New Friend

Headed out to Cowles Mt. to look for two geocaches this morning. I could see a lot of fog crowning the peak as I approached. I parked behind an old guy who was suiting up for the hike. I said to him, "They ought to put in a parking lot", and that led to a conversation about hiking the mountain. I noticed he had a GPSr. I said I was there for geocaching. He didn't know what that was, so I gave him an informational card. We happened to be standing quite near to a cache, and I showed it to him. He was pretty interested. He uses his GPSr for keeping track of his hikes: speed, elapsed time, distance, that sort of thing.

Looking northwest from the Barker Road access point. Foggy up there!



We headed up the access road, yakking about The Mountain and stuff. He had two hiking sticks. I have just the one I made out of a broom handle. We made to the top of the first rise, where the Big Rock Trail branches off. He took a layer off, and I got out my GPSr. I estimated it was around 1,200 feet to the geocache. We ambled a long, and all of a sudden we were past it a few feet. Backed up a little, a bit to the north. Ah, those rocks look suspicious! And there it was. We both signed the log, and he introduced himself, and so did I. He said his name was Tom, and I said my was Squeakycyclist. We parted, he heading up the mountain a bit, and I to go down Big Rock Trail a bit.

Mount Helix rising out of the fog.



Fog is pretty much clear from the mountain, but down in the lowlands it is still there. Runners and dog walkers abound.



Hung a north and headed down Big Rock Trail. I spotted a hummingbird near the cache I was looking, keeping an eye on Santee. Some hikers claimed it was the same hummingbird they saw at the top of the hill. One of them said they banded it, but I have my doubts about that!



Lens flare on Big Rock Trail.



A mini-forest of manzanita!



My favorite picture of the day.



Back up at the top of Big Rock Trail, I headed back down the access road. The sign warns us to yield to fast moving emergency vehicles. I guess slow moving emergency vehicles must fend for themselves. Also, bicyclists must go no faster than 10 mph, and they must yield to hikers and horses. You can bring horses up here? Cool!



I did not notice this on the way up, too busy yakking, but just around the corner is this cleaved rock. I would like to have seen that go thump!



Getting safely to the bottom, I headed over to the library to search for THAT cache, which I did not find, again. So the count for the day is: two caches found, one not found (again!) + one friend made, and introduced to geocaching.