School House Falls, North Carolina
The boys and I found this waterfall in 2004. We were doing a lot of Geocaching at the time and we were doing a multi-cache. In that game you start with the coordinates for the first cache. If you find the cache, it contains the coordinates or a simple puzzle to determine the coordinates for the next cache. One of the caches was behind School House Falls. I think there were a total of 4 caches.We started the multi-cache hunt a little after lunch on a beautiful autumn day. The Panthertown Valley is a wilderness area with few trail markings. I had purchased a trail map of the area, as recommended, but forgotten it in the truck. The multi-cache was going to lead us in a large circle of about 5 miles. The last cache on top of Little Green Mountain contained directions for going directly back to the parking area instead of back tracking the 5 miles to get there.
This is one of my favorite photos of me and Tucker.
Bobby, Tucker Riley
We did not see many people during our hike and we were taking our time and enjoying ourselves. Bradley was 11 years old and Tucker was 9. We arrived at School House Falls a little before 5:00PM and found the cache behind the falls with the coordinates for the final cache on top of Little Green Mountain, the one with the directions back to the parking area.
At the top of Little Green Mountain.
Bradley Taylor, Tucker Riley
We hiked to the top of Little Green Mountain and looked for half an hour for the cache with no luck. It was getting dark and I was getting concerned because we did not have time to backtrack 5 miles before dark. Tucker kept saying "Daddy I want to go." So we decided to leave without finding the cache. While leaving we saw another trail near the target area, decided to take one last look and found the cache and the directions.
Happy to see the Dodge parked where we left it at the beginning of our adventure.
Tucker Riley, Bradley Taylor
We rushed off the mountain and got to the truck just as it was too dark to hike further. The problem was not finding the truck, I had the days track log in the GPS. I knew where it was. But with no flashlights and many cliffs in the area I was not going to stumble around in the dark bush whacking our way back to the truck. And I knew we could not back track 5 miles in the dark. We were dressed warmly, rain was not in the forecast and temperatures were ok for spending a night roughing it in the woods. But we all were very happy to see our truck that night.
After that hike, we purchased and outfitted fanny packs with space blankets, matches, whistle, first aid kits, granola bars, flashlights, etc and never took another hike without them. After that hike we were always ready to spend a night in the woods if needed. We talked about that adventure for years. Tucker had been concerned about a 1 mile walk he had to do at school the following Monday but he figured he was ready for it after our hike.
In 2009 we returned to School House Falls. This time we went directly to the falls which is not a long hike and reminisced about old times.
Yosemite of the East multi cache. We are at School House falls where we found the third clue. Now it is on to the actual cache.
Tucker Riley, Bradley Taylor
School House Falls in the Panthertown Valley
Bradley Taylor
School House Falls in the Panthertown Valley
Bradley Taylor, Laurie
School House Falls in the Panthertown Valley
Gage, Chris , Tucker Riley
School House Falls in the Panthertown Valley
School House Falls in the Panthertown Valley
Gage, Bradley Taylor, Chris , Laurie, Tucker Riley