GC2GD16"Brown" Mountain
Type: Mystery
| Size: Other
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By: Denali41@
| Hide Date: 10/02/2010
| Status: Available
Country: United States
| State: Colorado Coordinates: N40° 57.541 W105° 37.994 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0
CONGRATULATIONS TO Micmac hunter FOR FTF!!In 2007 Denali Queen and I joined my puppy Teewinot for a hike up Green Mountain in northern Larimer County. The mountain was clothed in wonderful, healthy green conifers at the time of our hike, and the forest floor was carpeted with a rich understory of green plants. It was truly a “green” mountain at the time of the 2007 hike. By October 2010 no aspect of this ranked peak could be considered green. The coniferous overstory has essentially all been killed by the bark beetle infestation, and the former green ground vegetation has been smothered by a thick carpet of dead, brown needles. So on this occasion, Silver Trekker, my puppy Teewinot, and I hiked up a “brown” mountain.
Green Mountain (elevation 9,245 feet) consists of a long ridge that has several “bumps” of almost equivalent elevation. The cache sequence begins near the bump closest to the middle of this series of slight projections. After making an easy approach along a high clearance road, hike up to the listed coordinates through the dead forest and through areas where the trees have recently been cut and removed. Near these coordinates, go directly to the large rock cairn with a significant post. From this cairn, pace off 0.01 mile at a bearing of 291° M and find the cache container. The container is a large pill bottle that has been painted with a camo combination. Look for it under a fairly large rock that has a small, living pine tree bending out and then growing straight up from the rock’s slight overhang. This slender tree is the only one like it in the area. The cache is concealed by a piece of gnarled wood.
After finding the cache, relax by sitting on a soft rock near the cairn. Appreciate the sweeping vistas of the mountain landscape all around your position. Review your map, and try to identify the various ranked peaks that project above the general terrain. As a starter, you are sitting on one of them. You decide if it should have the name “Green” Mountain or “Brown” Mountain! In 2007 that was an easy decision–its appearance matched the name given for the mountain on the USGS quadrangle map!
06/25/2016 By icezebra11 I took a nice drive and had a wonderful hike to Green Mountain today. There really is a lot of "brown" on Green Mountain! They've logged off quite a bit of the east side of the mountain but there are many, many, dead trees in this part of the forest. After a nice hike in from Cherokee Park Rd I eventually made it up to GZ. I stood at the cairn, sighted the bearing, and then walked the required distance. I quickly found the rock and tree as described on the cache page and began my search. Hmm, it wasn't at the base of the tree but I did find a piece of gnarly wood a couple feet away. I then used my hiking pole to scrape away some of the forest floor material in the various cracks and under the rock's overhang but still no luck. The cache hadn't been found in 5 years so I began to wonder if an animal had decided to cart it off or if the weather may have moved it. So I began searching downhill from the tree. When I did start looking further away from GZ, I was able to find it quickly about 15 feet downhill from the rock/tree. Fortunately most of the paint had worn off the bottle exposing the white plastic so it was easy to see. It was a relief that no animals had chewed on it as the bottle and contents were in perfect shape. I signed the log, placed the bottle at the base of the little tree, and covered it with a couple rocks in addition to the gnarly piece of wood. It should be secure for another 5 years. Thanks Steve for placing this superb backcountry cache!!!
06/11/2011 By doglover&pups Hubby, the two pups( Priscila and Elly) and I walked up the hill today and found your cache. We had actually tried a several week ago, but there was still too much snow. Sad to see all the clear cut areas, but lots of new growth showing through. Found the cairn and easily found the cache. We pulled up a soft rock and had lunch. Hubby's GPS showed that the peak was still .11 to the east so we tromped over there and found another large cairn and even the summit register so I signed that also. Thanks for the cache, the nice hike and a fun day.
10/17/2010 By Micmac hunter FTF!! Awesome hiding spot! We could not find it without the description (which we left at home). There was cell phone coverage (Sprint) up there so we finally got it by logging onto www.geocaching.com to re-read the description. After all, we did not want to hike all that way and come up empty handed. the "cairn marker" tree stumped us so we knew we were close; thank you technology! The hike was much harder since the deforesting has obliterated the road and they closed the atv/road entrance. We hiked it from one ridge off east trail road 313. Learned our lesson of needing to pre-print the geocache info. Actually used an iPad with "GPS HD" downloaded as a $2 app.....well worth it. We plan on putting some geocaches in this area since it does not have much. We atv'd to this cache and "Sheep Creek Cache" from Crystal Lakes/Red Feather Lakes Area. Good times.
"Brown" Mountain
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