The story about this cache

Placing "Hatfield's View" was an experience that quickened my belief in prayer. Perhaps "The Devil" himself was watching over me that day.

When I first started Travel by GPS, I thought placing geocaches would be a good way to bring traffic to my web site. For about a year, I went crazy placing caches in far off, hard to get to places. Hatfield's View is one placement I'll never forget.

I flew into Dayton, OH. The plan was to loop though West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and back to Ohio. I'd brought enough supplies for placing geocaches in each state, but I had little idea exactly where I'd place them. I felt confident about finding someplace to stash a cache in West Virginia because I had planed to spend a couple days in the area near Matewan, documenting trails at the new ATV park. It worked out that I also put together a sightseeing tour of points of interest surrounding the Hatfield-McCoy feud.

I was determined to place the geocache somewhere along the Hatfield-McCoy sightseeing tour. I'd spent a whole day clicking waypoints and could not find any suitable place for geocaching. It seemed that the mining companies had all the good cachelands gated up. The Hatfield Cemetery, being in the opposite direction of most points of interest, was my last place to visit.

It was the heat of the afternoon when got out of the rental car near Sarah Ann. Eager to get out and stretch my legs, I headed up to the cemetery to pay my respects and click off a waypoint. I took along my daypack which included the makings for a geocache. I had no intention of placing a geocache in the cemetery, but my hopes were high that there would be a good place nearby.

There had recently been a Hatfield-McCoy festival, so several of the gravesites had be prettied up with flowers, especially at tombstone of “Devil” Anse Hatfiled – the family’s patriarch. Walking further up the cemetery, I found other gravesites grown over with weeds and some practically sliding down the mountain. In my mind’s eye, I saw exposed pine boxes protruding out of the earth. Although the ghastly thought lasted only a brief moment, it was enough to prod me up and away from the cemetery.

I found what I thought looked like a trail, and then it vanished. I kept going up and found the trail again. No. Maybe the tracks were animal path, but they seemed to be going up. I like going up. I wanted to find a vista point, but the canopy was too thick. I kept going up. I got overheated, sat on a rock outcropping, and debated about giving up the climb and placing the cache on the mountainside. I caught my breath and continue the assault. I reached several false summits. The mountain was teasing me and now more than ever I wanted to find the top.

Finally, I was rewarded. The summit was a wide spot on a sharp ridge. Satisfied that I was now standing on at least one optional cache location, I investigated the old logging road that treacherously followed the narrow ridge. First one direction, then the next, but all else was overgrown. Returning to the highpoint along the road, I found an apparently little used campsite. It was there I found coils of bare, single conductor, corroded copper wire. How odd I thought.

Then I looked up and saw a white ceramic insulator nailed to an old wooden post. Ring-a-ling! Ah ha! I remembered I'd seen remnants of that wire stretched across some rocks coming up the mountain. This must be old telegraph or telephone wire. I'd found an interesting place to stash the cache. As I averaged several waypoints, marking the location, I imagined folks talking over the wire... "We need more GUN powder - not CIDER - POWDER ya dad blame idiot!"

I can't remember exactly what I wrote in the logbook, but I do remember that the first entry was my thoughts on how this location must have been visited by Hatfield's children. How they must have made the same climb to this place, sometimes for fun, sometimes for solitude, sometimes in grief, sometimes to imagine how things might have been. Undoubtedly, when families came to visit the graves, the youngsters took off up the mountain to see what they could find, just like me, just like you.

That's not the end of my story. In fact, the scary part begins now with my plunge back down the mountain.

Happy with my stash, high on a job well done, I practically flew down from the summit. I'm good at going down. Surfing on loose rock, grabbing on to small trees slow my decent, I didn't stop until about mid-mountain. I was confident that I'd traveled in pretty much a straight line up the mountain, but now I'd lost the bearing. I continued down slower now, looking for familiar sights. I soon was wishing I had taken a waypoint where I'd park the car, but I didn't even turn the GPS on until I'd reached the top. Technology was not going to help me now.

Further down the mountain I went. How far off could I be? Then I imagined the mountain as a bicycle wheel. I had been traveling from the hub to the rim. One small miscalculation near the center has put me way off on the outside. I plunged deeper.

I came to an old fence row. I'd hadn't seen that before. Now I began to traverse across an area where the canopy opened up. The brush grew thick and... stickers. All headway stopped as I tried to free myself. Getting tired now. If I could only get to a vantage point... but I was too far down the mountain and I was not inclined to head back up.

All my crashing and thrashing caused an alarm: Barking Dogs. They seemed about a couple hundred yards away. Great. Here I am in remote West Virginia, I've crossed over a fence, I'm probably on private property, there are dogs are barking, and somebody is sure to come investigate. How was I ever going to explain geocaching to a disgruntled landowner?

I summoned the energy to find and cross back over the fence, away from apparent danger. I continued to circumnavigate around the base of the mountain. Still nothing looked familiar. The dogs sensed my retreat and now barked more furiously. I expected the next sound to be gunfire.

I admitted to my maker that I was lost, "Dear God, please get me out of the mess."

I took a few more steps towards another opening in the canopy. It was then, in all my despair, that I looked up and saw three crosses looming over me - a mock-Calvary was my deliverance. Earlier, I had seen the crosses from the road and now I knew I was not far from the cemetery. There was a trail that led from the crosses, evidently where people had come to decorate them. Humbly, I followed the trail back to my car.

Sometimes God speaks to you softly; Sometimes God yells in ear. I hear you God, loud and clear.

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If you go looking for Hatfield's View, remember this story. Remember that where every you go, God is with you, and just in case... always take a waypoint where you park your car.