UTM: 17S E 238013 N 3797918

The Gainesville area seems to be in a drought in terms of new caches. In the interest of alleviating this situation, I plan on hiding a variety of new caches. Two dollar bill for the FTF.

This is just a simple park and sign for a quick smiley and to help those trying to keep their daily streaks alive.
BYOP

Official Geocache Code:  GC1N9PJ

UTM: 17S E 230226 N 3797495

This is a multi-stage cache hidden on an island where the Chestatee and Chattahoochee rivers meet.

Lake Lanier is shaped roughly like a “Y” with the Chestatee River entering from the Northwest and the Chatthoochee River entering from the Northeast. This cache is hidden on a long, narrow island where these two great rivers meet.

I thought I’d research the meanings of these two Indian words.

I found several translations for the word Chestatee. It is a Cherokee word meaning pine torch place or place of lights or fire light place. Hunting parties would build bonfires along the banks of this river. These fires were used to light the torches used while hunting deer and other game at night in the forest bordering the river.

Chattahoochee also has a beautiful meaning. It is a Creek Indian word meaning river of painted rocks. The Chattahoochee was the dividing line between the Cherokee and Creek nations. The Creeks dominated the South and East side of the line and the Cherokee territory was to the North and West. Half of all Georgians rely on the Chattahoochee for their drinking water!

The island has several nice sandy beaches which are popular spots for boaters enjoying the lake on weekends. Running through the narrowest point of the island is an old dirt road with stone walls on either side. The stones are set in concrete and someone scratched 1940 into the side before the concrete cured. At least I think that’s a zero at the end. A section of the road and its stone walls are missing. Perhaps it was washed away when the lake was at its highest level. In 1964 the water level reached 1077.15’. 1071’ is full pool (which we don’t see very often lately). In fact this year it’s looking like we’ll break the low water level record.

The break in the road is the location of the first stage. Please leave no trace and re-hide things exactly as you found them. The cache itself is an aggressively hidden . You’ll walk around .3 miles total from stage one back to stage one. Each stage’s coordinates are the average of 500 samples taken at that spot on a clear sunny day. Hope you enjoy the hunt as much as I enjoyed the hide!!

Be sure to visit Lake House at the other end of the island. Lake House was our #1 find!

Also, if you thumb through the pages of the log book, you’ll find the solution to the Howdy Neighbor puzzle.

Official geocache code: GC164A5

UTM: 16S E 772542 N 3793502

Mulistage adventure in the six mile creek area of Lake lanier trying to find the lair of Fishhead.

Mulitstage cache. First stage can be found from land but for the second stage you will need a watercraft (to get in to Fishhead’s lair and find his Treasure Box). After finding first stage, a launching point is nearby. Second stage is .9 mile water trip. Fishhead’s treasure box is well hidden and will require serious searching but no digging or moving objects.
The Legend of Fishhead:

I’ve heard a story about a creature that inhabits a certain part of Lake Sidney Lanier and I’m not sure whether it has any elements of truth or not. All I know is that I’ve heard some strange sounds and seen some movements in the water and woods on the shore that I cannot explain.

It’s said that a woman, expecting her first-born was walking the shore of Six Mile Creek, enjoying the sun and shadows at the back of this Creek where it empties into the Lake. The story goes on that a giant Catfish, chasing prey (probably a fish or a frog) splashed up near the shore and frightened the woman to such a degree that when her baby was born, he had the features of that very Catfish! His eyes were small and beady, his mouth was nothing but a lipless slit in his face and he never grew hair. His skin was pale gray and his feet and hands had webs between the toes and fingers.

This child was to become known in the local Community as “Fishhead”.

He was ridiculed and made fun of so much that he shrank from society. As a boy, he played by himself, retreating into the woods along the back of Six Mile Creek, fishing and playing with the animals that lived there. The animals accepted him as another animal and soon learned that this creature was kind and gentle and would never hurt them.

His mother tried to send him to school, but the other children made fun of him and ridiculed him so much that he came home in tears after the first few days in school and his mother never sent him back.

Fishhead’s Mother died when he was in his teens and because he never had a Father or any other relatives, he took up living in the woods along Six Mile Creek and established a home in the rocks at the back of the arm of the Lake where the Creek pours in.

Some people got a glimpse of Fishhead every now and then and rumors started that a monster was living along side the Creek. These reports gave couple of scoundrels an idea that they would capture this creature and put him on display, charging money for people to look at him so they set out in a wooden boat to capture Fishhead.

As they approached the back of the Lake arm they heard a splash and a few minutes later, they were gone. Nothing was ever found except their boat with claw marks on the side as if some animal had grabbed the side and turned the boat over.

I don’t know if this story is true or not but I’ve been up Six Mile Creek right at dark – at the end where the Creek pours in – and I’ve seen movements in the woods that were obviously made be something large and I’ve heard something swimming in the water that made more sound than a fish or anything as large as a beaver could have made. This sound was made by something swimming that had to be as large as a man – or FISHHEAD!

Official geocache code: GCGXP9

UTM: 17S E 239223 N 3793055

Elachee Nature Center has three “Discover Nature Packs”. There is a Plant Pack, an Animal Pack, and a GPS Pack. The GPS Pack is designed for kids at the 6th through 8th grade levels, though a precocious adult might just manage.

The posted coords are of the Elachee Nature Center’s Gift Shop, which is where the “GPS Pack” can be checked out. The Nature Center is open from 10 am to 5 pm Monday through Saturday, closed on Sundays. It will take you a leisurely hour to complete your mission, so plan accordingly. Since you’ll be handling paper and pencils to take notes, doing this on a rainy day is not recommended.

You can leave your GPS in the car, as the GPS Pack includes a Garmin Geko. Because of the value of the GPS and other items in the nature pack you’ll be asked to leave a credit card or driver’s license when you sign out the GPS Pack. The items will be inventoried upon your return, so don’t loose them! You can use your own GPS, but the little Geko has the coordinates of all the waypoints already programmed into it. Our donations at the 2004 GGA Challenge held at Elachee helped pay for this little GPS, so see how it works.

What is a “GPS Pack”? Well, it’s a fairly large fanny pack in which you’ll find a notebook, pencils, the GPS, instructions for using the GPS, and all the tools and equipment you’ll need to conquer each stage of the challenge and proceed on to the next. You cannot log this cache without checking out the GPS Pack, as it contains items even a well equipped geocacher will not have. You’ll be hiking on a loop trail right behind the Nature Center. Of Elachee’s seven trails this is one of the less physically challenging, but it does have some steep places, so be careful.

You’ll visit a series of waypoints along the trail to observe the environment and gather clues. If you’ve done everything correctly you’ll be able to unlock the combination lock on the ammo box in the gift shop and log your find.

Tammy of Elachee Nature Center and I used the Geko to mark the waypoints you’ll be visiting, and you’ll see that Tammy did a great job of putting together the booklet of waypoints, clues, information, and questions that you’ll be answering. No waypoint averaging was possible with the little Geko, but the clues for each stage are such that you should have no problems if you stay on the trail. Have fun, but if you can’t open the ammobox don’t yell at the gift shop volunteers! They don’t have the combination and can’t help you. If you’re like me you probably transposed some numbers and will have to try three times before the lock pops open.

If you’ve enjoyed this and other caches at Elachee please become an Elachee Volunteer. Join me and others on the first Saturday of each month as we do trail relocation and bridge building under the guidance of Preserve Manager Cynthia Taylor. Alternately, the third Saturday of the month is also devoted to volunteers helping maintain Elachee’s trail system. Thanks! ~erik~

Official Geocache Code:  GCR83Q

UTM: 17S E 239051 N 3792863

The coords posted above are for one of two parking areas you might use. This is somewhat like a multistage cache hunt but you get to decide how many stages to make it! The temptation may be to just cut to the chase, but “The More the Merrier”! At the end of your Odyssey you’ll be looking for an antique .50 cal ammo can. 

There are several other caches in this area, some or all of which you may already have found. If you’ve already found them you may have a bit of an advantage, but not much as you probably neglected to note the number and the clue written on the inside back cover of the log book. That number is the distance to this cache. Now maybe the advantage goes to those who haven’t found the other caches – they get to log multiple smiley faces on this hunt!

Alright, think about this: You find one of the other caches and it says “.75 mile” inside the back cover of the log book. Well, you could theoretically walk a three quarter mile radius circle around that cache and find the “More the Merrier” cache. That wouldn’t be very efficient though, would it? And if you missed it you’d have to keep going around and around without much of an idea of where to look. The clue provided with the distance spec may help a bit, but it’s only one of five clues.

Find a second cache, note the distance and clue in it’s log book, and you’d theoretically have two places where the two circles intersect. (Now you know how your GPS feels when it can only lock into a couple of satellites!) Find a third cache and you should be able to figure out where the cache is. However if you’re working with half mile (and larger) diameter circles the position error won’t be favorable. Find more of the other caches and you should do pretty well as you fine tune the cache location.

So how do you fine tune the location? You could do some triangulation calculations at home and return. Or you could switch the “Go To” on your GPS from cache to cache and try to get all the distances to equal the distances you noted from the log books as you hike around. If all the distances match up and the clues make sense too you should be at the cache.

I guess doing it the mathematical way the number of stars for difficulty goes up, the other way the terrain difficulty goes up as you may be doing some bushwacking. I’d suggest marking the caches on the trail map as you find them, drawing intersecting arcs to find roughly where the “More the Merrier” cache is, then going to that area and doing the “Go-To” thing mentioned above. Or perhaps you could project an arc of waypoints on your GPS and look for intersections of these arcs? Just so there won’t be any unpleasant surprises I rated both terrain and difficulty on the high end. Be sure to bring plenty of water!

Official geocache code: GC51C0

UTM: 17S E 238013 N 3797918

The Gainesville area seems to be in a drought in terms of new caches. In the interest of alleviating this situation, I plan on hiding a variety of new caches. Two dollar bill for the FTF.

This is just a simple park and sign for a quick smiley and to help those trying to keep their daily streaks alive.

Official geocache code: GC1N9PJ

UTM: 17S E 229818 N 3804561

This is a hidden on an island in Lake Lanier.

We’ve enjoyed hunting island caches so much we decided to hide one of our own. This (our first hide) was placed on the island on Memorial Day 2007. While looking for a good hiding spot, we found around two dozen golf balls scattered through the woods and on the North shore!

The land bridge to the South becomes exposed at a lake level of about 1056.5.

Official Geocache Code:  GC138A7

UTM: 17S E 228458 N 3803879

This is a very simple multi-cache located near and in Bolding Mill Park. There are boat ramps, picnic areas, swimming areas and a rather extensive camping section on Lake Lanier. There is no charge to enter the parking area closest to the cache.

At Stage One you are looking for a grave marker of a woman who died on Independence Day. Official Geocace Code:  GC1VJP9

To find the N coordinate for the final cache take her death year and subtract 1561.
To find the W coordinate for the final cache find the year the nearby Baptist Church was founded and subtract 1792.

Final: N 34-20-___
W 083-57-0__

You are searching for a small green plastic screwtop container capable of holding Geocoins or small Travel Bugs.

UTM: 17S E 237568 N 3798113

This is just a simple park and sign. You should almost be ashamed to count this as a smiley but what the heck. Go for it. Muggles should not be a problem here.

BYOP  

Official Geocache Code:  GC1W1K2

UTM: 17S E 227453 N 3803327

Old road bed. Fallen Trees. Near Park

Small container in plastic bag. Has several TB’s (travel bugs). coins and id’s

Indian legend has it War Hill was used to settle the disputes of local Indian tribes. They would come here to battle. The winner was always right. Once in a while you can hear the russle of a running Indian. At night you might hear moans.

Official geocache code: GC188WA