GC37HKJ Piper Ranch
Type: Multi | Size: Regular | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: Path Pacer @ | Hide Date: 11/11/2011 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N40° 26.568 W105° 26.562 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0
                               

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Start from the Crosier Mt trailhead in Glen Haven. Piper Meadows is on the way up the mountain. To reach the cache, you'll have to maneuver through a barbed wire fence, or you may prefer to do the Anderson House cache first and then make your way cross-country to Piper's homestead. It's easy going (there's a faint track), and you'll have to go that way if you're on horseback. The coordinates are for the milk house, and that's where you'll find the clue to the cache itself. Bring a compass.

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Harry Piper came to the area from Illinois in 1913 and raised dairy cattle and chickens. He married a girl from Greeley (Helen Jones) and had a son, but mountain life proved too much for her and she went back home, taking their son with her. This broke Harry's heart as he loved children. The house he built for his family burned down in 1923 when Harry was in Estes, possibly from a lantern in the window that set fire to the curtains. At the bottom of the meadow are the ruins of the milk house where he lived alone after the fire until his death in 1932. Farther up the meadow, you can see the last standing wall of the barn and even farther up was Harry's ranch house. I tried looking for some foundations, but only saw a couple of suggestive mounds and depressions. Between the barn and milk house is a spring that feeds a watering trough. To the west by the stream is the old boiler Harry used to clean out his milk cans.


The milk house sometime in the '60s or '70s

This cache is part of a geotrail of historical caches in the Glen Haven area. Retrieve the code from all 14 caches plus the found date of the virtual and receive a commemorative geocoin. The cache list can be found here: Historic Glen Haven GeoTrail. And remember not to be a cache pirate! If you take something, leave something at least as good for the next cacher.

Additional Waypoints

0137HKJ - Parking
N 40° 27.120 W 105° 27.025

04/23/2019 By WE_hikers
Thank you very much for the hint. We were able to find it and the piece of history that you used it to show us. We love this stuff!

04/15/2019 By WE_hikers
Looked for an hour, could not find the first clue. Coordinates indicated the south portion of the location, but we could not locate it. Would you please check it? Thank you!

06/23/2018 By COpackrat
Having a nice hike today and enjoying learning about the past inhabitants of the area. Thanks for all the information and the interesting caches!

03/23/2017 By Path Pacer
Checked on this one today, and it's good to go.

08/23/2016 By mesa finds
another wonderful day out exploring Crozier with the pup! Thanks Path Pacer for yet another great day :)

11/01/2015 By BugRanger
Heading down from Kesugi multi-cache, Path Pacer & I detoured so I could make this find. Having trouble with the old Garmin GPSr, but with some nudges, made the find. Nice hide & a very nice hike TFTC!

11/01/2015 By wayne0351
What great weather for geocaching! Grabbed the first stage pretty quick, then missread the drections to the final, so I head in the opposite direction and looked around until I realized I was being dumb.