Sunday, October 14, 2012

International Earthcache Day 2012

Today is International Earthcache Day.

 If you are not familiar, an earthcache is a special type of geocache. The object of the cache is not to find a container, but to learn something about the geology that surrounds us. Most of the time an earthcache contains some sort of geology or earth science lesson, and to solve the cache one must send answers to various questions to the cache owner. The answers to these questions are found at the posted coordinates.

I have been on the mend lately (if you don't follow me on Google Plus you may not have heard that I had a bike accident so I have been off my geocaching feet for the last 4 days), and today after church I felt a calling to get out and get some adventuring in.

Since it is International Earthcache Day, I loaded up the three closest earthcaches with easy terrain ratings and jumped into the Geo-van of Destiny.

Luckily all of the caches were in the same general direction, and that direction led me up the mountains (aww shucks!)

The following are some pictures from my day, starting with my first earthcache at Fireman's Falls, which was about rock formation:


Some of the fall colours along the Blue Ridge Parkway







One of the earthcaches was on mineral identification.  This is one sample, dolomite.

Some fall flowers.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a national park.