Hiking the fantastic terrain of Fountainhead Regional Park
Cradled in the snaky meandering embrace of the Occoquan Reservoir, squeezed upward from water’s edge into hardwood-canopied undulating green folds of rise and ravine, and threaded through with narrow ribbons of stream and trail was our bit of wilderness in Fairfax County, Virginia — Fountainhead Regional Park.
In search of a geocache in Hemlock Overlook Regional Park
“I have always hated to exercise just for the sake of exercise,” my good friend dagdvm once told me.
I agree completely. Sometimes it’s hard to just get on a treadmill and walk in place or go outside and walk in circles around some block or track or route or go out a ways and then turn around and come back. Yes, it’s exercise, but walking without purpose can get a bit monotonous. Wouldn’t it be great to have another reason to walk a good distance?
“Geocaching,” dagdvm continued, ” is getting me out and walking for hours at a time. It has to be good for my body.”
It sure does. If you go out looking for certain geocaches you’ll get some exercise without even thinking about it. If you go to a nice park full of geocaches you can walk around for hours having fun finding as many as possible. If you go to that park with a friend who belongs to an avid hiking superdog, well — it’s hard to think of a better way to spend a nice healthy day outside, and that’s exactly what dagdvm, her weiner dog Tilly and I did at Hemlock Overlook Regional Park in Fairfax County, Virginia on a fine Sunday in June.
Looking back from ground zero
A geocache can take you somewhere special and move you through that space in a way that makes for a memorable experience. Nice place for a walk in Orange (GC2M32G) gave me just such an experience on a hot and sunny Saturday in early June.
Looking north into a songbird’s meadow
It’s a cool spring morning, low cloud crowned by high cirrus moving through pale blue as I step into the southern end of the meadow. May’s coming but isn’t quite here yet. April still has one more day to give, and this is it: sky high and fine, breezes dry and easy, open-throated songbirds on the wing as the sun continues to climb.
Somewhere near the northern end of this meadow is Joshua’s Cache (GC1M422), my sole geocaching objective for the day here in Ellanor C. Lawrence Park. Finding the hide is only part of what’s so satisfying about geocaching, though. You never know what interesting discoveries you’ll make along the way. Winding my way down to the north end of this green space brought another world into clear focus for me, a world I hadn’t paid close attention to for a long time. Two of its emissaries were just around the bend.
Walney Pond at Ellanor C. Lawrence Park
Last Sunday afternoon in Ellanor C. Lawrence Park I found a geocache I’d first gone looking for in March, Bear’s Lodge (GC18HZ8).
This is the first time I’ve watched the park move from winter into spring. Walney Pond is transformed from frozen gray into an explosion of life, including lily pads, yellow irises, mallards, Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds and all of us humans who flock to be in the presence of all this beauty. Walney Pond is a worthy destination and the perfect point of departure for the trails that lead up and away into the woods beyond.
Leaving koz’s reinkarnated klifton kache, GCZW0WY…
On Sunday, April 17th, a clear, sunny day after a long period of soaking rains, apc9296 and I went geocaching in Clifton and Burke Lake Park. We found twelve geocaches altogether, a single-day record for both of us; dropped off seven toys in seven different caches; and found some scenic places we might not have seen otherwise.
Geocache Chronicle 