1st Blossburg Geocache Event!

Hey Geocachers! I just wanted to let you all know that I've put together a small geocache event for Blossburg VIBE and it will be starting this Friday, May 23, 2008.

You may or may not know, the Blossburg State Coal Festival is this weekend (actually starting on Wednesday) and Blossburg VIBE wanted to try something fun and original to coincide with the festival.

And...the 1st Blossburg, PA Geocache Hunt featuring historic locations around Blossburg was born!

This is our first geocache event and we have only 3 caches, just to kind of test the waters. If things go smoothly, we hope to do another, larger event in the fall that would include locations in Blossburg, as well as Fallbrook and Landrus.

If you're not interested yet, we also have a few prizes to offer from some great sponsors! Wild Asaph Outfitters (Wellsboro, PA) has donated gift certificates, coupons and free rental tickets, Angelina's Pizza (Blossburg, PA) has donated gift certificates and Blossburg VIBE has furnished their awesome personalized water bottles - each cache will be contained in one of these bottles, while there will be a second bottle attached as a prize! (I will also be randomly placing more "prize" bottles on the caches after Memorial Day weekend/the other prizes are gone).

So, get on over to Blossburg for some geocaching and the State Coal Festival. For more information on the geocaching and coordinates, please visit:

http://www.blossburg.org/geocache

New Forest Sign Vandalism

(please click on image to see it larger!)

Landrus is no stranger to sign vandalism (or other vandalism) - see my previous post about this other sign at Landrus.

This is the latest. I was out doing some maintenance on my portion of the Mid State Trail and taking some GPS readings on foundations when I found this sign ripped out of the ground. It marks (or marked) the split on the old rail grade between the Mid State Trail and the road up to the former location of the Landrus mines.

As I came upon it from down the trail it looked like a tree had fallen on the sign. On further close inspection however, it has clearly been pulled out of the ground (unless, it just happened to fall over due to the moisture in the ground, but I, doubt it...). Close views of the hole (below, left) and sign (above, right) both how they were found. I managed to stand the sign up and prop it up on a tree between the split in the trail, so if you're out there on the trail, you'll know where you're going...

Beaver Fever!

Sometime between late last fall and early this spring, beaver(s) have moved in to Landrus. Now, I have heard and read plenty of stories about beaver from the old days of town, but never in my 6 odd years at Landrus have I seen so much beaver activity!

The beavers have chewed down a large number of small trees as far upstream as the waterfall about my baptismal hole. There is a HUGE new network of beaver trails, some I will certainly use as part of my trail system, but overall their whole setup is just a bit excessive. I was impressed, yet worried when I saw that they had gobbled up the tops of every single briar between the falls and their mound.

I'm also not too sure about their choice of location for their damn/home/mound thingee. It's right at the mouth of a very narrow section with small rapids. So far, it is only extending about a third of the way into the creek, but I'm watching it! The photo at the top was taken about 2 months ago. The other photo of the same location below (with my husband) was taken a week ago and the mound is clearly growing. (the other photo in the middle shows the gouged "trail" to the mound on the creek bank)