HIGH ROAD TO NOWHERE

The objective was clear: first thing, a cemetary cache. He was ready to go there the night before, but I didn't want to get caught in a unfamiliar graveyard in the middle of the night. Instead, I offered first thing in the morning, after some gourmet hotel coffee.

We drove back out to Manitou Springs. "This is a little bit more like I remember it," he said, as we drove down the main street on a quiet Sunday morning.

The day before, the street had been jammed with people - the normal tourists, residents, and a race through Garden of the Gods that started near the park we had gone to. Lots of freaking cars. This morning, the streets were slightly dewy and we saw only a couple of cars along the way to the backroads cemetary behind the school.

It took us a few times of circling to find the right road. Welcome to geocaching. Sometimes a little planning and Google Earth helps that aspect, particularly in a strange town. And Manitou is definitely a strange town....

So, we arrive and start looking around, although not in the same places. He wanders off to check out the graves and I wander off to find a piece of tupperware wrapped in camo tape near some trees.

After this, we decide we are going to take a hike. We get in the car and start driving around the backroads, looking for the right little fork that would give us best access to The Intemann Trail.

We kept circling, and coming back into the neighborhood that rose along the hill. After a few false turns, we came to a road came High Road.

Well, we just had to take it.

Hairpin turns. No guard rail along the side. I could see sheer down the hill from my window, and it had me a little freaked out. We kept thinking the road was going to end in someone's driveway, but we also never saw a "No Outlet" sign, so we just kept going, past little cottages painted with murals across them, or with a unique statue, or construction. Round and round, and higher and higher, we went.

Until it was time to come down. Funny, I can't remember if the road ended, or if we just gave up the ghost. At any rate, we headed back down, still following the GPS arrow, and getting closer.

Until we end up back where we started. In the graveyard. Only we keep going, back to the back parking lot. Right in front of us in the Intemann Trail, and we are 0.15 to the cache.

Only that's mountain miles. That's switchbacks and uphill climbs, that's a gain in elevation to us Texans, and a heck of a hike on a warm day.

It seemed to go on forever, but at the same time, I never wanted it to end. There was no place I would rather be than where I was right then.

And we saw things out there.

Big things, little things, things made from some kind of amazing geological sequence. Things crafted in nature, and blossoming out for all to enjoy. The trail itself was beautiful, with little shoals of fools gold lighting up in the sun.

The one thing we didn't find was the cache. We followed the GPSr and went along the trail for about an hour. We stopped at the suggested waypoint for leaving the trail, and headed up a dry creek bed littered with sparking shoal. It got a little bit thicker, and steeper, around the time we got to "GZ", or the spot we were supposed to be looking in.

He went high. Figures. I went low. I looked on the east, and he looked on the west. Both of us came up empty handed.

Then he wanted to go down and try another apporach. I didn't want to do that, because the directions clearly stated to exit the trail at that location and head the 400 feet over this way, so it had to be here. The clue was "in some bush". That was kind of hard to interpret, exactly, but at least it gave us a place to start.

We walked back together to the trail, but then we disagreed on what direction to take from here. I was worried we didn't have enough fluids with us to attempt what he was considering, and thought we should go back.

End result was he went off by himself while I watched from the trail. We lost visual contact quickly, when he went off around a switchback, but we had verbal contact...for a while at least.

Meanwhile, back at the trail, I was getting antsy thinking about that unfound cache back there. So I went back to look....twice. No dice.

I had about half of a large Vitamin water in my hands, and occasionally I took a swallow, but mostly I was saving it for him. He was going to need it. He had gotten way high up there, and occasionally I would see the red flash of his shirt, or hear him skid on rocks.

Eventually,

he had to return, defeated. He couldn't get within 100 feet of it from that angle.

I handed him the water, and refrained from telling him I told you so.

"Let's go back."

The walk back was so much more enjoyable. Being able to take your eyes off the GPSr is a blessed thing.

And after all that hiking, so was getting back to the car.

"You know," he said, as we drove away. "I think that was my favorite did-not-find ever."

Mine too.