GC1N3K2 Traditional Cache Archie Smith 1907
Type: Traditional | Size: Micro Micro | Difficulty: 2 out of 5 | Terrain: 3 out of 5
By: pauleefox @ | Hide Date: 02/26/2009 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N38° 48.295 W108° 25.867 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0
Parking available  Horses 
Cache is located at the old garnet mine on the Dominguez canyon trail.
Lower trailhead is accessed by taking Bridgeport Lane off US Hwy 50 and following it to the end. From there it is a ten-mile round trip on the well-maintained trail to the cache site. It is a much shorter hike to the cache from the upper trailhead at the Domingues Campground on Cactus Park. Access only by foot and horseback. If you see the cache namesake etched in the rock, the cache is quite near. The day the cache was placed we saw a golden eagle sitting in a tree, 15 bighorn sheep, numerous small birds and lizards, ducks and geese on the river and several ravens doing aerial acrobatics against a clear blue sky. The canyon was devoid of humans except for myself and Mossy Mary, my hiking buddy. What a fine February day it was!!!!!!
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Don't get the cart before the mule.

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 Logs

5 Logs: Found it 2  Didn't find it 1  Write note 2  

Found it 07/15/2018 By BG2015
Finally made it in to this one today, extremely dry and a long way in. Round trip ended up being 12.5 miles to parking area. Big Dominguez was totally dry except for one spring and some salty irrigation water right at the mouth. Be prepared if you go. Heat exhaustion was setting in by the time I made it to the irrigation ditch. No animals in sight and I can't blame them, probably moved on to wetter grounds (if they can find it). Very sore, but enjoyed all the petroglyphs and mining artifacts, and copper minerals in the area. Cache was right where it should be and only had 9 or 10 names on the log since 2010. Thanks for the adventure.

Found it 05/22/2018 By trometo
Tftc Awesome Cache
Hummer Honeys ??

Didn't find it 07/19/2015 By ermudphud
GPSr put me right on top of the old mining cart. I figured it was attached to the cart somewhere but I did everything but turn the cart upside down but I didn't find it. Cool location. Nice long, hot hike up from the river. I stopped to soak in several little swimming holes in the creek on the way back down.

Write note 04/11/2015 By kekj
We started up this way with a group of kids last fall but quickly realized it was beyond their "attention span" so stopped at "Searching for Bighorn" although we did make a stab at Little Dominguez Arch but had to DNF it. Left Dominguez Camp as added incentive to come back and get Quartz rock and Archie Smith.

Attempted that today, key word - ATTEMPTED! We got a late start and made it to Quartz Rock for a find but were fast running out of both steam and daylight so gave it up after already having gone 4.6 mi and only 1.4 to go to get Archie Smith! We had hoped to clear our DNF at Little Dominguez Arch also but by the time we got back to that area all we could think of was food and a soft seat! Very disappointed - we were.

We set several caches along the way to create more incentive for others to make that long trek back up in here but will have to come back no matter what to get Little Dominguez Arch as we now have an exact location on from the CO as well as permission to set a new cache if we still can not find it. Turns out we DID look in the right spot but still could have missed it.

As for Archie Smith? We will think long and hard about that one before making the attempt again - but we WILL - and may try for it from the top side?

Write note 04/13/2013 By gjhiker
Signed the log again, for the third time! The cache is in great shape. Nice day for a hike to the mine and back. We saw no Big Horn Sheep but did see six back-packing parties!