GC46GG6 Overview of an Overlooked Toponym--Eggers
Type: Traditional | Size: Small | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: Denali41 @ | Hide Date: 01/22/2013 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N40° 41.611 W105° 30.642 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0
             

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CONGRATULATIONS TO icezebra11 FOR FTF!!!

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An act of Congress in 1912 set aside 1,600 acres of National Forest land for use by Colorado A&M College (now CSU) as a forestry campus. In August 1914 the Colorado A&M President, the head of the college’s Forestry Department, and the National Forest Supervisor set out in a Stanley Steamer up Buckhorn Canyon on the first 30 miles of a journey to what is now Pingree Park, CSU’s summer forestry and environmental research facility and conference center. They completed their journey to Pingree Park in a horse-drawn wagon over Pennock Pass. These gentlemen selected the 1,600-acre tract for the campus.

Pingree Park needed a good road for access; a route from Poudre Canyon to Pingree was clearly the optimal one. It was surveyed and constructed in the early 1920s. The construction began with a log bridge across the Poudre River. As the road was pushed through, the area in the vicinity of the bridge became appealing as a stop-over/refueling location. The “town” of Eggers was born here in 1922, when Fred and Alma Eggers received a Forest Service lease to build a home, store, and a gas filling station. A U.S. Post Office opened at the site in 1926, and a one-room school was built as a WPA project in 1933, made of logs cut in the Chambers Lake area. Jesse Ault was the first teacher. He lived in a cabin along the Pingree Park Road, arose at 6 AM each morning, and drove many miles in his Model T Ford to Pingree Park to pick up school children and take them back down the road to the canyon and the school. The school remained open until 1956, when a more modern school was built up-canyon at Old Poudre City. The old log schoolhouse at Eggers was also relocated to Old Poudre City, where for many years it was used for storage. In 2011 the board of Old Poudre City decided to clean the schoolhouse out and turn this one-room structure into a museum of Poudre Canyon history. A treasure trove of school-related historical documents and objects was discovered in the old building! The museum opened in August 2011, with plans to host visitors each summer thereafter.

At its peak development, Eggers’ full complement was its store, gas filling station, post office, school, and 12 residences–all on a 99-year lease with the U.S. Forest Service. In 1941 the Forest Service rescinded the lease, requiring the buildings to be removed for a road-widening project. The buildings were razed and the post office was closed in 1944, leaving only the schoolhouse and certain residences. All that remains of Eggers today is an old house foundation!

POUDRE CANYON FROM CACHE LOCATION

So that’s an “overview” of a now “overlooked” bit of Colorado history. This cache provides a different “overview” of Eggers: it’s located at the summit of Point 7643, a Ranked Peak of Larimer County. This summit serves as a commanding “overlook” of Poudre Canyon and the highway and river which course a steep 800 feet below the cache site. The views from this overlook are awesome. The former Eggers site is at the immediate eastern base of this mountain adjacent to Colorado Highway 14.

Be prepared for a fairly steep hike, and be mindful of the prickly pear cacti that are intent on making your hike miserable. You won’t see other people from the time you depart your vehicle until you return to it, so leave information on your plans with someone before you undertake this mission. Be careful, and enjoy this cache-finding experience. Bring a pen or pencil to sign the cache log.

01/01/2016 By Denali41
I received a Happy New Year e-mail from Geocaching HQ! It came in at 11:31 AM this morning and informed me that it “looks like this cache might need attention”. The e-mail referred me to cache logs so I would know what kind of attention this cache “needs”. It’s comical. There are two logs–the nice FTF log, and a DNF log that actually is not a DNF log at all. It was posted by an inactive geocacher who wrote: “Had to pass it up, as nature was calling.” So a guy driving down Poudre Canyon searching for an outhouse passed the cache up–or was he referring to passing the old town of Eggers that this cache is all about–the town that no longer exists and has no active toilets? He must have passed that up, too.

He’s fortunate that he didn’t try for the cache, given his circumstance of the “call of nature”. From parking, it requires an hour to an hour and one half ascending steep, challenging terrain to reach the cache area, and then there’s the search. And there’s no toilet paper in the cache container. He would have been out of luck, had he been able to hold out for 1 ½ hours: no toilet, no toilet paper. Oh my, what a mess...

Geocaching HQ gave me three options for this cache: maintain it per the information in the logs; disable it; or archive it. I conscientiously maintain my caches when there is any suggestion of a specific maintenance need, and have taken many all-day hikes to check on single backcountry caches that I own. In the case of this cache, there is certainly no identified need to make a special effort to check on it at this time. The cache is in an indestructible container that is placed so it is not susceptible to movement by animals or fire or rain/snow. It’s in a location muggles don’t reach. The cache is certainly in perfect condition and in its proper place. That’s my maintenance note.

Many of my caches are backcountry placements, hidden for the few adventurous cachers who delight in finding lonely caches that require lots of work–the type of caches I and some others particularly enjoy and specifically seek out. They are expected to be found very infrequently, but when they are, these jewels bring a geocaching “high” to the finder.

This cache is certainly there and waiting to be found. But don’t count on any toilet paper in the container. Happy New Year.

04/04/2014 By PoudreHiker
Had to pass it up, as nature was calling.
Poudre Hiker

03/30/2013 By icezebra11
{FTF} on another cool cache from Denali41! This was a fairly strenuous climb. I chose to park east of the cabin, make a short climb to the north to the ridge, and then follow the ridge to the west. As it says on the cache page, there is a lot of cactus on the way up. But once you are there, wow, what a view! Thanks Denali41.

02/24/2013 By Alpine Reviewer
Published