My Saturday Tour of Catt County

I woke up early this morning - and south into Cattaraugus County I went!  When May rolls around, that means it's time for the Allegany Geo-Bash, a huge caching event which is held in Allegany State Park.  This is an annual event, which first started in 2006.  At the time, it was a tiny local affair (with under 100 attendees).  Over the years, it's grown into a mega-event, with approximately 500 people visiting from all over the country, with even some people flying in internationally to attend.  It the largest annual event of it's kind in New York and Pennsylvania (but I have no real research to back that up...haha).

I'm not really the 'event attending' type (at least not as much these days...which I think probably needs some amending), but I did want to pop in and pick up some event swag and say "hi" to one of the organizers, a gentleman that goes by the handle of HeadMJ.  He's been responsible for placing some of my favorite caches in the park (which I have probably discuss ad nauseum in other posts...haha), so I thought it would be cool to meet him in person for the first time.  Anyhoo, checking out the event and meeting him was the first part of my plan.  The second was to work on the Enchanted Mountains GeoTrail (EMGT).

The EMGT's are a series of 32 caches in Cattaraugus County - one per each of the 32 townships.  The object is to visit each town, find the cache, write down the keyword, and upon completing all 32, you turn in all the keywords to get a coin or a tractor or some damn thing.  Hahaha.  Aside from handing out free stuff, the series was devised by the Catt County Tourism Department to bolster the regional economy.  If geocaching has taught me anything, it's that people will travel to complete challenges, series, and other unique caches.  So why not exploit that in the form of "tourist" dollars to support the local economy.  It's a pretty cool idea, which has been utilized in some form or another in other areas of the country.  The most notable one within striking distance from WNY is the Allegheny GeoTrail in North Eastern Pennsylvania.

Bored yet?  Yeah yeah...I'm starting to bore myself too.  Anyway...the purpose of all that rambling was to convey the following:  Eric + Catt County = plenty of nerdy caching.  Incidentally, that also means a lot of driving.  I visited the vast majority of south/southwest Catt County today.  All of the caches were relatively quick finds, so I won't blah-blah about them individually, but instead show you photos of everything I saw!  How "yay" is that kiddies!?!

The Main Admin Building overlooking Redhouse Lake in ASP.

The trailhead (and cutsie bridge) in ASP along the
North Country Trail (NCT).

Just 18 miles?  Nahhhhhhhhhhh...

Larch along the NCT in ASP.

Carrollton has the cutest critters EVER!

Looking at the babbling splendor of Rice Brook in Carrollton.

Onoville Marina...totally awesome!

An old cemetery in Conewango...the last stop on my
whirlwind tour of Cattaraugus County!

In total I probably put like 12,000 miles on my car and spent a small fortune on gas, but the end result was a great day outside exploring many places I had never visited before.  My only regret was that I didn't have more time, as I'm sure there were many quality caches that I passed which would have taken me to additional spots.  I guess it will have to wait until my next motorcar tour around the County.

Only 5 more townships left...then I'm done!

Allegany State Park - Part II - Fun Times on Mt. Tuscarora

After chasing bears early this morning, I returned to my vehicle and set my sights on the great Mt. Tuscarora.  Truth be told, there are many "mountains" in Allegany State Park - and of which - I've actually visited the peaks of a couple of them.  For example:

• Mt. Tuscarora (in 2007)
• Mt. Irvine (in 2008)
• "Bear" Mountain (in 2010)
• Mt. Cayuga (in 2007 and again in 2009) - which if you check out the cache page, there's a rock formation informally named after yours truly...haha.
• "Summit" Mountain (in 2006 and again in 2010)

I've also had the pleasure of hiking other trails in ASP which made their way up, around and about other glorious hills.  There are probably a dozen other hills that I haven't summited, but I'm sure at some point I'll get around to them.  I'm just pacing myself - those things are crazy high!  Haha.

The purpose of my visit to ASP today was to find the second installment of Mt. Tuscarora by HeadMJ.  I had been fortunate enough to find the original Mt. Tuscy during the epic hiking summer of 2007.  You see, at that time a strange cacher named Cayuga Crew decided to hike the length of the Conservation Trail which runs from Niagara Falls, NY all the way down through ASP and the Pennsylvania border.  This was a pretty ambitions endeavor, and at some point emails were traded, and Chicky and I went from delivering Timbits roadside to support this wayward hiker to inhaling his exhaust as we hiked alongside him.  Through this process I developed a friendship with him, to the point we became close (or as chummy as you get with a guy who baits you up hills with processed meat snacks and cheeses while lying to you by saying the rest of the hike is "all down hill").  Now that I think of it, Cayuga is one smarmy son-of-a-bitch. But that's not part of the story...well it is I guess.  You see, towards the end of this months long hike, the only thing standing in our way from crossing the PA border and completing this grand adventure was Mt. Tuscarora. 

Mt. Tuscy takes no prisoners, and while the hiking was amazing, this was one of the more difficult hikes to accomplish due to the terrain and the distance.  Of course because you can't say no to Cayuga (especially when he's your ride back to the car which is parked miles and miles and miles away), we made a mile round trip side hike to the top of old Mt. Tuscy to find the cache and enjoy the old abandoned fire tower that sits at it's peak.  That would be our last cache find before crossing over into PA!  It was also my first (and before today, last) visit here. 

Since then the original has been archived, and version 2.0 has taken it's place...which in turn was about to be archived itself!  So I had to make the hike back up the hill and subsequently be the last to find this cache, before making way for V.3.0.

There are several different ways to approach this cache.  Basically it runs the gamut from steep to stupid ridiculous steep.  Topo lines abound and to short cut may require scrambling on all fours in sections.  My preferred plan of approach in these scenarios is a long hike with a more gradual incline.  Of course, in this instance the hike would be about 5.75 miles (round trip) and an elevation change of over 550 feet.  That's a lot of topo lines to cross!  I figured if I was going to send off Mt. Tuscy, I was doing to do it in style - so at 9:30 am my feet hit the trailhead at the bottom of the mountain and up up up I went!

Here's my trailhead...and seeing as there are no bodies laying at the foot of this mountain, I was encouraged to continue on upwards to the top of the hill.  I was pretty excited to hike this trail, as 90% of it was going to be new to me until I hit the top of the ridge and pickedup the North Country Trail which I had hiked on my first visit here in 2007.

Luckily for me lunch was served...because everywhere along the trail were delicious leeks!  They have a sort of onion-esque taste and are great right out of the ground.  The first mile of trail was absolutely carpeted with them - so of course I had to nibble on a few...my mountain man survival skills rock!  LOL.

Who doesn't love spring right?  The wildflowers were everywhere, and you couldn't go two steps without a smattering of color lining the trailside.  These little pretties were located along the ridge on the way to the summit.  In need of a break, I plopped right down on the ground and started snapping photos. That's how you multitask on a trailbreak!

I thought getting to the ridge was the hard part...what I forgot is after the big hill...you get a nice level walk for a quarter mile, and then another half mile up hill to the tower!  I smiled when I saw the sign pointing "up"...bring it on baby!

Hellooooooooooooooooooooo big killer sweet abandoned fire tower in the middle of the woods!  As you crest the hill the remnants of the fire tower start to peek through the bare trees.  It's pretty neat to see this huge structure - still mostly intact after being "returned to the woods" around 1970.  I had to snoop around a little bit and take some pictures.  I eventually covered the remaining 250 feet to the cache and quickly I made the find.  Hoooooooray!  Of course that was only half of it - the real treat was the view of Quaker Lake way down in the valley.

I probably loitered a good 20 minutes or so, looking at the original logbook, smiling as I read about my last visit here where we touted that we "thru-hiked in from Niagara Falls to do this cache."  Ahh...fond memories.  Eventually I rehid the cache, and started the long hike back.  I made many stops on my return trip, just because I was exhausted and the sun was now pretty warm.  So being the every busy "hiker at rest," I took more pictures!

The ridge in the background of this one is actually where the North Country Trail is...and I was only a hundred feet or so where the Mt. Tuscy and NCT meet.  I had to pit stop on my decline to get a picture of these flowers as they basked in the afternoon sun.

This trail was pretty remote, and with the exception of one other person at the very very end, I had it completely to myself.  Even at the tower.  It was exceptional and I really couldn't imagine a better day for such an expedition.

Who doesn't love a trail lined with hardwoods that heads downhill?!?  What a great experience - I'm glad I pushed myself to complete this cache...and guess what...the next day, Mt. Tuscarora III went live.  I'll give the legs a little while to rest before climbing that big fella again!

Allegany State Park - Part I - Bear Man Pig...?

This particular blog starts sometime earlier this week when I was fluttering about the cache pages looking for a wonderful adventure to tackle this weekend. It was then that became aware that a superb cache in Allegany State Park was slated for demise. ASP is a really cool place - and probably my second favorite NYS park behind Letchworth. It covers 65,000 acres of insane mountainous woodlands, and comes with a variety of touristy destinations.

That being said, the cache unto which caught my eye was Mt. Tuscarora by HeadMJ (AKA: Mike). Mike is a regular contributor to the caching scene in ASP, and without sounding too snobby, is probably the best cache-placer the park has. I say this because he places caches that appeal to me - in that - they are located far into the woods away from the other P&G caches in the park (which isn’t to say those are “bad”…but they just aren’t of HeadMJ ilk…haha). Anyway, Mt. Tuscy was placed in 2009, and since I was incapacitated during the vast majority of it’s existence, I didn’t want to see Tuscy V.2.0 pass by without me finding it. You see, caches in NYS parks have a two year lifespan (uh…well…generally…haha), so in Mike’s instance, when the two years is up, he archives his cache and replaces it with a new version. It’s the same hike to the same general area, it’s just a “new” cache to find.

“Blah blah blah Eric, just get to the dang point.”

Well my foul-mouthed readers, the fact that this cache was going to be archived necessitated the trip down south to play in the woods of ASP. I wanted to be the last to find on this cache, and after trading some emails with Mike, it was decidd that the cache would still be available for my grubby mitts on Saturday. An added bonus to this, was two new HeadMJ caches were just released in the Park. One of them was along my route to Mt. Tuscy!

I was out the door early, and made the nice sunny A.M. jaunt down to Bradford, PA. From there I entered the southern side of ASP. The first stop on my journey would be Wild Pig by HeadMJ. This was the new cache posted a couple days earlier - and I figured a nice short hike would be a good warm up before I played king of the mountain. However, when I parked, I realized quite quickly that I underestimated the length of this “short hike.” In total, it was going to be about a mile and half round trip. I decided that if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right. So down the trail I headed.

This was a pretty cool trail actually, because it went just this side of the NY/PA border.  The cache itself is only about 600 feet from the border - so it's neat to think that you're in the middle of the woods and without knowing it you could be crossing state lines.  Not to give anyone any ideas or anything...haha.

The hike in was beautiful, as the air was super crisp and the sun had just crested the tree tops.  It was the perfect day to be outdoors.  I continued down the trail until I knew I had to dive into the woods to cover the rest of the distance to the cache.  It was a mostly open walk - although it's pretty hard to bushwhack through the woods without getting hit in the face with a beech sappling.  The damn things just jump right out in front of ya!  Anyway, after getting smacked around like Mother Nature's beeyotch, I arrived at the cache location and quickly found the prize.  I signed in - and of course took a picture.

That's what a real cache looks like folks - haha.  After I performed my rehiding duties, I made my way out of the woods, returning to my happy little sunshiney trail.  I was hardly back on the trail when I saw the most awesomest thing EVER!

That's right...check out those kick ass ferns!  I probably spent a good 15 minutes photogogging these beauties using the one or two techniques my camera is actually capable of doing.  If I knew I was going to capture them unrolling and springing into fern formation you'd probably be watching a video right now...but I digress.  After documenting the ferns adorable existence...I then found something of equal or greater value as measured on a scale of awesomestness!!!

It's my hand...sweet huh?  Oh yeah, and that thing next to my hand is a bear paw print!  Holy flapjacks Batman!?!  Probably within an hour or so of me being on this trail, a black bear went meandering through and left his paw print in some mud.  I was giddy...like...16 year old prom girl giddy.  Just be glad your reading about it, because if you would have witnessed it, I don't think we'd ever get over the uncomfortable silence. Hahaha.

This was a first for me actually.  I don't think I've ever found evidence of a bear being near me like this before - so of course now I was scouring the woods to see if I could capture a glimpse of this cuddly fuzz ball.  Alas, my lover-bear was no where to be found - but on the bright side he did leave me this:

Classy right?