Trail Hound

Faith, perseverance or just dumb stubbornness

New Englanders are supposedly a hardy - or at least stubborn - bunch.  Heaven knows, we endure endless winters only to have endless mud season in hopes of a few fine days of days of sunshine and gentle breezes.  Until recently we lived with constant  hope for our boys of summer, only to have our hearts broken in October.  We don't seem to know when to throw in the towel; but as we've seen with the Red Sox and the glories of a sparkling July day, faith has its rewards.

So it is with geocaching.  There are caches out there that you just have to find, no matter how long or how many tries it takes.  Some people will stay at a cache site until, goll' darnit, they make the find.  They will not go home and log it as a DNF (Did Not Find).  Others will depart but not record their failure, while scheming and consulting with other cachers about their next attempt to conquer the elusive cache.  Then there are those who finally shrug their shoulders and cry uncle:  DNF.

Local caches have brought me through all stages of stubbornness, denial, frustration, giving up and trying again.  The "Keyes Beach" cache in Hyannis took three tries, and for good reason:  the original cache had disappeared, or been "muggled" in geo-speak.  On my first try, in February, the only other person walking along the beach decided to sit down on the bench exactly where my GPS receiver was homing in on.  On the second try, in May, I got to Ground Zero and searched high and low but found nothing besides trash.  At that point, I gave up and logged it a DNF, which alerted the owner who confirmed it was no longer there.  Third time, after the cache had been replaced, was a charm and I was rewarded with the satisfaction of adding it to my finds and of a gorgeous view on one of the rare sunny days in June.

"Stony Brook Run," at Brewster's historic gristmill, is another cache that has frustrated many.  This one has not gone missing, however; it's just extremely well hidden.  My first attempt involved some gymnastics to look under and beyond the footbridge and surrounding structures which might hide the cache.  Thankfully, the herring migration was still a few weeks away when I tried this in March, so there weren't many people to observe this odd behavior.  Eventually, I went with the phone-a-friend strategy and joined forces on site with another experienced cacher.  Still no luck.  But my companion had had the foresight to invite the cache owner to join us - and after we valiantly tried for over an hour to locate this little capsule with a rolled-up log slip, the owner arrived and revealed all.

Sometimes it's an extremely cleverly-hidden cache; sometimes the cache really has disappeared; and sometimes you're just having an off day.  The trick is to know when to keep trying, when to re-examine the situation, when to ask for help and when to simply log a DNF.  But geocachers - at least in New England - always keep coming back.

Photos, from top:

Rosa rugosa at Keyes Beach

Stony Brook herring run

Keyes Beach

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Happy National Trails Day!

Just off the heels of Memorial Day and a good week and a half before Bunker Hill Day, we have another holiday that's fun, healthy, good for the environment and usually doesn't involve long traffic tie-ups:  National Trails Day.  The first Saturday in June was designated National Trails Day a few years ago by the American Hiking Society, which isn't as famous around here as the Appalachian Mountain Club or Mass Audubon, but seems to be a worthy organization that promotes getting outside and taking a hike. 

Locally, Cape Cod Pathways, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Cape Cod Commission, is celebrating National Trails Day by holding Spring Walking Weekend.  They've followed the fine tradition of milking a holiday for all it's worth, so the local event is three days instead of just the one day which the rest of the state and country celebrates.  You've probably already missed Friday's nine featured hikes, but there are plenty more opportunities for your own National Trails Day celebration on Saturday and Sunday.

Here's the line-up for Saturday's hikes (check Cape Cod Pathways for schedule details):  Lowell Holly Reservation, Mashpee; National Seashore Beech Forest, Provincetown; John's Pond Conservation Area clean-up, Mashpee; Bay to Breakers, Truro; Schoolhouse Pond watershed, Chatham; Beebe Woods, Falmouth; Long Beach and Centerville River, Barnstable; Indian Lands Conservation Area, Dennis; Historical Society of Old Yarmouth; John Wing Trail, Brewster; Punkhorn Parklands, Brewster; Long Pond, Falmouth; Province Lands, Provincetown; First Encounter Beach, Eastham; Nauset Light Beach, Eastham; and Griffin Island, Wellfleet.

Don't worry if you miss one of these - there are nine more guided walks offered on Sunday.

Happy Trails.

Photos,  from top:

John Wing Trail boardwalk

Punkhorn Parklands fawn

Historical Society of Old Yarmouth

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Chillin' in Chatham

You gotta love Chatham, even if it is unfairly derided by some as the Wellesley of Cape Cod or, alternatively, a drinking village with a fishing problem.  Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition of over-the-top, custom seaside trophy homes with the down-to-earth commercial fishing industry that makes it intriguing.  It’s where the East Wind first hits land; where Gail Huff reports during a storm; where houses tumble dramatically into the sea; and it’s got nifty stores like Yellow Umbrella Books, The Caped Cod and several excellent bakeries.

 Downtown Chatham can be a pain to navigate in tourist season, so my preferred way to appreciate this ville is to skirt around its edges.  The local geocaching community has thoughtfully placed a number of caches in areas you might never have discovered but are worth a visit.

 What was once a field of wireless radio transmission antennae filling a salt marsh in South Chatham is now the Forest Beach Overlook conservation area, where you can find the “Lingering Radio Transmissions” micro-cache.  The site, which the town acquired from MCI WorldComm in 1999, is where RCA built the South Chatham Radio Transmitting Station WCC in 1946 to communicate with ships around the world.  Osprey and other shore birds now nest in the few remaining poles.  A few picnic tables where the station used to stand provide a peaceful spot to relax and enjoy the view of the marsh, Nantucket Sound and Stage Harbor Light in the distance.

 For a quiet beach walk, follow the outer shore from Forest Beach Overlook to “Another Chatham Beach Cache,” just west of Hardings Beach.  Geocachers report the variety of shells, marine life and shore-bird activity along the way make this a favorite seaside stroll.

 Underneath its glitz and glamour, Chatham is a fishing port. “Look at the Shacks” geocache brings you to some humble fishing shelters near the public Hardings Landing.  It’s also a great place to launch your kayak or small boat.

 Continue out along Hardings Beach .89 miles to find the “Hardings Beach Walk” cache, which one geocacher reported being the perfect way to work off that lobster roll.

 If you can make it through town around to the far side of Stage Harbor, the “Take a Penny Cache,” in the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge is a classic shore ramble that covers a spectacular area to view migrating birds.

 There are more caches right in downtown, near Fish Pier and Chatham Light.  Be sure to get those too, but be strategic to avoid peak “muggle” time. 

 As one cacher logged, “Everywhere you look in Chatham, you have a great view.”

Photos, from top:

Boats at Hardings Landing

Forest Beach Overlook, South Chatham

Fishing shacks at Hardings Landing

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Hunting in Hyannis - geocaching always in season

Hyannis gets a bad rap.  As "Cape Cod’s Downtown," it has more than its share of problems we’d like to think don’t exist on Cape – crime, visible poverty and homelessness, those facts of life that don’t stay neatly put in places like Brockton or New Bedford.

 But Hyannis also has an inviting, walkable downtown and harbor, with lots of delightful discoveries.  A few recent geocaches took me to places familiar and new, and once again reminded me that every place has more than meets the eye.

 I finally finished the Cape Cod Towns geocaching series, started last November, with the Barnstable final.  Having collected digits to its navigational coordinates from the other 14 towns, I was able to piece together the location of the cache, hidden in the heart of the Cape’s biggest town.  The wilderness where the cache is hidden seemed far removed from the commercial area just a stone’s throw away.  A hearty thank you to Erycka & Wichie, the Cape Cod Towns series owners, for sharing this previously overlooked spot and for putting together an excellent tour of the Cape.

 Another overlooked gem that people walk by every day is the Hyannis Public Library.  The quaint cottage, updated with a modern addition, sits on Main Street by the JFK Museum.  It’s surrounded by small gardens, a refreshing view to complement the street scene.  If you look carefully in one of the gardens, you’ll find a geocache.

 Looking carefully (and discreetly) in public places is the key to finding “A Single Find,” which has to be one of the most devilishly challenging micro geocaches in the area.  The navigational coordinates bring you to Aselton Park, an expansive lawn overlooking Hyannis Harbor.  But from there, your GPS won’t do you much good and you have to find the object that doesn’t quite belong.  Don’t believe anyone who says he or she just walked right up for a quick find.  This cache has been the source of many “phone a friends” and pleas for hints. 

 A bonus of geocaching in Hyannis is that, when the going gets tough, there are plenty of places to stop for a latte, pastry or microbrew.  You can’t go wrong with the Caffe e Dolci on Main Street.  It’s a little more Euro than my favorite, funky-but-chic Buckie’s Biscotti in Dennis, but sipping Italian roast while watching the world pass by is a mellow way to unwind.  Even an inveterate hairlegger can’t argue with that.

 Photos, from top:

Hyannis Walk to the Sea, Aselton Park

On the way to the final Cape Cod Towns - Barnstable cache

One of the gardens at Hyannis Public Library

Caffe e Dolci - a great place for coffee and light fare (also at right)

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Tweets out, birdsongs in - Life unplugged ( a little)

I will not Tweet.  No, no, no.  It’s bad enough that I got on Facebook, ostensibly to keep an eye on my teenage daughter.  Then I was reconnecting with college friends and chatting with fellow geocachers.  On the one hand, I like keeping up with folks.  On the other hand, it’s an enormous time suck.

Now the Facebook momentum is moving to Twitter, the 140-character feed, from which I can glean pearls of wisdom from people I barely know about what they are doing as they stand in line at a DCU Center concert.  Hell no, I won’t go!

More people get their actual news now from Twitter, which is basically getting news by nonstop headlines only.  Yeah, you find out stuff as soon as it happens and it might prompt you to find out more, but the level of understanding is shallow.  And now we learn that not only do people understand less; they don’t care.  A University of Southern California study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that “social-networking tools such as Twitter could numb our sense of morality and make us indifferent to human suffering…,” according to CNN.

I love the Internet for a number of reasons, especially that it allows me to work from anywhere; but I’m not quite ready to hand over my life to tweets.  It’s bad enough that I spent another few hours last weekend e-mailing, surfing the Web – and yes, compulsively checking Facebook. I was hungering for something more authentic.  I wanted to talk with friends and hear their voices.  I wanted to read real articles and books, not just blurbettes.  I wanted to go outside and hear the birds, listen to the wind in the trees and sense the salt air by the shore.  So I shut down the laptop for the rest of the day and promised myself I wouldn’t check my cell phone for e-mail, either.  Is there a 12-step program for iAnonymous?

 I went for a run without my iPod, for a change, and let my mind wander.  My husband and I actually took a walk on the beach. 

 How seductive our warp-speed information has become.  I’m hooked, no doubt, and the world’s not turning back anyway.  But by unplugging even a little bit, I reminded myself that direct experiences still provide the greatest rewards.

Photos, from top:

Crosby Beach pines

Crosby Beach shoreline in April

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