GREAT WESTERN ROAD TRIP

Back Country Utah!
And GrandFather Caches
We were finally on the road, feeling the wind through our hair, making great time up the highway towards Salt Lake City. The rate we were going, we would be there by noon....so, we took a detour.
Now, I had been studying this area on the map for a long time. Specifically, I had been trying to figure out if we could get close enough to get a chance at some "grandfather" geocaches, some of the oldest caches hidden. I had been working on a list of the 100 oldest active geocaches, and had stumbled upon a few that weren't particularly too far from the highway we had to take on up to SLC, and on to Idaho.

So, we were making such good time, and were all feeling adventurous, and that is how I happened to earn finds on two of these one hundred oldest caches, Pony Express Stash and Clover Springs Stash.

We found the Pony Express one first, after stumbling upon the right county road, luckily. Here is my log for it:

August 8 by hardings (1620 found)This cache was so fabulous. I grew up loving stories of the old west, and being a horse lover, the Pony Express always interested me. We enjoyed the plaques along the way to this one, and the hike. Was a bit of a tough one for us Texans! Thanks for keeping this one going, it was incredibly awesome to find two grandfather caches today and we enjoyed the history. Left Red Jeep TB.

That was a fun hike, about 0.11 straight up a hill, with prickly desert plants all around. In retrospect, the terrain actually reminded me a lot of Austin. We spent a lot of time exploring the Pony Express station "remains" and plaques. Then we drove next to the Clover Springs camping area, which was about thirty minutes away, if I remember correctly. This time I went by myself to find the cache, which was only about 250 feet from available parking, albeit straight up and devilishly well hidden. Here is my log for that one:

August 8 by hardings (1620 found)We made a side trip just for this one. What an honor to get one of the grandfather caches! It was a short hike, but the uphill about did this Texan in. Actually walked right past it a few times, it was so well hidden, but just right there. Way cool. Thanks for keeping this one alive!

We had so much fun driving through this part of the state. I would recommend these caches to anyone, even those traveling with small children like we were. On the map, it looked like this area would be remote and inaccessible, but it really was not. It is such a pretty area. We had such a good time, but boy, were we famished by this point! (Damned ham sandwich story forthcoming). Luckily, the first town we pulled up into had a TACO TIME! in it - we brake for Taco Time. Turns out too many times on this trip. It's those crisp meat burritos that drive us wild....

-delay in blog posting due to any number of issues, which I hope to correct soon-