Rich and I were trying to come up with a plan for today’s activities, but nothing was really grabbing us. We hadn’t really considered heading east to try the “Lackawaxen in Hawley” geocache, but when we saw the difficulty Buzz had yesterday when he searched for it, we became more intrigued and the deal was sealed. We decided we’d try our skills on the cache first thing in the morning, and then head to the Bruce Lake/Promised Land State Park area for a benchmark hunt and, if time and energy allowed, some mountain biking on the fine trails nearby.
We arrived in Hawley just after 9:00am and found the park easily enough. I was immediately drawn to the bright purple bistro on the corner across from the entrance to the park, but I didn’t let myself get too distracted right off; there would be plenty of time to explore later. We headed right toward the coordinates, but had to stop about 50 feet away—they were leading us right into the river! Figuring it was a simple error on the part of my GPSr, I continued to search along the shore at the spot nearest the coordinates.
Rich looked for a few minutes too, but we saw nothing of interest except a pretty river view, and a lone fisherman wading in the water. We expanded the search, even to areas that seemed unlikely, and I found nothing but copious amounts of poison ivy and some red raspberry bushes bearing very few, but very delicious, berries. I was poking around down near the water again when I saw Rich pacing and realized he’d probably found the cache. He had, he told me, or so he thought. Given one tiny hint, I began to stroll around the park once more and soon stumbled upon the mysterious container. I picked it up and opened it to be sure it was the cache. Claw or teeth marks were evident immediately.
While Rich signed the logbook, I wandered around in search of abandoned buildings to explore. No luck at that time, but after rehiding the cache as best we could, we took a walk to the nearby railroad tracks and did discover an abandoned concrete tower from 1922. We also took a peek through the windows of the purple bistro. I was enticed by their claim to provide “The Best Lunch on Welwood Avenue” but alas, they were not yet open for the day.
Next, we moved on to EGYPT. Not the enchanting land of the ancient pyramids, but the triangulation station named after nearby Egypt Meadow Lake in the Bruce Lake Natural Area. This triangulation station and related marks have been on our to-do list for a long time. They are situated so close to the road that we figured they’d be effortless finds—in fact, we were sure another local benchmark hunter would recover them first. We needn’t have worried. The marks may be just yards from the highway, but the station and reference marks are in an area heavily overgrown with blueberry bushes and were hidden beneath several inches of soil and plant debris.
We found all four marks easily, including the azimuth mark, which is 0.2 miles south on Route 390 from the station, directly across the highway from the Bruce Lake parking area. All marks are in good condition and clearly legible; the station and reference marks are now flush with the ground. We were not able to positively identify the triangular blazed tree (note that there is some confusion among the datasheet descriptions whether this tree is an ash or an oak). In addition, there is a stake near the station mark which was probably the witness marker mentioned in the description. There is no sign or other identifying feature. Near the azimuth mark, no witness marker was found.
Today's Geocache
Lackawaxen in Hawley
- Owner: Cat-in-the-hat
- Location: N 41° 28.602' W 075° 10.432'
- Log Type: Found it
- Date: 10 July 2004
- Original Geocaching.com listing
Hey, Cat!
Rich and I were trying to come up with a plan for Saturday’s activities, but nothing was really grabbing us. We hadn’t really considered heading east to try your cache, but when we saw the difficulty Buzz had on his search yesterday, we became more intrigued and the deal was sealed. We decided we’d try our skills on your cache first thing in the morning, and then head to the Bruce Lake/Promised Land State Park area for a benchmark hunt and, if time and energy allowed, some mountain biking on the fine trails nearby.
We arrived in Hawley just after 9:00am and found the park easily enough. I was immediately drawn to the bright purple bistro on the corner across from the entrance to the park, but I didn’t let myself get too distracted right off; there would be plenty of time to explore later. We headed right toward the coordinates, but had to stop about 50 feet away—they were leading us right into the river! Figuring it was a simple error on the part of my GPSr, I continued to search along the shore at the spot nearest the coordinates. Rich looked for a few minutes too, but we saw nothing of interest except a pretty river view, and a lone fisherman wading in the water. We expanded the search, even to areas that seemed unlikely, and I found nothing but copious amounts of poison ivy and some red raspberry bushes bearing very few, but very delicious, berries. I was poking around down near the water again when I saw Rich pacing and realized he’d probably found the cache. He had, he told me, or so he thought. Given one tiny hint, I began to stroll around the park once more and soon stumbled upon the mysterious container. I picked it up and opened it to be sure it was the cache (I was reasonably certain beforehand; otherwise I might not have touched it! 
) Claw or teeth marks were evident immediately. They’ve done a number on your camo job, but the cache itself is intact and still seals well.
Taking the cache back with us toward the car looked like the best option, even though I saw a bench further out on the dike. We found a nice spot to sit on the bridge, where we spread out the contents to decide on our trades and take some photos. We both got a real kick out of the shrimp (sorry, I realize now it’s really a goldfish)! I took the purple Play-Doh to make room in the container—and because it’s purple—and I left the Flying Harry travel bug. Despite other cachers’ comments about him being “creepy” I found him rather handsome, and I was sorry to see him go. 
While Rich signed the logbook, I wandered around in search of abandoned buildings to explore. No luck at that time, but after rehiding the cache as best we could, we took a walk to the nearby railroad tracks and did discover an abandoned concrete tower from 1922. We also took a peek through the windows of the purple bistro. I was enticed by their claim to provide “The Best Lunch on Welwood Avenue” but alas, they were not yet open for the day.
Thanks for the chance to spend this beautiful morning exploring a new park, and for several unexpected adventures!
Zhanna
Howdy, C-I-T-H!
I didn’t think we’d get to do this cache for a few more days, but after reading Buzz’s log last night my interest was piqued and I figured we might still have a shot at a First Find. So Zhanna and I reconfigured our Saturday plans and decided on a day-trip to Pike County for a cache hunt, an NGS benchmark recovery, and some mountain biking in the Delaware S.F. near Promised Land S.P.
We arrived at the park in Hawley around 9:00am and began searching in the area of the posted coordinates. Signal reception under the trees seemed pretty decent, but I had a bad feeling when my GPSr was leading me about 30 feet out into the river! Since we didn’t quite know exactly what we were looking for (and we don’t normally decrypt the hints unless we’re desperate), we still searched carefully along the shore at the place where there was an obvious path. My geo-intuition, however, kept telling me this wasn’t right, so I moved back up and looked around at some of the more likely places in the flat open area.
I think we both went around in circles for another 10 minutes before expanding the search pattern considerably. I went one way while Zhanna went the other, and I just kept going and going until something finally caught my eye. At first it looked like trash laying right out in the open, but I bent down and took a closer look. Hmm, could this be the container?! I left it as it was, walked back to where Zhanna was still searching and told her that I thought I’d found the cache. I didn’t say where since I know she would want to find it on her own, as always. Within a few minutes she had the container in hand and we noticed that the scratches in the paint on the lid looked like small tooth or claw marks. Apparently it was placed in an animal’s den and the little fellow either didn’t like it there or thought there might be something good inside.
Anyway, the spot we found the cache was roughly 285 feet southeast of where the coordinates had originally lead us. I don’t normally like to say this but I am fairly well convinced that the posted coordinates are significantly off. Perhaps a couple of your numbers got transposed? At the actual cache site my GPSr was receiving 8 satellites, in addition to the WAAS signal, giving me a 3-D Differential reading with 12 feet estimated error. Here are the coordinates that I recorded (I will gladly remove them from my log if you prefer): N41°28.602′ W075°10.432′.
We went back to the car and sat near the bridge to sign the logbook and inspect the contents. Everything inside was fine, of course. I took the funny dancing shrimp (that’s what Zhanna said it was!) and left one of my cyclist’s key-“chains” as well as the “TriCan” Travel Bug. We spent some time taking photos while we returned the container to the spot where we found it, and re-hid it with a few sticks to secure it in place. Afterwards we walked up along the old Lackawaxen & Stourbridge railroad just to see how far the dike went.
A word of warning to future cachers to be extremely careful since there is plenty of poison ivy in the area, both the shrub and climbing vine varieties. Thanks for a very interesting cache hunt and a fun visit to a nice little park.
~Rich in NEPA~
