27 May 2012 Foxburg and Clarion

We were out to find a new series of caches on the North Country Trail in Clarion and Venango County. Our first stop was the small town of Foxburg. It’s strange that neither of us had ever visited Foxburg. Our first stop was at an attractive, historic church in the town. We grabbed a nearby virtual before moving into town. The town was crowded. It was a nice town to visit a rare, local place that actually turned out the welcome for visitors. We visited a few of the attractions and found the first cache of the series and a benchmark on the nearby bike trail.

We needed gas and were being threatened with rain, so we made a detour to Emlenton to find something small for me to eat and wait out the rain. After stopping at a store in town we made our way to a small park in town . The park was in a small ravine with a stream called Ritchie Run. We stopped at the top and were going to go for a walk through the park. We had just started down the road that ran into the park when the rain got really intense. We retreated to the geomobile to wait out the storm. Within a few minutes there was a steady stream of cars driving really quickly out of the park.

Once the rain stopped we headed back to the road to hunt a few older caches in the park. We soon found out why the cars were racing out of the park. There was water everywhere. Little Ritchie Run was in flash flood and moving really quickly. I hadn’t seen a stream rage this hard since we visited Shenandoah just after a hurricane. At one point a small side stream had breached the road through the park. There was fast water everywhere. Many of the picnic visitors had left the park leaving behind picnic items in their hurry. We considered the safety factors and did the prudent thing. We stepped carefully in the fast water areas and came up with the finds.

We stopped by another section of the NCT to hunt another cache in the series. We were able to find an older cache in the area, but the new cache had terrible coordinates and we weren’t able to spot the hiding spot.

Ali with the Fishing Bear in Foxburg

Inside the Caboose

There are a number of Geocaching Challenges in Foxburg. Most involve the local businesses which we either closed or really busy today. We completed the one at the caboose and the one at the library. Rather than post the same old standing in front of the building image, I played a bit with the library image. It's a great old library building.

We were glad this was a sturdy bridge.