The route this day took us from Evanston to Lava Hot Springs, via a lot of GeoTour caches, and the oldest cache in Southern Idaho. Much better weather today than we had the day before.

Approximate time on road/out caching:  12 hours, 30 minutes
Total miles driven: 291.2 mi / 468,64 km
Total cahes found: 33
Total DNF: 1
States visited: Wyoming, Utah, Idaho
Famous places visited: Bear Lake, Lava Hot Springs
Most memorable cache: GC5C Southern Idaho’s First!
Biggest surprise: How steep the trail to Southern Idaho’s First was
Weather: Sunny
Highest temperature: 30,5°C / 87°F
Lowest temperature: 6,7°C / 44°F

Worst breakfast ever

The breakfast at the hotel was so bad, that we just had to throw it away. It tasted sour, and was probably not very healthy to eat either…

So when stopping at the first GeoTour cache of the day, GC6Q7ZX Utah GeoTour-Rich-Heart of Laketown, we made sure to get some proper breakfast.

Bear Lake

Since we’ve never found GeoTour caches in Rich before this trip, we had to find three of them today. So after a quick stop on GC64BFJ Utah GeoTour-Rich-Rendezvous Beach State Park, we continued to Bear Lake, and the caches there.

We haven’t seen as many tourists as we’re used to the last week, but this place was crawling with them! We decided to finally purchase a Utah State Park Pass, so we can visit the parks (and find the caches) without having to think about the cost.

Quick county detour

After finding some caches along the lake, we took a quick detour across the border to Idaho. We needed to find a cache in Bear Lake County. Just to make sure, we didn’t trust the one on the border to be in the correct state/county, so we found GC304HX BEAR LAKE IN 1827-28 as well.

The scenic route

We found a couple more caches along the lake on the way back, before starting on the Logan Canyon Scenic Drive – and Cache National Forest.

The view was a bit limited at times, due to smoke, but it was not nearly as bad as we’ve seen on earlier trips (in other places).

We stopped at a few select caches, including some earthcaches and GC6GEJV Utah GeoTour-Cache-Journey to Jardine Juniper.

GeoTour

The GeoTour cache at the end of the scenic drive, GC65X68 Utah GeoTour-Cache-Stokes Nature Center, took us on a short hike to the Stokes Nature Center. The cache itself was kinda cool, but the coolest was meeting one of the locals:

After a quick detour down to GC6FDHH Utah GeoTour-Cache-American West Heritage Center, we had the three caches we needed in Cache County.

Saying hello to the local muggles

When we stopped at GCJ3PT Pioneer Home & Granary, two of the local muggles came by to say hello. Very friendly!

To the top!

After a couple quick stops to get Franklin County colored green as well, we parked at the parking closest to GC5C Southern Idaho’s First!. The first part wasn’t too bad, but it was still steep enough.

It only got worse from there…

The cache description say that the owner drove his car to GZ. I can’t understand how that’s even possible. The trail was so steep that it was hard to walk without falling backwards. Okay, I might exaggerate a bit, but it was hard. That’s a fact. But the view was kinda amazing.

And maybe it even was worth it in the end. I am glad we did this hike, it’s a cache we won’t forget very easily.

We got too meet some of the local wildlife on the way back down, as a snake suddenly slithered across the trail, and into a hole in the ground. Even though we don’t want to find them hiding near caches, they really are beautiful creatures.

The steepness also made it hard to hike back down, but we eventually made it back (safely) to the car. And we even managed to do so before sunset! Not bad at all 😀

Another county detour

After a quick stop to get something to eat, we had to do one more county detour, this time to Caribou County. It was the last we needed to finish the ones we were missing in southeastern corner of Idaho. The first ended with a DNF, but GC4Q366 Black Crappie ensured we got what we needed. We stopped at the next one too, just because we could.

Ice, ice, ice cream!

After a quick stop at GC1BZ97 Lava Hot Springs, we checked in at our hotel, Lions Gate Manor. And after checking out our luxurious room (it was awesome), we headed back down to Lava Hot Springs to get some ice cream. Orders from back home 😀 We, and half the rest of the town, stopped at Sweet Stuff for some delicious square ice cream.

Lava Hot Springs

After the ice cream, we did a short walk around the area, before heading back to the hotel.

Pictures