This past weekend was a fun and busy one.  My geocaching agenda was to hit three local caches all on the same conservation land between Outlook Reservoir and Falula Reservoir here in Fitchburg.  The Burkes joined us on Saturday for apple picking and geocaching, and I figured on trying to pick up any caches we didn't get to on the following day...

James looked over the cache listings in advance and we agreed to try to do Scott's Reserve and Teacher's Treasures, both located in the vicinity of the Scott Road trail.  But first off to Lanni Orchards, for apple picking.

Lanni Orchards

I love Lanni Orchards, especially around harvest time because there is so much rich beautiful color.  Yellow squash, orange and white pumpkins, leaves and stalks of many shades, and of course, gorgeous red apples.

We had a great time picking apples, and the kids had a blast.  We even found a pear tree with but one lone pear left, near the top.  We actually picked the pear, but I won't say how... only that the person who did so enjoyed the fruits of their labors. (And yes, they groaned at that pun too.)

As always when I go apple picking, I couldn't resist polishing up an apple fresh from the tree and munching it while we strolled from tree to tree.  It was sweet, juicy, and delicious.  There's really nothing like an apple fresh from the tree... except perhaps another apple fresh from the tree! *pick* *MUNCH* Mmmmm...

Before long the apple bags were full and of course, no longer in the hands of the kids.  So after paying we departed Lanni Orchards to seek our first geocache, Scott's Reserve.

Scott's Reserve -- Part One -- The Cellar Hole

We parked near the Helipad at Burbank Hospital in Fitchburg, and took a bearing on Scott's Reserve at the trailhead--0.95 miles... a respectable hike.

The trail was essentially flat and easy, not really steep at all, even though it went slightly uphill.  We passed a number of interesting sites on the way up: a huge old dead tree--entirely denuded of bark, a weird boulder with smaller stones stacked atop it, several old colonial stoneworked culverts and retaining walls to prevent runoff from washing out the trail, and a gigantic glacial deposit boulder.

James and I were getting good readings on our GPS units--we had visibility to almost 8 satellites at times.  With only 280 feet to go to the target, the GPS indicators suddenly swung to the left, indicating we needed to turn off the main trail.  Looking about we spotted a small footpath heading left.  Seemed fairly obvious, this was the way to Scott's reserve.

So we took the footpath and within a few minutes found ourselves at a beautiful old stone foundation with gorgeous stonework sunk about 4 feet into the forest floor.  There was a tree growing out of it!  The GPS units said we were more or less at the spot, but very quickly our search turned up nothing.  (You can rarely trust a GPS unit under treecover... it will get you basically to the right area, but interference with the satellite signals will cause your readings to drift around.)

We searched for a long time.  There were a number of very obvious hiding places, some less so, and then everything else.  After about an hour of searching we were well into "everything else" and pretty fed up with Scott's Reserve.  James covers the intial attempt on Scott's Reserve in thorough detail.

While James and I searched, Pat and Maggie took turns searching and entertaining the kids.  As dusk was fast approaching, there were a number of crepuscular creatures about, particularly toads.  There were little toads everywhere.  The kids got a real kick out of them.  Under a couple logs and rocks we found salamanders, and number of chipmunks scurried about the many rock walls than ran through the area.  Also, the Burkes saw a person on horseback ride by, but sadly I missed that.

Despite the frustration at not being able to find the cache, I think we actually had a good time.  At one point I noticed Maggie walking across some flat stones on the forest floor.  I went over to inspect them and noted that the one in the center (the biggest one) looked to have been recently disturbed.  When I stepped on it, it wobbled significantly, but when I reached down to look under it, I noted that it was very heavy... "This is way too heavy, it can't be under here." I said to myself.

It was getting darker in the woods, so we decided to move on to Teacher's Treasures and try our luck there.  But Scott's reserve was bugging me.

Teacher's Treasures

Returning to the main trail we hiked a little faster the remaining quarter mile to Teacher's Treasures.  This trail headed down the side of Flat Rock Hill and was therefore somewhat steeper.  The cache, we knew, was just over the other side of Scott Brook, right near Falula Reservoir and Falula Brook.

We descended quickly until we reached a footpath which headed left.  There was a symmetrical cairn there which we took as a clue to turn left.  Indeed, the GPS units seemed to agree, and before long we came upon Scott Brook.  I headed downstream slightly to look for a place to cross.  That's when I spotted the pumping station and Falula runoff pond you see depicted above.  Meanwhile James, eager to find the cache before we had to turn back, nimbly leapt across the brook and found the cache in about 30 seconds.  I was still putting my camera away when Pat called "Chuck, James found it!"

"Already???" I said.

The rocks to cross the brook were mossy and VERY slippery.  Eventually I decided to forgo the rocks and just jump across altogether... that worked out fine.

The cache was an old ice cream tub, and it had been picked over fairly extensively.  There wasn't much in the way of decent loot there... just "cache dregs" if there is such a thing.  James left a travel bug, and since I had recently stocked up on loot, I decided to replenish the cache from my supply.  I put in all sorts of things, and one truly bizarre item, a set of decorative faux-crystal grapes colored a deep royal blue.  Yeah it's bizarre, but I can't help smiling imagining what the next person who finds that cache is going to think when they see what is inside.

Going back we suddenly realized that the somewhat steeper downhill trail was now a steeper uphill trail.  Oy vey.  Hiking out was a lot of work, particularly for Pat and me, but we all made it eventually, passing the time with chatter and at one point song.  James and I sang "It's Not Unusual" for at least part of the hike.

Back at the cars, we sucked down some cold drinks and munched apples.  Then headed back to our house for take-out from Uno's and games.  I head steak and fries.  It was awesome.  Eventually we all got very tired and we bade the Burke's farewell on their long trip home.

I was exhausted.  I'm not in shape, and I had hiked about 2.5 miles roundtrip on that day alone, not counting the time spent wandering about seeking Scott's Reserve.  Having hiked earlier in the week to find Hartwell Bridge it occurred to me that geocaching was likely to get me into shape before long.

I watched a film James loaned me (Audition) and finally went to sleep at about 3 AM.

Scott's Reserve -- Part Two -- Well, Well, Well

On Sunday Pat was leaving at 10:30 AM to join her family for lunch at Pickety Place and I needed to drop 'Neya at a birthday party at 2 PM.  So I figured if I was going to do any caching, it was going to be in the early morning or the late afternoon.  Being a generally indecisive person, I ended up doing BOTH!

I got up at 6 AM, and decided to take another stab at Scott's Reserve.  This time I packed a flashlight in my bag for peering into cracks in stone walls and so forth.  I was a little scatterbrained from lack of sleep though, and didn't get out of the house until about ten past seven.

I took the same route as the previous day and hiked back up the trail, passing a mountain biker who was coming down.  After about 40 minutes of hiking I was back on the spot.  It was just before 8, and I figured I had until 9:30 before I would have to hike back down to be at home in time for Pat to make her luncheon date.  So I had about 90 minutes.  Given the hour we had searched the day before, I figured that would be plenty of time.

I didn't hold out much hope but I don't give up easily.  First I hopped back into the cellar hole.  Maggie had searched it very thoroughly the day before but didn't have a flashlight.  I marvelled at how thick the walls were and how deep and large the crevices in them were... but I found nothing except for a rusty colored baby toad that seemed to have made the cellar hole his home.  I  climbed back out and scouted around behind the cellar hole, checking spots that we might have missed yesterday, and ignoring spots we had already covered.

There were many rock walls in the area and I searched them all with my flashlight.  At one point I spotted a bright white plastic square partly covered in some leaves.  I thought I had found it but when I got closer it turned out to be an Audubon Sanctuary sign that had fallen off a tree and washed downihll in a rainstorm.  I explored in directions we hadn't tried the day before, each time eventually getting so far from the cellar hole that I said to myself "Why would the cellar hole be a clue if the cache were 100 yards away from it?"

By 8:55 AM I was running out of ideas until something under my foot wobbled.  I looked down and found myself standing on the big flat wobbly stone I had spotted the day before.  As I stepped off it tipped markedly.  I got closer and looked.  Sure enough it had definitely been disturbed recently, and not just from my poking around it the previous day.

"Screw it, " I said, "it's worth a look."  So I placed my feet on either side of it, leaned over grabbed a corner with both hands and pulled... it came up easily, but I stopped when I had it partway up because I wasn't positioned right.  I could see in the 3 inches that I had raised it that there was some sort of black space beneath it.  Could this really be the hiding spot of Scott's Reserve?  Had I finally found it?

Getting down on my knees on the open side, I wrestled the rock upright as a dank breath of musty air washed over me, and found myself leaning over and staring down into this:

I had uncovered a 2 foot by 2 foot by at least 20 foot deep well.  Using my flashlight I could see a little water at the bottom, but I couldn't tell how deep it was.  "Holy shit!" I said as I stared into it.  As I did so I became more and more alarmed.  These trails see traffic, people bring their kids up here.  What if someone fell into this thing way the heck out here?  They'd be all done.

In addition to the general sense of alarm, I also was somewhat disturbed.  Something about the well was bothering me, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  I didn't like looking into it... I had the odd feeling that someone was looking out at me.  It was probably just adrenaline and keyed up nerves coupled with being all alone out in the woods, but it was troubling.

I knew I had to cover this thing over immediately, and more securely than before.  The lid was very wobbly and didn't fit the opening of the hole neatly.  I propped it by putting a smaller rock underneath and then piling several more rocks over it.  I forgot all about the cache.  When I was done the stone was still wobbly, but not as bad as before, but I still had the creeped out feeling.  Checking my watch I saw that it was 9:28 AM.  I was out of time, but grateful to leave.

On the way down I passed a man in his forties jogging, and a little old lady walking her dogs.  But I couldn't stop thinking about the well, it was bugging me.  Eventually I called my wife and told her about it, and then I called James and told him about it.  But I knew the well couldn't be left alone.  Something needed to be done about it before someone got hurt.

After getting home I filed a report on geocaching.com asking the owners of the cache to confirm whether or not it was still there, and also warning everyone that there was a dangerous well right near the cache coordinates.  Then I brooded about the well.

Years of reading and writing spooky stories, and watching spooky movies makes for a predisposition to see the spooky in everything.  I quickly jotted down some rough verse:

Dark spaces in the earth
Dank and filled with ancient air
Enclosed--forgotten--for many seasons...
Dead places, even at birth
Imprisoned through the passing years
Those who close them have a reason.

But time burns memory to embers
And those reasons are forgot
But let there never be a doubt--
In those places, something remembers,
And waits there, sullen, angry, caught,
Woe to he who lets it out.

Don't peer into a stony crack,
Someone may be there, peering back.

Flat Rock Cache

After dropping 'Neya off at the party I went back up into the hills again, this time to find Flat Rock Cache.  This trail was much more sunny and open and for awhile I didn't think about the well.  Except once, when I saw this sign:

I made a mental note to call the North County Land Trust in the morning and warn them about the well.  Then I heard a ruffed grouse off in the woods somewhere... not singing, but drumming as such birds typically do.  That brought a smile to my face... it's not something I get to enjoy that often.

I passed a number of people hiking and riding mountain bikes, and at the top of the hill I found the most curious thing, a kitchen trashcan!  Written on the side was "hikers, please throw trash HERE".  It appeared to be seeing a lot of use.

Power lines pass over the top of flat rock, and from here there was a great view down to Falula Reservoir--right near where we had been the other day at Teacher's Treasures.  I followed the power lines in the opposite direction until I got close to the cache.  After about 15 minutes I found it, it was against a tree trunk next to a low yew tree, covered in sticks.

When I opened it I was surprised that the Freddy the Frog travel bug that I had expected to be there was gone!  In its place was the "Lightning Struck" travel bug, a small green soccerball which had a mission of travelling about being photographed at soccer games, fields, and stadiums. In checking the logbook I discovered that another cacher had been there only hours before!  Guess I just missed him!  I dropped off the travelbug that was in my possession and grabbed old lightning, then traded for a few small items, leaving behind another weird bunch of faux-crystal grapes and a few other items.

Before leaving I took a bearing on Scott's Reserve.  It was only 0.2 miles away, and I could get there by following the powerlines.  I idly considered heading over there and searching again.  I wandered a little way in that direction, almost walking through a spider web with a fat reddish spider in it.  Eventually the trail became steep and I decided not to go to Scott's Reserve.  I was convinced the cache was definitely gone, and I was in no hurry to go back there and look again unless I knew otherwise.

So I split.  On the way home, I stopped at a local athletic field and took an obligatory picture of Lightning Struck sitting on the bleachers.

Scott's Reserve -- Part Three -- Anxiety and Irony

Late that nite, I had an anxiety attack.  I couldn't stop thinking of some poor kid, or geocacher, or passerby stumbling into that well.  James was chatting with me on AIM, trying to calm me down, when suddenly he said "Dude!  Check it out!"  Apparently the cache owner had seen the post I had made early that morning, and had added this note:

 September 26 by randomblitz(12 found)

As the originators of the cache, we visited the site today and confirmed that the cache is now missing. For those that did try to find it and could not - it was located on the far right, rear area of the cellar hole. It was behind a double-tree, covered by bricks and small rocks. We also found the well today that the previous geocacher reported to be buried under several larger rocks. We completely agree that it is not a safe area for caching with this discovery. We are archiving this site and will create a new cache soon in a beautiful area of Ashburnham that we discovered on an afternoon hike - about 5-6 miles from this location. Hope you'll come visit our new cache soon. :)

We weren't doofuses after all, the cache really was missing.  Further, the owners decided not to replace it based on my warning.  James soothed my jittery nerves by pointing out what a good thing this was--now geocachers wouldn't be poking around in the area--and we talked about various ways the well could be rendered harmless.

It occurred to me that the owners were likely at the cache site the same time that I was up at Flat Rock.  It struck me as ironic and amusing that I had decided against hiking the 0.2 miles from Flat Rock to Scott's Reserve without word from the cache owners, but if I had made the hike, I probably would have run into them!

Scott's Reserve -- Part Four -- Taking Action

The next day I called the North County Land Trust but only got an answering machine.  I left a message and then sent them a detailed e-mail... which bounced... their mailbox was full.  I began to doubt if I was going to get any help from them, so I tried (at James' suggestion) the Massachusetts Environmental Police.

This time I spoke to a person who directed me to call my local police department.  So I then called the Fitchburg police and explained to the dispatcher about the well.  The dispatcher said I should speak to the captain, and put me through to his voicemail.

He called me back on my cellphone and said I should call the North County Land Trust.  I told him about the answering machine and the bounced e-mails, and he said "I know the person in charge over there, I'll contact her myself."  He went on to tell me how much he loved the trail system up that way, and how he often jogged it in the morning.  I began to wonder if the healthy looking older man I had seen jogging on Sunday was the captain.

Later that afternoon I got a call from the director of the North County Land Trust.  When I described the location to her she was familiar with the old foundation there.  She told me it dated back to 1820, when the area was a farming settlement.  She had not known about the well but told me that those woods were dotted with wells and cisterns, many of which have been filled in as they are found.  She recounted to me of an emergency effort staged a few years ago to retrieve a dog which had fallen into a cistern up that way.

She also told me that the portion of the woods I was in was maintained by the Audubon Society, and they would therefore, need to address the well.  She said she would call them and pass along my information.

I was starting to feel a lot better.  I had been afraid that the well would be forgotten in bureaucracy, but everyone seemed to be taking it seriously.

On the following day I received a call from the Central/Western Region Property Manager of Mass Audubon.  His name was also Chuck!  He told me that he had just filled in a large well a few miles from where I had been.  After describing the situation to him I agreed to meet him at 9:15 AM on Wednesday (today) to show him where the well was.

I told Pat the good news and she said "I'm proud of you Chuck... another person might have just closed it up and walked away.  I think you're doing the right thing chasing after it like this."  That made me feel pretty special. My wife is a wonderful person, and I can't tell you how lucky I am to be with her.

Scott's Reserve -- Part Five -- Last Visit

This morning after dropping Lynnea off at school I drove over to Burbank Hospital again to meet Chuck.  He showed up right on time, and we drove up the trail together in his Mass Audubon 4WD pickup truck.  When we got within 0.2 miles, we parked and hiked in the rest of the way, letting the GPS guide us.

He was very interested in the GPS unit, apparently Mass Audubon doesn't own many of them.  I told him that in his line of work, it would probably be very useful to have one.

Eventually we got to the site and he marvelled at the foundation.  He explained to me that it was clearly a piece of precision engineering and proven by how long it had remained.  He wondered aloud at how people back in the early 1800's had managed such a feat, particularly when some of the foundation stones were quite huge.

Then I showed him the well and we cracked it open.  This time, it didn't bother me at all.  It was just a hole in the ground.  When we lifted the cover, one of the stones I had used to prop it slid into the well with a loud clatter and a thunk as it hit bottom.  "Well I can tell it's deep, just from that sound." he said.

Finally the well was open and I snapped a few pictures of it while he looked it over, again admiring the stone work.  He remarked that the one he had filled the previous week had been a little wider, but only 8 feet deep.  This was much deeper.

Once he had seen enough we covered it back over again, and I could tell he knew what he was doing because he managed to get the cover stone on so that it wouldn't wobble.

"I almost hate to fill it in, seeing how nice the workmanship is.  I'd much rather cap it." he said.  "Besides, if I was going to fill it, I would probably have to use stones from these rock walls around here, and I'd hate to do that."

I suggested a cement cap, and he said there was a cement reinforced steel cap that could be installed that would allow them to lock the well with a padlock, but open it again later if, for example, a historian wanted to study it.

"Ultimately it's up to my boss whether we fill it or seal it, " he said, "but we'll take care of it right away, and at least put a fence around it in the meantime."

As we walked back to the truck, he thanked me for calling attention to the well, and gave me a well worn guidebook to Massachusetts sanctuaries as a parting thank you gift.  In return I gave him a topo map I had printed of the area, and promised to e-mail him the pictures I had taken of the foundation and the well.

All in all, a satisfying end to the story.  So there you have it.  When you're out in the woods... watch your step.  You might be standing over a 20 foot drop without knowing it.

• Scott's Reserve
• Teacher's Treasures
• Flat Rock Cache