With BOK's 4-hour score (an event I look forward to every year) at Birkhead, I decided to take a peek at what geocaches exist in the wilderness. That's when I fell into the worm hole of the Birkhead Hiking Challenge. I decided to give it a go. A brief report with results is posted below.
Many thanks to Ranger Fox for putting together this challenge. I believe his statement that it would take someone at least 24 hours to finish is pretty accurate. For his part, Carl doesn't agree:
The fact that my old fat slow butt got half way thru birkhead in daylight means the whole thing in daylight would be possible for a strong Barkley runner.
We had a beautiful sunny and cool Saturday to play in Birkhead Mountains Wilderness. Many thanks to Joseph and Ruth for their hospitality and use of Gray Owl for basecamp and S/F. Only Carl Laniak joined me for this adventure. We managed to (mostly) stick together. Both of us chose not to use GPS for the entire outing. It was slower than expected.
The map sets with 0.1 minute grid worked really well for quickly plotting coordinates in the field. Carl and I found ourselves wishing for 1:10000 vs. 1:15000. But a larger scale wouldn't have likely saved us from our biggest blunders at caches 3 and 6, both incidentally on the Thornburg map.
As the sun quickly set, Carl and I split up. I tried to find cache 8 while Carl started on the long return journey to Gray Owl. Continuing the challenge in the darkness proved too daunting. After 12 hours, 28 miles and 4400' gain, I returned to Gray Owl with 7 of the 15 caches found and some unfinished business in Birkhead.
Splits: 1.) 1:10; 2.) 2:18; 3.) 3:44; 4.) 5:02; 5.) 5:36; 6.) 7:45 7.) 9:25 8.) DNF
As cool as it would've been to become the first person to do it in one push, I too quit half way. The main reason: in order to continue through the night, I thought that I would've had to resort to using GPS. This would've meant breaking from the unplugged aesthetic. It was a pretty easy choice.
This is not to put down the accomplishments of those challengers who do use GPS. They still have to trek 40-50 miles and find each cache within the ground zeroes. To me, BHC unplugged in one day would be very impressive. For those who try: beware the temptation of the crutch!
I'm grateful for Carl's company and his proclivity for the pure line. After investing 3+ hours worth of blunders to this dang aesthetic, you better be sure that I'm now committed to finishing it this way. Part 2 coming soon to a wilderness near you...
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