What fun! Puzzle caches last Friday; Palomar Mountain Saturday
duganrm took a day off work last Friday, and The Dillon Gang also had the day off, so I got to tag along with two guys who are capable of figuring out Puzzle caches . . .
The first cache I joined them to find was a brand new cache that hadn't been found yet. It was another Team Adelos creation and the ammo can was full of really great swag, including two unactivated Geocoins. It was up on Puzzle Hill, and this was my third trip up there. After finding that cache, dugnarm and The Dillon Gang hid two Traditional caches as "Puzzle Blockers." At least now the other people, like myself, who can't figure out the puzzles, will get a chance to hike up there and see the views of Rancho San Diego and Mt. McGinty.
The Dillon Gang left us in the afternoon and duganrm and I continued caching, taking turns going to caches one or the other of us had already found.
I finally got home after 9:00 p.m. and did minimal preparation for the trip to Palomar the next morning because I had to get up at 5:00 a.m.
The meeting place was a Park 'n Ride on I-15. We got there half an hour early, but when no one else was showing up, we started to wonder if we were at the correct Park 'n Ride. We weren't. Having a cell phone would have been nice because we had to find a pay phone, so I could call duganrm to find out where we were supposed to be. Five more minutes further up the freeway and we finally joined the group and we were off on our great adventure to Palomar Mountain where we saw the most amazing oak trees during out search for the "Ancient Oak Tree Cache."
Look how our group is dwarfed by this incredible tree!
At its base was this enormous boulder.
On our way back down the mountain, we took a short hike to find two caches in Love Valley where I saw this pastoral scene.
Duncan! has a cache near a view platform similar to the one where his "Vallecito Valley View" cache is. This one looks out over the valley that used to be covered by a much larger Lake Henshaw than exists today.
The last cache we searched for as a group was another "Treasure Tree" cache. Usually these are near spectacular examples of local trees, like the one I found in the high desert near an enormous Manzanita. In this case, we weren't entirely sure which tree it was, and the embankment was covered with poison oak. John and duganrm looked diligently, while the rest of us looked on from a distance giving advice and making suggestions. Finally, duganrm moved over to a different tree, which seemed to be quite a ways off from the coordinates my GPSr was pointing to, but he found the cache. An audible sigh of relief came from the rest of us.
We started the day with a DNF; we didn't want to end the great day with one.
fisnjack and I split off from the group so we could head home through Ramona. Along the way, we stopped at the Santa Ysabel Mission where I found a FlagMan cache.
In Ramona, we stopped so fisnjack could find "Native Son" and at that cache, GRNZOOM caught us. It was really nice to meet them and talk GPSrs and hiking sticks with them for a while. Geocachers are the nicest people. I have made more friends in this past year than I have in a long time.
I'm already looking forward to the next "event" with whichever version of the SDCET gets together for our next adventure.
The first cache I joined them to find was a brand new cache that hadn't been found yet. It was another Team Adelos creation and the ammo can was full of really great swag, including two unactivated Geocoins. It was up on Puzzle Hill, and this was my third trip up there. After finding that cache, dugnarm and The Dillon Gang hid two Traditional caches as "Puzzle Blockers." At least now the other people, like myself, who can't figure out the puzzles, will get a chance to hike up there and see the views of Rancho San Diego and Mt. McGinty.
The Dillon Gang left us in the afternoon and duganrm and I continued caching, taking turns going to caches one or the other of us had already found.
I finally got home after 9:00 p.m. and did minimal preparation for the trip to Palomar the next morning because I had to get up at 5:00 a.m.
The meeting place was a Park 'n Ride on I-15. We got there half an hour early, but when no one else was showing up, we started to wonder if we were at the correct Park 'n Ride. We weren't. Having a cell phone would have been nice because we had to find a pay phone, so I could call duganrm to find out where we were supposed to be. Five more minutes further up the freeway and we finally joined the group and we were off on our great adventure to Palomar Mountain where we saw the most amazing oak trees during out search for the "Ancient Oak Tree Cache."
Look how our group is dwarfed by this incredible tree!
At its base was this enormous boulder.
On our way back down the mountain, we took a short hike to find two caches in Love Valley where I saw this pastoral scene.
Duncan! has a cache near a view platform similar to the one where his "Vallecito Valley View" cache is. This one looks out over the valley that used to be covered by a much larger Lake Henshaw than exists today.
The last cache we searched for as a group was another "Treasure Tree" cache. Usually these are near spectacular examples of local trees, like the one I found in the high desert near an enormous Manzanita. In this case, we weren't entirely sure which tree it was, and the embankment was covered with poison oak. John and duganrm looked diligently, while the rest of us looked on from a distance giving advice and making suggestions. Finally, duganrm moved over to a different tree, which seemed to be quite a ways off from the coordinates my GPSr was pointing to, but he found the cache. An audible sigh of relief came from the rest of us.
We started the day with a DNF; we didn't want to end the great day with one.
fisnjack and I split off from the group so we could head home through Ramona. Along the way, we stopped at the Santa Ysabel Mission where I found a FlagMan cache.
In Ramona, we stopped so fisnjack could find "Native Son" and at that cache, GRNZOOM caught us. It was really nice to meet them and talk GPSrs and hiking sticks with them for a while. Geocachers are the nicest people. I have made more friends in this past year than I have in a long time.
I'm already looking forward to the next "event" with whichever version of the SDCET gets together for our next adventure.
posted by Miragee at
8:15:00 PM
10-Day Forecast
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