Maple Festival

We chose to make a day of it at the Maple Festival at Shavers Creek Enviornmental Center. What could be better than pancakes, caches, and letter boxing with Feralgryl and Angrist. After filling our bellies (some of us would return for multiple eating sessions) we toured the center and participated in many of the activities that were occurring today. We learned how to tap trees, make a spiel, and boil the syrup. We were also surprised to see some friends (True Indigo and RGBisMe) who brought us clues to a nearby letterbox. How cool is that. We revisited the Hooded Cache (hybird letterbox) to exchange stamps then it was back to the center for the reptile show and a bit more coffee.
We concluded our visit to Stone Valley with a walk to the Stone Valley letterbox that we received clues to earlier in the day. We also ran into Luck of the Draw1313, Redtailforester and the Little Dude who are a few caching friends of ours. It was nice to be out in the sun today even if it was slightly chilly. This was the place to be today.

Keystone Connection

Well this morning I went out and placed my first official Letterbox. I am new to the sport so I hope I have done everything correctly. Coming from someone who is an avid Geocacher this was defiantly a different experience. I had allot of fun creating different clues and hand carving the stamp for the box. It's not as easy as I originally thought. I made a few different versions of the stamp before I settled on a final design. From there I had to cut out a few different stamps to get it just the way I wanted it.
My letterbox is called Keystone Connection and you can find more information about it at Atlas Quest.

PA Turnpike series

Ok, this is after the fact but it was such an interesting area I had to post the stories and pictures.
A rather large group of geocachers and letterboxers made a trip down to Breezewood, PA to take a walk on the old Pennsylvania Turnpike. Back in the 60's this 10 mile stretch of highway was abandoned and converted to a area for hiking and biking. The turnpike as we know it was redirected and made bigger to accommodate the amount of traffic traveling across Pennsylvania. Currently their is a series of 4 rather interesting caches near the Sideling Hill Tunnel, one being 9/10s of a mile in the tunnel.
Despite the really bad weather we made a day of it exploring the tunnel and spending time with friend's. I did not have the camera today so I have chosen a few images that were taken by others in the group.



PA Turnpike Cache #2 "The Cache Down Under"

The day was completed with a stop at the Chimney Rocks cache near Holidaysburg and a meal at El Campesino in Altoona.

Trough Creek State Park

This past weekend we made our way to Trough Creek State Park. Despite the small size to the park it has many wonderful trails to explore as well as a handful of geological points of interest. We completed the three EarthCaches and one of the three caches. It snowed the night before covering the trees. That just added to the experience.

Earth Caches:
Balanced Rock
Ice Mine
Copperas Rocks