On Saturday the Upstate South Carolina Geocachers Association (USCGA) held a Cach In, Trash Out (CITO) event at the South Carolina Academic Learning Environment (SCALE). How’s that for a bunch of acronymns with links?
SCALE is our district’s outdoor classroom. It’s roughly in the shape of South Carolina, and is designed to be a scale map of the state. Walking paths run along the Interstate routes, and stone beds mark the rivers. There are seven outdoor seating areas for major cities in the state, complete with a gazebo at the Columbia site, and wrought iron gates for Charleston.
The site had been closed since the big ice storm last December. During that time, there had been much vandalism and the site had become overgrown. Since there is a virtual geocache on the site, the USCGA was very interested in holding a CITO cleanup here.
As chair of the event for USCGA, I was worried about how it would turn out. The event was heavily promoted, and received coverage both by Middle Tyger Times and the Spartanburg Herald Journal. We even had two corporate sponsors. Both QS/1 of Spartanburg and Hayssen of Duncan provided trash bags and drinks for the event. With that much attention, I really wanted it to go well.
We had about twenty-five people turn out, which was more than thought would be there. We that many hard workers, we were able to get the site almost back to its original condition. Crews worked hard through the morning removing trash, redefining trails, and pulling out overgrown weeds. It was hard work, but it was a definite success. SCALE has now been re-opened to the public, and is ready for classes to use.
