While Geocaching in the forest near Mt. Hood, my daughter, Catherine, and I discovered a large mound about 5 ft. across and about 2 ft. high. The mound was covered with a burlap-like material. A very large rock weighed down the center of the mound. Smoke billowed up but there were no flames.
Catherine was so determined to find the cache that she jumped over the mound a couple times. Finally we decided that the cache was a lost cause. And the more that we studied the mound the more we were convinced that it just didn't look right.
I dialed 911 and was transferred to the Forest Service. I gave the description and coordinates of the mound to the FS. I marked a tree along the road with a Safeway plastic bag. It would have been great to have a marking ribbon as someone drove by later and removed the bag before the Forest Service got there!
We worked with the Forest Service by phone through the afternoon while we continued geocaching until they were able to get to the location and find the mound in the forest. It turned out that the mound was deliberately created to cause a forest fire.
Catherine and I had lunch at the Ice Axe Grill at Government Camp. We found 16 caches and one waymark. We drove to the Mt. Hood area via Hwy 26 so we decided to take Hwy 35 to Hood River. We stopped at Panorama Viewpoint overlooking the Hood River Valley and Mt. Hood. We crossed the Hood River bridge to White Salmon.
Catherine and I traveled west on Hwy 14 from White Salmon to Vancouver, WA. We encountered two long coal trains heading west. The second coal train was so long that we never reached the front of the train no matter how fast I drove. Coal dust swirled off the top of the coal cars. It was unbelievable. When the coal train subject was brought up at the Friends of the Gorge picnic on Sunday I did not realize that the coal trains were already rolling.
No comments:
Post a Comment