GIRR

We’ve been interested in attempting GIRR for a few months now. It’s in one of our favorite regions, deep in the woods near the Delaware Water Gap, but in one particular spot that we’ve never visited (probably because it’s rather remote and there are no official trails here). Some old woods roads are evident on the topo maps, so we assumed we could park near their intersection with Old Mine Road and use whatever remained of the old roads to get close to the summit. Rich identified a promising point from which we could begin our journey (N 41 07.110’ W074 57.261’), and eventually, after a long winter, we chose a day to attempt the search.

The day began as a typically bright but cold early April morning. By the time we began our hike to GIRR, though, the air felt warmer and the forest shielded us from the chilly wind. Our potential access points for GIRR weren’t too helpful, and we never really found the woods roads or trails that the map indicated should take us near to the mark. Our hike was mainly a bushwhack, through open woods, to the top of the knoll. I was optimistic, but search as we might, we were unable to find even one of the three marks, which are now all underground. Without probes, we had to resort to using our fingers and boots to remove the soil. It was ineffective. Pondering the situation, we snacked on our consolation blueberry Smidgens (which were supposed to have been celebratory Smidgens!) and decided to try again another day, and with better tools.

At this time we’re not going to submit a recovery note to NGS because we want to return and search more thoroughly, possibly with the aid of a metal detector. We have no reason to believe the mark is gone; it is very likely still in place, but buried.