Cold, Hard Cache

My three-year-old grandson, Kelton and I went out today for what’s fast becoming our weekly geocaching adventure. This time we stayed close to home. We drove down to the start of the Cedar River Trail at Landsburg. That's about three miles away from home. This is where Seattle and surrounding areas get most of their drinking water. They suck it out of the Cedar River at Landsburg, send it down a huge pipe to the Lake Youngs Reservoir near Renton, then from there it goes out to Seattle and surrounding areas.

The trail is the old railroad right of way. Years ago, we used to walk along the river when the tracks were still there. We even have a couple of old glass insulators from the telegraph poles that lined the route. All of that is long gone now and the trail is great. It runs all the way to Renton, crosses some old trestles along the way, and ties into all the other big trails in the area. Very nice.

Today’s find was hidden near one of those stream gauge sites. It has a zip line across the river and they use the site to gauge the flow of the river. After all the recent snow and rain and flooding, the river was still running very high and fast today. Our hike was just shy of two miles, round trip from truck to cache and back. An easy hike, but Kelton’s little legs were giving out toward the end. But he made it. He’s turning into a pretty good hiker and treasure hunter, even when the weather’s cold.