Exploring Life

Geocaching, geocoins and the many roads of life.

This is made up of stories from my caching and my reviewing.  It is a collection of those along with comments and thoughts.  Photos, and maps of some adventures and lists of some of the oldest caches.

Filtering by Category: Caching

More on the way.

After a weekend of many many caches (over 200 Saturday) I am logging. 

I hate (actually despise) cut and paste, so I am trying to go through and leave notes.  I also forgot to take the 200 caches off my watch list.  I started doing that this afternoon.  Then I had to delete about 800-1000 emails from the cache list without loosing the important ones.

I will find a way to screw it all up.

So I am running slow, and getting around to fixing all these really slow.  But i am up to 1714 logging with lots lots more to go.  So more will be on the way about the trip, but not right now.

Thursday night.... the mountaintop.

This last week was very fun and very enjoyable. 

Thurday night was one of those geocaching adventures that you remember for some time. 

Jacob had called about heading up the canyon.  I did not have anything else planned and my wife was taking the kids off to seven peaks and I was going to be home alone, so off we went.

The goal was to get some information for an earthcache or two up the canyon.  On the way we decided that we would place a few as well.  There was a side road that we followed up and we each placed a cache that overlooks Diamond Fork. 

I love to just find odd names for my caches.  It tends to make them a bit more memorable, and stand out.  My caches named country roads will not stand out to anyone, but Geezerfable or Flippy Widget the Gas Hog may make someone chuckle for a moment.

Well this time the new caches was to be names Blimey my Knickers are Showing.  Jacobs new one a little ways a way was Fork of Diamonds.

There were a few more that we put and and a few more that we found on the way. I wanted to get some information on doing an Earthcache.  So we slowly worked our way up the canyon to find a few of the caches and grab some as we went. 

My favorite on the trip was the cache The Sun Also Rises.  There were a few families there rapelling down some cliffs that were nearby.  A few were climbing, but most were rapelling and just wathing them.  We worked our way up the canyon and up a side road, and found a sun carved in the side of the sandstone cliff. It was actually pretty cool.

I snapped the picture here of a natual arch that is forming.  I wonder how long it will be until it colapses or it forms into a nicer arch.  It looks like a number of people have been climbing on it.

The we ended up at the place that I wanted to make the Earthcache at a spring in the side of the mountain. A sulpher saturated spring.  It was really quite impressive, for a little spring.  It did stink. Pretty bad actually, and a bit of a bog around.

Then the sun started to go down.  There was a bit of debate on which side would be easier to descend.  Diamond Fork or Hobble Creek.  We were heading uphill so off she went. We grabbed one or two caches on the way up.  Then we decided that we were near the highpoint of the trail we might as well descend the Hobble Creek side. 

As we aproached the hilltop we stumbed upon a surpise.  The trail that went to Mollies Nipple was open.  We sat there for a few minutes looking at the trail before we decided to drive up the road.  There were a number of logs dragged accross the road.  I assume it was the farmer trying to keep kids from joyriding up near his cows.  I was the slave labor to drag them off the road.

The bouncing went on and on.. and it got darker and darker.  We finally pulled into a group of trees.  It was very dark at this point.  We scrambled for batteries, lights, and a few thinks as we scrabled up the hill.  I was wondering if we had made some horrible mistake climbing the hill at night.  The oak brush and the wild roses surrounded us for the 15 feet that we could see.  So up we went.

A few minutes later I heard Jacobs voice.. "here it is" I was pretty sure that we would not find it, and had debated wether a hike to a small peak in the middle of the night for a cache that had not been found for three years was a smart idea.  I figured that it would take another trip in the sunlight to do any good.

So there we stood on some mountain.. in the dark signing a log.  It was kind of surreal. Sadly my phone had died and I had no pictures on my phone.  I had made jacob grab his.  So we did grab a few pics.

We wandered down the mountain and had a good time.  It was a great evening.  It had been on our lists for a number of months but we could not force ourselves to do it.  It was just a chance that it was open tonight.. and the choice was made.

 

 

Recent stories in the Paper, podcasts, and events.

I missed this in the Tribune... but saw it when doing a recent search

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/49699170-80/geocaching-cache-geocache-gps.html.csp

I listened to Cache-a-maniacs today.  Some great shows.  If you are not familiar with it, the podcast interviews everyday geocachers and spends time asking them how they got into it, their favorite things they have done, experiences and other fun tidbits of info.

It is just a lot of fun to hear from everyday cachers.  One of the first I listened to was the interview with dumbledores army 2006.  A local cacher.  There are also a number of others I have seen visiting my caches, or on different logs through the years.  If you have the time surf throught them and find a few to listen to.

Gasp... More fun with the Utah Parks Caches.

I was doing a paper search and the top one was Deseret News.  Apparently they are running more contests. 

"From now through September, certificates redeemable for gifts will be placed randomly in caches throughout the state park system. A limited-issue Utah State Parks 50th Anniversary coin and a Utah State Parks Boating Program coin will also be cached."_excerpt from article.

So.. those of you who love coins.. have a reason to go back and check some of the caches while you are traveling.

Seattle

And of course another link from Seattle papers.

Talking about the events for Geowoodstock VIII and the Lost and Found Event.

Last but not least ...Events!!

It is that time again.  It seems spring and fall have huge numbers of events.  This year had tons in the spring. At one point we had over 40 events planned in the state.  We are well down from that number now.  It looks like we are approaching 23.  So there is a lot going on.

There are a number of events that are becoming traditional, and we look forward to them.

 

Every month there are the following

Hot Dog dinners in Springville - Jac0b

UVCA - Utah Valley Cache Aholics - Princess Daisies.. August will be a scavenger hunt.

The semi regular events,

Splash Mobs - by GR8JPN

HikingSeals and The Nightfox each have a hiking series that is going on

A few regional events

Musical Highway Premier by Ironbuttwing & WillDrillZ

Annual September 11th Tribute / Memorial Hike by UTDARCY

Events for Special Dates

8-9-10 Flash Mob Event by PeanutsParents

10-10-10 Event by PeanutsParents

10-10-10 Multi Event - UT by hjnielsen

Then the big annual events:

Whiting Campout - 2010 by JAC0B

Maple Mountain Hike - 2010 by JAC0B

10 Years of Utah Geocaching! Potter's Ponds 2010 by bunkerdave and Udink

 

As far as I can tell, skimming through all the old archived events nationwide, the Potters Ponds event is the first overnight camping event that was held.  So this one appears to be carrying on the tradition. Hope to see you there. I have a campsite reserved, and bug spray bought.

There are many other events that are going on so take the time to find one and get out to a few of them.  We are all nuts, but we love to share our experiences with each other.  I have had more fun at events than caching.  The people here are great.

 

 

 

 

 

Get Satisfaction.

I do not know if any of you have noticed the tab on the left hand side of the screen on Geocaching.com.  The one that is labeled "feedback".  This is a special link to the website Get Satisfaction.

This is a way for the geocaching community to post bugs, praise, and ideas for the lackeys at groundspeak to see.  If you have not been there it is a great way to see if some ideas are planned, not planned, or under consideration by geocaching.com.

Here are a list of a few of the most popular of them.

Bring Back Virtual Caches  Under consideration

Create a "Nano" Cache Size Option Under consideration

5 Star Cache Rating for Finders Under consideration

Challenge Icon Under consideration

Removal of the stupid facebook-link Planned

Night Cache Attribute Planned (along with a number of new attributes)

Bring back the Webcam Caches.

APIs for 3rd party developers

Map more than 500 caches

View friends map/smiley faces.

Dipping Trackables in Caches Planned

There are hundreds of others.  So take the the time to toss a vote in.

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