Caches in the Wichita Mountains

Nov. 10, 2012 - Really neat things are hidden in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. The federal government will not let you put caches on federal property, but there are 'Virtual Caches'... where you have to go to a set of coordinates, answer a question or two via e-mail, and you get credit for 'signing the virtual logbook'. I've lived in Lawton my whole life and thought I knew just about everywhere in the mountains.... nope... these cache spots show us some of the unique things we've always heard about! Click on any photo to see an enlarged version.
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One of the ones right under our nose... The Cave with the Iron Door.	It is within 100 feet of the road... been by it a million times...never knew it was there!	So to get credit for this one, you just had to take a picture of yourself and post it on the logpage. Whoo hoo!
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Here's another one of those structures near Elmer Thomas Lake (near Medicine Park).	There's a bunch of talk about what these were really used for....	If you're old like me, you might remember driving under this entrance to the Wichita Mountains... a new road was built but this still remains within 100 feet of the entrance near Medicine Park.
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So here's an example of how a virtual cache works at the mountains... this is a survey marker...	You are on the parking lot side but way over there on the other side of the dam is another survey marker... it has the numbers 1615.?? find out the ??	So you somehow get to the other side and find this booger... the answer is 24 for the ?? Then you e-mail the creator of the cache with the answer to get the credit.
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Then you have to get back to the parking lot... it sometimes is a pain! <grin>	Saw this guy skitter under the ledge while leaving... bet this guy has a heck of a bite (or sting or whatever!)	Another one from the top of Mt. Scott (actually there are 4 of these all about 50 ft of each other).
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But it's always fun to be up here!!	Now...I've been in the Parallel Forest most of my years...	I know about the mine but never found the arastra (the thing that ground the rocks to dust to get whatever they were wanting out of the ore).
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An oxen (donkey)(human)(Conan) would go around and around the central piviot point on the outside....	while a wheel was in the middle which constantly crushed whatever was in the path.	Then they would pour mercury over the newly made sand and extract the ore they wanted.
Click on any photo to see an enlarged version.

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Last updated: 11/10/12