Cache Creek, 02 December 21, 2011

I’m a couple of weeks behind in writing the text for this post. Unfortunately I haven’t returned to this creek in the meantime. The name has perhaps also changed: to Secret Creek from Cache Creek, further degeneratable to Secreek or Sea Creek (C Creek? or just Creek?). The picture at the bottom of the first photo post on this creek represents, as stated, a type of gathering point for parties wishing to explore the more exciting areas just further downstream. Let’s talk a look ourselves now at some of these areas.

The creek slowly begins to pick up speed as we get beyond the gathering place. Rocks become more common along the bottom…

… leading to perhaps the largest single drop of water on the creek, as yet unnamed. Hard to take a nice picture of it, though, because of all the rhododendron. Cut it all down? Nah, of course I can’t do that.

Very interesting, larger white rock just below the drop. I’ve sat at this spot several times now, contemplating the meaning of the stream, the region. Contemplation Rock?

The stream basically stops flowing just beyond this rock, and the backup somehow creates these interesting parallel white lines of suds in the middle of it. Almost like lettering of some sort.

The 3 pictures below are taken at another significant location along the creek after a horseshoe bend beyond Contemplation Rock and accompanying still pool. Rocks line both sides of the creek, as well as the bottom. Again I don’t yet have a name for the mini-canyon, but I sense it is a center of energy still. A tributary enters Secret Creek from the left just before the passage begins (not pictured), perhaps its first well defined one counting from the source. In the hike from the day before, I found there were at least 3 tributaries entering Secret Creek along its length, none approaching the size of the main stream.

A flat, reddish rock almost appears to act as a warning about the difficult passage directly ahead, and to take heed.

I discovered that by far the easiest way to get through it myself is to just walk over the jagged rocks lining its bottom…

… quickly leading to another, larger rock beside which the stream pretty much stops its flow again, seeming to need rest after all the prior excitement, once more.

I can’t wait to go back another day for more pics, hopefully when the sun is shining. Also perhaps to create a rough map, like I did with Norris before.

Cache Creek, 01

Amazing new find in Frank Park near my Blue Mountain home base: Cache Creek (warning: creek name subject to change).

Length: Probably about 2 Norris’, or about 1/3rd of a mile. Very complicated, however, for its length, again somewhat like Norris.

The below picture actually comes from more toward the mouth of the creek, near where a famous road runs over it. I thought the effect of the stick in the creek here worthy of blog inclusion.

But to back up, we start near the head of Cache Creek, in a rather large meadow averaging about 3600 feet in elevation, and covering around a quarter of a square mile in area.

I didn’t get a good picture of it this day, but that rock pile on the side of the hill actually makes a smiley face. Not very profound, but certainly worth a mention. The figure doesn’t show up on Bing Maps, in checking that source right now. Must be of fairly recent origin, then.

Then in the sw corner of the meadow, we have the actual beginning of magical Cache Creek. That brown leaf in the water looks like a frog, but isn’t. Curiously, perhaps, I *did* see a frog jump into this small pool upon my approach. Let me check again — no, it’s a leaf. Isn’t it? The whole pool topography is a little curious, actually, with crystal clear water, mud cliffs dotted with tiny white, projecting rocks, and also mysterious underwater holes. The large, moss covered rock in the center of this picture almost seems like some kind of alter placed at the head of the creek. Will have to return here to take more pictures another day.

More mysteries: a row of white rocks helps to highlight a faint path from the meadow’s edge to a point a little further down the creek from its head, a natural ford.There were about 6 rocks lying equidistant from each other on this path.

The ford at the creek. A strong theme of this creek is: white rocks. Bunches and bunces of ’em.

I was surprised in my initial visit to this flat upstream area to find the large, jutting rock pictured below. I now see it as part of the overall magic that such an out-of-place seeming stone would appear here.

There is considerable sand along the creek as well in spots.

Below is pictured a percieved energy center with lots of sandy areas wedged between the creek and a swampy, undrained region to its south. Difficult to take a good snapshot here, though. One of those “another day” projects, once more.

Cache Creek, 02

Carcassonne December 20, 2011

“You can do whatever you want to, baker b., it’s your blog.”

Carcassonne:

“I am that stream.”

bb:

Hi guys.

Carcassonne (repeating):

The stream is I.

Hucka D.:

Ask her some questions, baker b., if you wish.

bb:

Thanks. Carcassonne…

Carcassonne:

Yes?

bb:

First off, thanks once more for appearing on the Baker Blinker Blog here.

Carcassonne:

My blog.

bb:

OK.

Carcassonne:

I will ask questions to you. Thank you, Hucka D. and baker b. for inviting me into your house.

Hucka D.:

OK, that works for me. Thanks to you and you both. Thank you Carcassonne and thank you baker b.

bb:

Yes.

Carcassonne:

Are you Baker… um, I am… I am…

bb (proferring):

Anderson and Faulkner?

Hucka D.:

She isn’t sure who she is. This is her stream, her blog, her even typing the words we write about her.

Carcassonne:

I am those words.

bb:

Is she unformed?

Carcassonne:

I am Carcassonne. You found me both yesterday and today. I am the stream. I am the blog. I am these words.

—–

MISSISSIPPI. This must be Norris. I AM THE GREATEST. Norris is the greatest. NO. I AM FILLED WITH WHITENESS. Rocks, you mean. NO. YES. I WAS WRONG. You were channeling? YES. I WAS WRONG. TELL THEM THAT. Well, it’s an amazingly beautiful stream just chocked full of white rocks. [no answer] The most challenging part was when I heard the road [to the south] but couldn’t quite reach it; had to double back on my trail toward the end, which I almost never do. I’m quite intuitive in the open woods usually. [no answer] That place with the cascades between the rock, do you know what I’m talking about? [no answer] There I will build a town. I will call it…

Cache Creek. December 19, 2011

Red square containing, I believe, the entire length of newly discovered and explored Cache Creek — a secret until now, if you will — is 2500×2500 feet, or not even quite .25 square miles. Yet what a lot packed into this 1/4th square mile (!). One of the more amazing streams I’ve hiked in my local territory for certain. More mystical than newly crowned NORRIS? In ways, yes. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera along for this remarkable, rhododendron choked walk, but it might have been for the best given I had absolutely *no* room for error along the way, as it turned out.

Creating a separate sub-category for this stream now… will perhaps return tomorrow for some pics. Another incredible 2011 hiking find, which keep piling up. First Quartz Brook, then Brook 2, then Green Oz Creek and Tinsity, then NORRIS, and now Cache. Is this the best of the lot?

Below I point to the location of Cache Creek on my wall sized map of Frank Park hung in my basement study.