Hiking & Geocaching: The Curse of Pringle Mountain

We decided last night that it might be fun to go for a hike and maybe try for a geocache that we had previously attempted early last summer, but didn't get close to. Grey skies and a few flurries in the morning but why not try the most difficult cache listed in Richmond County, 5 star difficulty, 5 star terrain. Geocaches are rated by the star system 1 is the easiest 5 the hardest. We left the house around 10 am and drove up to Oban and parked at the end of the trail to Pringle Mountain. I used Garmin Basecamp last night to plan the route out. I set up a couple of waypoints along the route because when we made the trek in the summer we did a lot of exploring and backtracking trying to find the right way into the lake where the cache is located. There was quite a bit more snow on the ground here than there was at home. We left the car at 10:30. The first part of the hike is all uphill (180m over 2 km) It didn't seem too bad going up, but about 1 km in; the 4 wheeler track that we were walking in stopped and we were in soft snow that was over our ankles. It doesn't sound like a lot of snow, but it makes a big difference. By the time we got to the top of the hill we had worked up quite a sweat. There were quite a few coyote tracks around so I kept a good eye out. I wasn't worried but since the attack this summer in the Highlands NP it makes me a little more wary than I used to be. There were lots of other tracks in the snow as well. We came across one track across the path that looked like something was drug across the path.

I thought that maybe it was a bobcat or lynx that was dragging its kill?? Just guessing. Anyway the hike was so nice going in. The shelter of the trees was making it very nice and it was getting sunny as we got closer to the lake. We got to the waypoint I set at the entrance to the trail that led into the lake at 11:30. It was just a quick walk into the shore of the lake from the main trail. Once we got there it was good to see that there was ice on the lake because the cache is on a small island in the middle of the lake. We set out along the shore, not quite ready to trust the ice because of the mild weather we have been having all winter. It was a lot colder out of the lee of the trees. Once out on the ice we soon saw that there was lots of ice on the lake.

The small island was easily visible once we were out on the lake and we set off at a good pace once we were confident that there was enough ice. There are a few islands in Pringle Lake, its pretty rocky as well. As we walked past the biggest of the islands we could see tracks made by otters sliding in the snow. By the time we made it ti the island that the cache was on we were feeling a little chilled because of how warm we got on the way up the mountain in the shelter of the trail, out on the lake the wind didn't take too long chilling us.

The gps was pointing 30 m inland on the island and once we broke through the thick brush on the shore there was a clearing on the highest point of the island. The hint for the cache read "sit under a log in the clearing" well there were a few logs but none high enough or big enough to sit under. We started searching and spent an hour searching this little clearing and its surrounding brush, no cache. We started to get a chill from standing still after being so warm on the way up. As we searched it got darker and started to snow, quite a bit :-( ughh. By now it was lunchtime so I grabbed my bacon cheeseburger meatloaf sandwich and a cup of coffee to take a minute and hopefully find the cache with fresh eyes. Caoimhe was having a good time chewing sticks and bumming meatloaf sandwich from me and tea biscuit and jam from Martha. I re read the hint and logs of the people who found the cache before us to try and get a hint of where it was.

After another half an hour of searching we called it quits. The hiders ears must have been burning cause Martha had a few choice names for him :-). We set off the way we came except this time the wind and blowing snow was in our faces as we crossed the lake. It felt like a tropical beach when we made the tree line on the opposite shore.

We kept moving to warm ourselves up and after a few minutes of walking in the shelter of the trail we were warm again. A little disappointed with a second no find on this cache. We noticed the hill as we made our way back up to the top of Pringle Mountain before going back down the other side. Still enjoying the still quiet in the shelter of the trail, all of us moving a little slower than on the way in. The burn in the legs pretty pronounced :-)

So we made it back to the car at 2:00, 10.6 km later. The lesson learned this trek was not to go too hard at the start of the hike and work up a sweat, when you stop later, or take a break it doesn't take too long to get chilled. This is a great hike. The trail goes all the way to West Bay, and maybe next time we hit this trail we might try to go all the way there instead of trying to find that damn cache again. I'll email the cache owner and ask him if the cache is on the ground, he is inexperienced and did not give enough detail for such a difficult cache. I'll give the Everytrail map below, but under that will be the link to Garmin connect too.