Looking into the Whale's Mouth

It was raining! Ok, it was a heavy mist. I think it is semantics! The weather report says we would have occasional showers. Right now it is more than occasional. Fortunately, Raley’s was open and had ponchos, hats and gloves! We stocked up for the hike to the cache. We were not going to let anything get in our way of finding this particular cache.

We did see occasional blue patches in the sky as we headed north from Ukiah. Hopefully some of those blue skies will be over the coast near the cache. Doesn’t matter, though. We will make this “walk” to the cache. We will be celebrating three things when we reach the cache: 1) Cynthia’s birthday (officially tomorrow); Geo-Jeeper’s 5600 find; and just the fact that we did it. We have been hearing about this cache (Looking into the Whale’s Mouth--GCKE5K) since the beginning and it is one of those “must do” caches to gain the respect of others who have completed the Northern California Delorme Challenge. We won’t let a little rain stop us. Hopefully, it will stop the Elk from creating a problem on the trail--one of those things frequently mentioned in the posts on the cache page.

We arrived at Needle Rock Museum and prepared for our hike. You should have seen us! If you look at the pictures, you can see how ridiculous we looked. We were all decked out in our rain ponchos when we started the trip. By the time we returned, we had shed all the rain gear and a few other layers of clothing.

It was a gorgeous hike. We thought it would be a quick in and out, but it wasn’t. The wild flowers were in full bloom and the elk were in abundance. We spent a lot of time pausing to take pictures. We were practically eyeball to eyeball with the elk and they were not the least bit afraid of us. I could say we weren’t afraid of them either, but we did worry about maintaining our distance. We did not want to deal with an elk charge.

Some of the time it was like we were in a rain forest. No, it didn’t really rain that much--just a lot of sprinkles. It’s just that the vegetation was lush and wet from the rain and the flowers were gorgeous. At times we were under trees crossing creeks and then we were in the full sun skirting past the elk. We probably took a lot more time than we needed.

When we arrived at the end of the trail, we still had to head downhill along an animal track for about 300 feet. Unfortunately, the animal track was not clearly marked. I guess the animals have chosen other routes through this area and the plants have grown over the trail. So we headed down the hill very carefully. If we slipped, we would actually be on the beach at the mouth of whale cove, but it was a long way down. We reached the exact spot of the cache and pulled out the rusted ammo can and signed the log. Of course, we had to take bunches of pictures. This was Geo-Jeeper’s (Cynthia & Mike’s) 5600th find and tomorrow is Cynthia’s 60th birthday. Plus, this took care of quad 62 of the Northern California Delorme Challenge. It was a great day for celebrations.

The hike back to our car took a little less time than the hike to the cache. We were concerned at one point that we might be a little delayed. As we approached one meadow, we discovered that a herd of elk had set up residency on and around the trail. They didn’t seem to care that we were there and they were in no hurry to move. So, we advanced slowly along the trail. A couple of them moved aside. A few others tried the old stare down. We kept a steady stream of conversation going and did a little picture taking while we moved through them. We wanted them to understand that we had no intention of hurting them as long as they didn’t hurt us. It wasn’t until we got back to the car that we saw the sign that said: “Wild elk! Danger! Do not approach on foot!” Un oh! I guess we were just plain lucky or they have gotten so used to people that they never considered us a threat. It really doesn’t matter. We arrived back at the car without a single elk mark on us.

Our main adventure for the day was over. We piled back in the car to make the long trek back to Roseville. We won’t get there until passed “wine time” and the boys in the front seat will be whining about that for a long time. Of course, the most important thing will be whether we will be able to move by the time we get to Roseville. The muscles are achy and starting to stiffen a little, but we had a great time the whole trip.