3 In a Row!

Quite the active geocaching week for Paul and me!  On Tuesday, we went to Stony Brook Woodland Reservation, part of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (MDC).  We found two geocaches:  "Scouter's Cache at Stony Brook" and "Blueberry (aka Bearberry) Hill".  Both caches are hidden among wild blueberry shrubs in an infrequently used MDC park.  Most of the blueberries are gone - hopefully because the birds ate them and not the geocachers/hikers.  Blueberry Hill (the actual name on the topography map is Bearberry Hill) is located at the highest elevation in Stony Brook - around 246 feet.  In the fall, winter or early spring, one could probably see quite a distance, but this is July, and there are lots of leaves on the trees.  Both caches require a bit of bushwacking and climbing as they are located off of the paved trails, but are fun to find nonetheless.

Today we went to the Blue Hills Woodland Reservation, one of our favorite hiking areas. We usually hike around the Houghton's Pond area, but this time we hiked up to the Blue Hills Weather Observatory, located at the top of the Great Blue Hill (635 feet) . The observatory was established in 1885 by meteorologist Abbot Lawrence Rotch.  The trail map and guide indicates that Rotch studied the winds and clouds with kites and balloons that were strung with piano wire.  

"Mesozoic 3" is a multi-stage cache.  We needed numbers from the plaques on the observatory building in order to find the actual longitude/latitude of the cache.  We followed climbed the "red dot" trail until it intersected with the paved road that leads to the observatory, filled in the missing coordinates and then walked a little way back down the paved road until the GPS beeped. Then we hunted around until Paul found it!  Both reservations are great ways to get away from the city without really leaving the city.