found the roadside microcache.  Number 300 - woo hoo!

Excited to log my finds on geocaching.com, I grabbed lunch and free wifi at Espresso Love Cafe in Edgartown and had the best chicken curry sandwich on French bread that I've ever tasted.

I did stop by Lake Tashmoo for an easy Number 301.  But my Vineyard geocaching ended in a DNF - did not find - for Number 302, at "Island Roots," in an off-the-beaten-track site where Christian Town, one of the "praying villages," once stood.  The post-daylight savings time afternoon sun was getting low, so after 45 minutes of searching, I called it a day.  Maybe another time.  

But then, it's not about the numbers.

Photos, from top:

Stone wall at Christian Town

Wilson's Landing - Edgartown's Great Pond

South Beach, Katama

Lake Tashmoo Water Works