Maple Ridge Caching Goes to the Dogs

Took advantage of the break in the weather to do a little caching close to home in; corralled MrTJ into coming along, which was good, as all the caches I went looking for were his. Hard to DNF with the cache owner along!

MrTJ brought his two geohounds, Jasper and Mya, and I picked up my daughter's boyfriend's geohound, Titus the Great Dane. We headed into the north part of Maple Ridge, where the hills start to climb towards the mountains. There are a series of old logging roads and horse trails in the area on which MrTJ has planted a series of caches, some with the word "EGG" in the name.

MrTJ has placed 6 caches in such a way that you can do a loop in under an hour and pick up all the caches. The terrain is not strenous, although in some areas it is not flat. Gentle slopes with the occasional steeper uphill section are the worst that this walk provides. Wear good shoes and expect a little water on the trails, with a spot of mud here and there. Most people will be able to do this series no problem; I don't do hills well and the worst I did was a bit of huffing and puffing.

The area is highlighted by tall cedar stumps complete with spring board notches from when the loggers swung an axe to take down these huge trees. Spring boards were typically 6 feet long, the loggers would cut a notch out of the tree about 5 feet up the tree and then jam the spring board into the notch. This would accomplish two things; 1) it would let them cut through the tree were the trunk was a bit smaller, and 2) it would get them clear of the florest floor so they could swing the axe unimpeded.

If you are looking for a healthy walk through our local wet coast forest with ferns and trees and moss aplenty, head to the north end of 236th street in Maple Ridge and enjoy a stroll through what makes Maple Ridge so special.

Walk through the rain forest with me by watching the video! You'll want to go there for sure!  :)