Pagoda Peak

10/21/2015 By jborde_MI
About 6 months ago when I decided I was going elk hunting in the area, I spotted this cache and it’s always been on my mind. Can I get there, will there be time, will the weather be good enough, etc?
I picked a day to take a break from the hunt and hike there first thing in the morning hoping to be back around lunch and then hunt the rest of the day. Well that morning we were greeted with several inches of snow, so I hunted instead. By the afternoon most of that snow was gone and once again it was near 70 degrees. I decided that if we didn’t get more snow over night I was going to go for it in the morning. Good thing I did because the next afternoon a storm moved in and we got about 8 inches of snow.
From my research it looked like my best bet was to hike up from the east, boy was I wrong. After navigating my way around the cliffs near the top I was able to find a spot that I felt I could climb up. I was 120’ from the cache and almost gave up, sure glad I didn’t as once on top I found a much easier way down on the other side which also was the direction in which I approached the peak from anyways. Once I crested the cliff I put my stuff down on the geo-beacon without even thinking about it because I was over taken by the view. Once rested and after taken in the views I looked for the cache and found after a short search. The view was amazing from the top, even on the cloudy day I was there. This is one I will never forget and a favorite for sure.
Thanks to Denali41 for replacing the container, cache is in great shape.
TFTC!

08/29/2013 By Denali41
I’ve wanted to make the hike in for this cache for a long time, but other priorities/activities kept pushing the timing further and further into the future. I finally settled on a multi-purpose trip to NW Colorado that would provide a time slot for getting up Pagoda Peak. Forty-one years ago a couple of friends and I bow hunted for elk a couple of miles west of Pagoda, driving up the then-primitive jeep road to Sand Peak. We camped there for several days and had a blast. I kept looking over at the unusual profile of Pagoda, vowing that someday, someday, I’d return and specifically make the hike up and see if I could find a safe way to the very top. Well, without this cache, that vow would certainly have been broken. But because of the cache, it became a recurrent theme on my mind, yet it still took time to make it happen. I was a bit discouraged by the report by gjhiker, the only previous finder, that the container had been smashed, and a long while ago I wrote the CO indicating that I’d be happy to take a replacement to the location. I never heard back, but I need to assume that it would be OK to do the replacement so this great location will continue supporting a geocache. For the backcountry caches that I own, I always hope that cache-seekers will repair or replace any cache that is damaged or has gone missing. So I took that philosophy with me to the top of this fine peak.

Once there, I searched diligently and came up with no evidence of the cache. The glass shards noted by gjhiker were probably carefully picked up by him and taken down the mountain. I took photos of the benchmark and the memorial sign, and then looked for a place to hide the replacement. I decided against the actual summit cairn area, because muggles could damage it if left so close to their activity zone. I finally settled on a place a short distance away from the previous location, to provide the cache with some “privacy”. I hid the small container (a quart-sized glass jar wrapped in duct tape) northwest of the peak’s cairn, beneath the lip of a large solitary boulder that is very easy to spot from the summit, at N 40 08.390 W 107 20.019. My GPSr was acting up a bit, but I suspect these coordinates are close. A photo of the hide location is included with this log, and its locational cues are spot-on! The container is covered with small stones to keep rodents from gnawing on the tape. Please cover it after you’ve signed the cache log, and be careful not to put heavy rocks on it that can break the glass. This container is very durable, and the location should keep non-cachers from disturbing it. Pagoda Peak cache should have a long life. It’s very deserving of the attention of backcountry cachers. The spot is a lovely location, and the work getting there and returning to your vehicle is worthy of your proclamation of very positive accolades. Thanks, aerislitigo, for providing us with a cache at this marvelous location! It’s a special one that I’ll always remember.

07/13/2010 By gjhiker
A beautiful hike to a wonderful summit with spectacular 360 degree views! After extensively searching the area around the indicated benchmark and snowmobiler cross at the summit all we could find left of the cache was a few shards of the container. The logbook has apparently gone missing; probably blown away by the persistent winds we experienced while on the summit. We missed reading the unique stories in the log. Many thanks for getting us to a place we would have never found if it weren't for geocaching!

This entry was edited by gjhiker on Friday, 16 July 2010 at 07:19:55.

09/18/2009 By BlueRajah
Published