Tundra Top

08/07/2016 By E_Z
Found it 8/6/16. Have always wanted to hike this peak. Cache in decent shape. Took TB that has been there for 2 years. Will move it on. Thanks -E

08/16/2014 By dougtho
You might want to replace the lid.

08/03/2014 By dougtho
We finally made it! What a beautiful day for geocaching. We left a TB. Amazing views. We only saw one other group of hikers. We didn't see any other vehicles up here. Lots of fresh scat in the area. We hiked all three peaks here... scrambled one of them. TFTC

This entry was edited by dougtho on Monday, 04 August 2014 at 14:39:57 UTC.

This entry was edited by dougtho on Monday, 04 August 2014 at 14:40:57 UTC.

07/14/2014 By afudc
Traveled from Craig to Steamboat Springs today, but did it by going thru the mountains into Wyoming and then south to Steamboat. I've never been through those mountains before and was impressed with how nice they were and with how few people I saw. I of course stopped for many caches along the way. I made it up to the top about 6:00 pm. The weather was great and the scenery from up there was even better. The hike even wasn't too bad. What was bad was the road. The one I took sort of circles so I took it one way up and the other way down. Can't recommend either one. Be sure you have high clearance and 4WD. Thanks for the hide.

08/28/2013 By Denali41
This will be an unusual {FTF} log, but the circumstances sort of beg for it. During the 1970s Wally Schirra owned a primitive hunting cabin south of Sand Mountain. Schirra, of course, was one of the original seven astronauts, chosen in 1959 from the US Navy to become one of NASA’s Mercury Astronauts. He was the first man to make three separate flights in space. In 1962 he piloted the Mercury-Atlas 8 Sigma 7 spacecraft and in 1965 he commanded the Gemini 6A craft. He entered space again in 1968 on the first manned test of the Apollo spacecraft (Apollo 7) soon after the tragic flash fire had killed the initial crew. Thomas Wolfe’s 1979 book The Right Stuff and the subsequent movie by that name in 1983 chronicled the macho bravery of Schirra and his fellow original astronaut group.

In the mid-1970s Schirra invited Bob Stiles and me to spend three days with him at his cabin to hunt elk. Although I had gotten to know Wally during some business meetings, his invitation was a surprise, a surprise I readily accepted. We hunted hard, all the way up almost to the top of South Sand Mountain. We ate breakfasts and dinners of greasy fried stuff like the fatty ground beef of those times, and American fried potatoes. And each evening we played cards until far too late. At that time, Schirra was on lecture circuits and had various “sponsors”. One had given him a computer watch, about the first version ever produced. It was huge on his wrist and had all sorts of buttons and things. He delighted in it, and “programmed” it to keep track of Wally’s, Bob’s and Steve’s card game scores. It was a huge distraction for him, so he never performed well at the cards, although I suspect he was sharper at card games than we other two were. We shared three marvelous days together on the southern side of South Sand.

I really hadn’t thought much about South Sand Mountain after returning home, except to reflect from time-to-time on the great hunting companionship we had shared. Then even those memories became displaced by ordinary activities of each day. When Tundra Top cache was published, I began thinking about that time almost 40 years ago, and also thinking that some day I’d get over there to hike to the very Top of a Mountain and find this cache. I never expected to be the first to find it, as I was, because years went by before I went after it. In fact, it’s almost a 3-year “lonely” cache now, and I’m thrilled to record the “first” on it–especially given that prior history on the flanks of this mountain with a great, macho human being. Wally died at age 84. I’ll never forget him. And because of that, I’ll never forget this geocache. Thanks for it!! It’s in fine condition.