The Amazing Crosswinds Marsh

It's been a long Winter so an adventure was needed! Off to beautiful Crosswinds Marsh with TaGeez and ShelleyJean. I've written about Crosswinds before. It's an amazing "1,050 acre mitigated wetland consisting of open marsh, wet meadows, forested wetlands, and upland forests" with a very active volunteer community including geocachers.

The Crosswinds Cache Crew (Stan & Ruth, Hooked On U, The Seed Spreaders and the Walkabouts) have made this geocaching heaven: a variety of well-maintained, well-stocked quality containers spread throughout the park. These caches are regularly turned over during various events throughout the year. Which means you can keep going back and going back...

How's this for a welcome party? We spied him across the lake, and I captured this photo with Shelley's 70x zoom! Wow!

ShelleyJean, TaGeez and I arrived around 9 am and started with the inner loop. Through the woods, along the marsh, and down the boardwalks. You can see the icy crust on the water below - we passed by several hours later, and it looked totally different!

No filter!

With the recent thaw plus some rain, some areas of the back trails were still under water or mud. You can see it didn't deter TaGeez. 

Around 11 am we connected with two of TaGeez's sisters and took on more of the trail. The temperatures kept creeping up (as well as the steps on Shelley's pedometer - 13,000 steps!). 

So much wildlife here! We saw 2 eagles, swans, ducks and (we think) a beaver. There was a lot of evidence of beaver inhabitants - trees halved along the boardwalk - and TaGeez & Shelley saw something in the water near the pavilion.

Another ShelleyJean masterpiece

Ok, we're tired, and it's time to go eat. Amazing adventure and a perfect geocaching park.

The day ended at 50 degrees and sunny! We found 24 caches - clearing out the center of the park - and are already planning our trip back!

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Update! I just heard there's a new Crosswinds Cache Crew 2019 from The Seed Spreaders:

This year we have a couple new groups helping out there.  For 2019, it is Stan & Ruth, Golddogs, QX56, gjamison3, and myself (the seed spreaders).  I hope that the 2019 team can live up to expectations and the reputation that we have created so far.  

I have no doubt you will :)