Little Badger Geocache Hike

Wondering where I should go today to take my little schnauzer dog, Fritz, for a walk and get a little workout myself. I decided on hiking the ridge line of Little Badger Mountain. I had a couple of good excuses:

• A local cacher had just placed 3 geocaches along the ridge line
• I could map the trails and send them to Northwest Trails for inclusion on the next update.
• Next week I hope to hike up around the Wallula Gap overlook and this would be a good practice.

Little did I realize it would take me 3 hours and would end up walking 4.8 miles. The trail starts at an elevation of about 700 feet and the primary summit is a little over 1200 feet but with all the ups and downs my GPS reports that I climbed 754 feet on the way out and a total of 1156 feet by the time I was back to the car. My legs believe those statistics! I wish I had put a GPS on my dog. I am sure he must have covered at least 20 miles. Next time I take him out I will attach my old GPS to his harness. Besides seeing how far he traveled, it will be fun to superimpose his track log on top of mine.

I transferred my GPS track of the hike to Google Earth. I started out at the position marked “Trailhead NW” in the upper left corner of the map. The green line is my hike out to the end of the ridge line. On the way back I strayed a bit, shown with the blue lines, to pick up some of the other trails. The hike down to the spot labeled “Trailhead SE” and then back up just about killed me. I was glad there was a lower trail around the side of the mountain (that, of course, had to be mapped) and did not have to hike back up to the summit. The track file has been submitted to Nothwest Trails and includes the trails marked in red that I did not walk but felt needed to be included. The last time I was here I came up the trail labeled “Trailhead NE”. That was a steep hike. I did not want to walk down it today since I was pretty sure I would not make it back to the top.

The three caches I had come to ‘hunt’ were Yankee II, Yankee Go Home, and Just BPA II. All three were found without too much difficulty. Another cache, Hawk’s View, is on the ridge line but I had found it and a couple of other caches in the area back in December 2007. I wish I had brought a couple geocache containers up with me since there is plenty of room for a few more good hides. Guess I have an excuse to come back!

After I got back to the car I did drive to the point labeled “Trailhead NE” to get the exact GPS coordinates and while there I replaced a cache called (Canteens’ Fantasy II). Another cacher originally had hidden it nearby but had archived it. The location was a good spot for a cache so I decided to resurrect it.

Now I am home and cannot move without groaning but my little schnauzer dog seems to be just fine. Here are some more photos of my hike.