Find #42 When All Else Fails...Amateur Radio ( GC21F37 )

This was a mystery cache which required using a formula to determine the cache coordinates.  When I got to the site, I saw that this was a nature preserve with a man made marsh.  The cache location was a rocky bank with two culvert pipes that drained the marsh.  I knew that the combination of water and rocks was the prime habitat of one of Pennsylvania's two poisonous snakes, the copperhead.  I've seen several of these over the course of my childhood and they almost always were near rocks and water.  Seems to be their favorite.  

 Rock embankment

I was thinking "Man, don't really want to search these rocks."  So making as much noise and vibration as possible so as not to suddenly frighten any snakes that make be there, I made my way down through the rock bank and of course found nothing.  So I thought that "Well, maybe my GPS was off and it's really in the surrounding wooded area.  So I spent about 45 minutes carefully searching the nearby woods and vegetation.  Nothing of course.  At this point I was thinking "I really don't want to be here" and was thinking about passing this cache over.  I pulled out my print outs with the information for the cache and deciphered the hint.  It was a riddle and I knew the answer and the answer was of course "rocks".   "Dam!" I thought.


I went to the top of the rocks and studied them.  I noticed some muddy paw prints from a dog that had trodded through the stream and came up the rocks.  On one of the mud covered rocks, someone had scratched an "X".  I thought, "YESSSS!  That has to be it!".  I peaked over the edge of the fairly large rock and sure enough there was the edge of a plastic container sticking out.  I reached down and lifted the rock and there laying on top of the cache box itself was a gosh darn baby copperhead!  "DAMN!"  I immediately recognized the triangular shaped head and once the snake realized I was there, it did not try to scurry away, it took a defensive posture and coiled back ready to strike.  

Baby copperhead guarding the cache

Why does his crap always happen to me?  I had to stand there for 10 minutes waiting until the snake decided to leave.  I started snapping pictures of it and after a couple of minutes, the snake decided it didn't like that too much and left.  Of course the pictures were blurry which I think annoyed me most of all.  If I move the slightest bit, everything blurs.  I can't wait until I get a good camera!  Regardless, I managed to sign the cache log and get out of there.  In a hurry I might add!  Didn't want mama and papa to come along.

 Finally get to the cache