Geocaching

Link to Map on Geocaching.com

The map shown above depicts all the Geocaches at Upper Paugussett State Forest, as well, nearby caches.  There is the Al's Trail series, which I have only scratched the surface of but given my current condition (not riding due to an injury) I will probably start doing more of them.  The ones that I have found are marked with the happy face icons.

Brodie and I parked at the Echo Valley and took the blue blazed trail to the Upper Gussy Trail.  The Upper Gussy uses an old right of way that once connected from Albert's Hill Road and went about a mile into the forest where it sort of dissipates.  What's truly interesting is that this ROW has parts that were engineered to form an actual road but there is nothing in the public record that shows a road through here.  After awhile, the Gussy breaks off from the ROW and turns into a flowy mountain bike trail.

A little over 1/5 of a mile from the intersection with the Blue Blazed trail there is a new trail that splits off from the Gussy.  My understanding is that it was built by another mountain biker, last year, and overall seems to be a really good trail.  I had heard that a bridge was built over a little stream so Brodie and I decided to check it out.

For what's worth, it's pretty nice bridge.  The only downside is that it wasn't made with pressure treated wood so it will probably only last a year or two before it will need to be replaced.

We headed back to the Upper Gussy and continued up the trail when we encountered a big group of mountain bikers.  I knew one of them, too, the one on the lime green Yeti.

Further up the trail I saw this interesting thing leaning against a tree about 20 yards off the trail.  I figured that it belonged to a hunter and it didn't belong in the forest.  In fact, you are not allowed to use tree stands on state land so I policed it up and we continued on up the Gussy Trail.

Further up the trail we stopped for a snack and watched the mountain bikers that we saw earlier come back up the trail in the other direction.  From our perspective, more towards the top of the ridge from where Brodie is standing in the picture above I made this little video of a mountain biker.

From this perspective, it reminds me of a bear or a catamount watching a tasty morsel on two wheels coming up for dinner!

We picked up a few mylar balloons that landed in the forest and then using the compass on the GPS headed towards the geocache that is on the Blue Blazed Trail on the western side of the forest.

Brodie went Troll hunting looking for the cache and we found it in this little den almost at the top of the ridge.  From here we headed back down the Blue Blaze trail to the old horse trail which cuts off the huge fall line climb and found an Elbow Tree.

 

Near the stream, on the Blue Blaze trail, I picked up a water bottle that some mountain biker obviously lost.  To get back to the parking lot, Brodie and I got back on the Gussy Trail.

We saw another mountain biker riding through the woods but he didn't come down the portion of trail that we were on.  Further up the trail me up with a hunter that was going after small game.  Looked like he had a twelve gauge shotgun, which I thought was a little too much gun if you were just shooting squirrels.

Brodie did really well for hiking almost 4 miles!  He is looking forward to going again, soon.