Pine Island Fire by hart612

Pine Island Fire
(GCMD2V) by hart612
Photos by MajorT, Evanspack, StormRunner, MikeOtt and metaphor
We are sorry to have to report that circumstances have made it necessary to take down this cache. The review is being left on the site as a tribute to this well-made hart612 cache.

Hart612 placed this cache on New Year's Day in 2005. In the two and a half years it has been in existence just 53 geocachers have found it. Looking at the difficulty and terrain ratings show that it is listed as a 2 / 2.5 so while it poses some geocaching challenges the ratings should not account for the small number of visitors. There must be something else going on here. Our guess is that old real estate adage "location, location, location"!

Hart612 notes in the opening sentence of their posted cache description that they "found this island of pines while exploring the Woodland Wildlife area." This is an area of Kent County that is a bit remote. Also, while this is a huge area until recently it contained only a few caches. Most of them were rather close to each other while this one was set well apart. So there were two extra challenges here - finding the general area, then finding this spot.

The recent Cache Around the Colonial Hundreds Event brought a lot of geocachers into this area. The Duck Creek cache, featuring one of the longest hikes in that event, is here. Perhaps this helped make both this area and this cache better known to Delaware Geocachers. In any event the logs show a renewed interest in it.

Shown here is a satellite view of the Woodlawn Wildlife area. That ribbon of road seen to the left is the dirt road leading deep into the area. There's a gate the closes this road to vehicle traffic so the road is more like a wide dirt trail. In fact, following this trail will take you back to the Delaware River and very close to the Duck Creek cache. There are several others back there too so you could make a day of it but as this map shows, this one is rather near the entrance to the are. The big question is how to get over there. While this view makes it appear that there is solid ground all the way back, this is not exactly the case. Remember the name of the cache contains the word "Island".

This is a view from on the island. You are looking back across the water toward that road seen in the map above.

This photo also gives you an idea of the kind of terrain on the island. As you can see there is ample space between the trees and a floor of pine needles. Toward the water's edge the phragmites (aka marsh grass or reeds) appear in profusion.

Somewhere out here is a regular size cache container. Hart612 describe it as a "camo colored plastic container." Given what shows in this photo, a camoed container could be sitting on the ground in plain sight and still be hard to spot.

In their description Hart612 also comment on the "Fire" part of this cache's name. "The pines have been burned, but still live. We are not sure when the fire took place, but the under growth is already 3 to 4 feet high."

Geocacher metaphor took this picture and added information about the fire to the caption.

Controlled burns may not seem like the best idea. Indeed for the past several seasons there have been controlled burns that have gotten out of control in the Western United States resulting in large numbers of acres of damage to the environment. But don't be too quick to judge here.

Woodlawn Wildlife area is a wetlands. Some folks use the name marsh. Marshes produce more than just tall grasses, they also produce marsh gas which is highly flammable. Here in Delaware, especially along the Route 9 corridor spontaneous marsh fires happen almost yearly. Marsh gases ignite and the dry marsh gases burn rapidly. One way to reduce the potential for a major fire is to burn off the dry grasses in a controlled burn. This is what happened on this island. And, as can be seen in the photo, the trees have survived.

If this really is an island, then how do geocachers get out here? Hart612 make a suggestion: "The trail head is near the parking. Look for an old rusty cable blocking vehicle entry."

If your eyes are sharp enough and the marsh grasses have not grown too tall, you should be able to find the path. Using it certainly beats bushwacking your way out to the island.

A glance through the logs shows that there have been some geocachers who missed seeing this helpful advice.

Geocacher whereabouts writes. "Wow, I went the WRONG way going to it and leaving. I was jumping creeks and fighting those stupid reeds!"

Programmer64 agrees "Went to find this one while down here today, unfortunately I did not read description fully and couldn't find trail! "

Rachelhead had to abandon her first try. She logged, "There was a trail!? I guess I should read the cache pages before heading out. I found Woodland Pond without a problem and tried to BW to Pine Island, I got about 25 feet into the marsh and realized it wasn't a good idea. So, I made my way back to the main road with the gate. Again I had to go through the Marsh, but it wasn't so bad. There were some "tree islands" to break it up a bit. Then, I saw an obvious "path" from a previous visitor and thought, hey this must be right. Through the marsh some more, Now the cache is only 450 feet away! But, that is when I came to the channel. It was already 4:30 and starting to get dark, so I turned around and back tracked to the car. I will return and look for that trail!!

TonyLama had a similar experience "We approached this cache after finding Winter Wonderland, which means we did NOT use the trail head with the cable - which means we DID have to slosh across the marsh, which means we DID get confronted with a marsh "channel" that was not passable (no broad jump skills), which means we DID have to backtrack and come at it the right way.

Still there are a lot of geocachers who did read the description and had an easy time of it.

CCCooperAgency found this cache back in January 2005 while caching with the Dam Trolls. They knew what to look for, "Good thing Mr. D.T.'s common sense and close attention to the write up led us in the RIGHT path, otherwise, the other approach would have been more than a level 2.5 terrain. Brains over brawn."

The 2Bs also did their homework and had a good experience. "Not too bad of a walk to this cache, part of the path is pretty wide. We enjoyed seeing the lady slippers in bloom. Among all that junk, the lady slippers bring a nice touch to the area. Thanks for the hunt."

And, if any more proof is needed to reinforce the idea that using the trail definitely helps, Odragon and partners found this cache at night! "The crew moved from the Rusty truck to this cache. One of our group had an idea where to go and I'm glad she did as at night, we probably would have taken the much harder, much wetter way to get out there. After the warm up hike (about 0.3 miles from where we started at the truck), we had the cache in hand in no time. It was beautifully clear our although, a bit dark to see what animals might be around."

Checking the log entries for this cache shows that geocachers seem to come here in "seasons" . One of those is in deep winter. Twenty-six of the finds were made in either January or February. Early Spring is the other "preferred" season. There are an additional 21 finds logged for the months of March and April. Virtually no one has tried for this cache during the summer months. One reason might be the problem with ticks.

On May 20, 2007 ryanandjess logged, "Stayed in the truck with the 18mo old while Dad and Ryan went for this one. Dad came out saying I should be glad I didn't go since he was covered with ticks of all sizes! We have been pulling a lot of them off while caching today!"

It is now June, one of those months when no one has tried to find this cache. Given what you now know about this site, perhaps you will be the first geocacher to make a summer find.