Hiking and Geocaching

I have found geocaching to be the perfect companion hobby to hiking. Geocaches are quite common along hiking trails. I will scour the geocaching map for caches placed along hiking trails or at hiking destinations. I use geocaches as a way to commemorate and remember the hikes I do. Here are a few of my favorite hikes I have discovered because of geocaching:

In geocaching, there is a common goal to fill out your Jasmer grid. The Jasmer grid is composed of every month/year combo since geocaching started in May 2000. The objective for filling out your Jasmer grid is finding a geocache in every month/year combo. For example, you are required to find a geocache that was hidden in May 2000, June 2000, July 2000, ect. This photo was from a hike called Monte Cristo. Monte Cristo is a ghost town in eastern Snohomish county. A 12 mile roundtrip hike is required to make it to the town. The geocache I am holding is from November 2000, a Jasmer square I needed for my grid. The hike was beautiful and the ghost town was really cool. My favorite part was the railroad turntable that my friend and I actually got to push and rotate.

Big Greider Lake was a hike I did not know about until one day when I was casually browsing the geocaching map looking for a hike for my friend and I could do. We were treated to excellent alpine views and hardly any crowds for a Sunday expedition. The geocache hadn't been found in over four years, so it was really cool that we were able to find it! An ammo can in a scenic location encompasses what geocaching is all about, and this cache was a prime example of it.

Windy Ridge is one of the most popular viewpoints at Mt. St. Helens. However, if you go pass the single gate off the parking lot and hike about four miles, you will soon be at the base of the mountain. The Plains of Abraham trail allowed me to be the closest to Mt. St. Helens I had ever been. On top of that, we were able to see Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Hood all on the same hike. As a bonus, I was able to find two virtual caches and one tradtional cache!