The Visitors Center of the Roan Mountain State Park. An easy 0.4 mile trail from the Center will lead you to the Peg Leg Mine.

A Treasure Hunt with GPS Coordinates

The High Country of NC is located very close to the Tennessee state line.  Today we spent some time geocaching in Tennessee’s Roan Mountain State Park.  Although best known for its beautiful fields of rhododendrons, the Roan Mountain State Park has a lot more to offer.

For those uninitiated in the world of geocaching, it’s a wonderful outdoor activity for individuals and family members of all ages. It’s a treasure hunt using GPS coordinates.  The hidden “caches” vary in size from micro (think old-fashioned film container) to macro (large ammo box).  Each container will have at least a log book to record your visit and, depending on the size, room for trade-able items such as pins, coins, small toys, etc.  It’s customary if you take an item from the box, to leave another behind. “Travel Bugs” are items with serial numbers that are meant to be moved from site-to-site.  We love travel bugs, but they are rare.

Playing this world-wide game is fun, easy and free.  Go on-line to http://www.geocaching.com, create a name for yourself, family or partner and look up the area you’d like to search.  A zip code entry will help you get started.  There are literally thousands of hidden caches and they are all over the world, in both urban and very remote areas.  You simply enter the coordinates you find on-line in a handheld GPS unit, (including one from your car) or a smart phone (download the app for free).  The one downside of using a smart phone when you are out on a trail, is that if you lose reception, you will literally be clueless.  In an area with good service, a smart phone can direct you to hidden caches near your current location.

Enterprising players can also hide caches for others to find.  Today, thanks to the Trailbreaker team, we had a nice assortment to look for.  They have gotten permission from the park service to place their caches throughout the Roan Mountain State Park and have done an excellent job with their clues and with keeping their sites maintained.  It was a rare treat for us to actually meet them just after we found one of their hidden treasures.

I promise when you geocache you will find out interesting information and see things you never saw before (even if you’ve driven by dozens of times).

Happy hunting!

The entrance to the abandoned Peg Leg iron mine.

Entrance to The Miller Farmstead property, home to multi-generations of a hardworking mountain farming family.

A typical hidden cache, in a camo-wrapped disguised box. We pulled this out to demonstrate, but generally, they are hidden behind rocks, under leaves, tucked in crevasses, hanging from a branch, concealed in a log, or sometimes placed in a magnetized container and stuck behind something metal. You will have to look!