Two new Alabama power trails were recently published on Geocaching.Com, Trees of Alabama, and Birds of Alabama. Placed by cache owner Papa Bear, these two new trails have been placed with a lot of thought, and a great deal of preparation.
Trees of Alabama (see the list of caches) is a series of 47 caches, each hide named for a different tree found in the Alabama forests. Each cache log is unique to the cache, with images of that tree's leaves at the top of each log sheet. The caches are pretty evenly spaced down somewhat primitive, one lane, gravel roads.
The most attractive feature of most power trails is the massive number of smileys a cacher can acquire in a short period of time. This trail, however, adds a well-planned and enjoyable education to the string of finds.
Intermingled with the trees of Alabama series is the second of Papa Bear's power trails, the Birds of Alabama (see the list of caches here). This series is similar to the Trees of Alabama series, in that each cache is named for a different species of bird found in the Alabama forests. These caches number 40 total, and they are interspersed with the Trees series.
If you're in a four wheel drive vehicle with plenty of clearance, there's another short trail, hidden by cacher jrou111, called JP&GC Phase 2. (There's also a Phase 1 series, but it's located elsewhere.) These are down a deeply rutted road that could be near impossible to navigate in wet weather. In July, during a very dry phase, there were still some water filled ruts that made it difficult to traverse in a two wheel drive truck.
All in all, there are about 100 caches in a very small area, and they can all be easily found in about five hours.
Pictured above are Pushmataha, Papa Bear, and one of Papa Bear's geocaching friends. They were on the trail the same day we were out looking for the caches. We had a great time visiting with them, and meeting their two dogs. They were nice folks, and a lot of fun to visit with.
