It’s hard to resist a cache that marks a point where three states come together, in this case New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
This nearby “Witness Monument” witnesses the location of two points: This tri-point and the corner boundary point between New York and Pennsylvania in the Delaware River.The monument is located at the confluence of the Delaware and Neversink rivers.
On the way to the Tri-State Monument we passed the highest elevation in the state of New Jersey. A monument dedicated to New Jersey’s veterans has been placed there.
This monument in High Point Park marks New Jersey’s highest elevation, 1803 feet above sea level.
New Jersey’s Oldest Geocache
“gerbiL cacHe” is New Jersey’s oldest and is located near Mahwah, NJ in the 4000-acre Rampao Valley County Reservation.
The Reservation offers many hiking trails. Many of them started near this lake.The elevation gain wasn’t great, as hikes go, but it was all uphill. Here is a “W” tree. We used a “4” tree as a landmark on our way to Virginia’s oldest cache. Wonder if we’ll get through the alphabet and numerals.View from an overlookWe knew the GPS coordinates weren’t exact but we knew we should be looking in this general area. We thought the cache was probably hidden on the far side of these rocks, but there were a lot of possible hiding places.Jane’s path took her by a garter snake. It slipped into a hole under a nearby rock and Jane passed by, allowing as much distance as possible. A few minutes later she wanted to go by “Snake Rock” again but the snake was out sunning itself. Jane tossed a stick about a foot in front of the snake, expecting that the snake would retreat. Instead, the snake moved TOWARD the stick–and Jane. Jane ceded the territory. In the meantime, Jane found this pretty patch of vegetation growing among the rocks.And on a tree in the area, some shelf fungus.
While Dave looked for the cache a few yards away, Jane continued exploring the area the snake had inadvertently assigned her. She saw a possible hiding place in the rocks above her but she couldn’t get to it without confronting the snake so she waited till Dave got within earshot and had him investigate what ended up being the cache location. He had to stretch out on his belly to reach this one.
Dave with the contents of the cache containerThere is a split tree just to the left of Dave’s head. The split tree was in the cache owner’s hint and it still took us half an hour to locate the cache! (You can see the split tree from the top of the rocks in the picture before the snake.) With Dave’s help, Jane found a route up the rocks that kept her a safe distance from the snake, and we were soon on our way back to the truck.
Connecticut’s Oldest Geocache
We left the Ramapo Reservation and drove 45 miles across three states (New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut) to the Bartlett Arboretum and Gardens in Stamford, Connecticut to find Connecticut’s oldest cache. This time the hike was only a few hundred feet with no substantial elevation gain. The cache was hidden in an old stone wall.
We even had a bridge on which we could cross this pretty stream.Dave found a frog on the way to the cache.This cache owner used TWO ammo boxes.We think this is the 25th state in which we’ve found the oldest cache.
New Jersey’s Volcano
Yes, New Jersey has a volcano. It’s the Beemerville Volcano, known locally as Rutan Hill near Colesville. The volcano dates to about the time the Appalachian mountains were starting to form 440 million years ago.
Volcanos that have been extinct for 400 million years look like hills.
August 4, 2022 Vermont’s oldest geocache was closer to our campground near Albany, New York than our campground near Montpelier, Vermont so we treated it separately from other Vermont geocaches. Besides, it was harder to Read more…
1 Comment
Elane · March 20, 2023 at 11:47 am
Loved the stories and photos!!