Blog Template Musings about Geocaching: 2006-02-05

Musings about Geocaching

Monday, February 06, 2006

Boy, where do I start . . .

The last ten days have been really busy with some great days of Geocaching featuring some long hikes. I cached in San Diego one day at the end of January, picking up a few of Princess Toadstool's caches. I found her caches fairly easily, and found another one in that little canyon easily, but then I DNFd a "Difficulty '1'" cache that others found the same day and soon afterwards. That was disappointing, but yesterday someone wrote in their log they found it 30 feet away from GZ covered by leaves . . . that could be why I didn't find it . . .

The weekend before last I went caching with the SDCET (San Diego Cache Event Team) as they tackled many of the puzzle caches in "Puzzle Valley." Because I have such a hard time even looking at the puzzle caches -- I get an instant headache -- I don't include them in my Pocket Queries. The only way I get to log them is if I am with someone who has figured them out. Fortunately, our local puzzle cache owners don't seem to mind, although I understand there are others elsewhere who might be tempted to delete my log if they knew I didn't figure out the puzzle.

Last Sunday P.T. and I stayed in the urban areas attempting some caches that were either new, or had been found recently. At one point, I had three DNFs in a row. One of those was a very tricky hide by cegrube and another cache at the Mission had gone missing.

Even though I didn't find the cache, I was glad to finally see the mission.



The third cache we DNF'd is a Multi in a canyon where the plants have grown a lot since the cleverly-cammoed waypoint containers were originally hidden.

Last Thursday we got a bit of a late start, so we only had about five hours to cache. We found most of the caches we looked for, but DNF'd one which is hidden at a very busy intersection where people can observe you. That is not my kind of cache anyway. Although I will look for such a cache once I have arrived at the location, that is the type where I would prefer to know the location first so I won't have to bother making the drive . . .

Several of the caches we found that day were well-executed in cute containers in nice locations in parks I didn't know existed before that afternoon.



It is really nice when cache owners take the time to add something a little special to your search and find.



Saturday I got up early enough to meet the SDCET contingent for their assault of Mount Gower in Ramona. It was a fantastic day as we hiked up to It's Not My Fault, aka Great View, By Cracky! and "...on top of the world , ma ...".

The views that day were fantastic.













I forgot to reset the GPSr when we started out at the vehicles. The distance we traveled was at least .8 further than the numbers recorded when we got back to the car. The Maximum Speed is left over from the "flight" my GPSr took off Lawson Peak a couple of months ago.



While we were on the mountain, we placed six more caches. Having the goal of eight "smilies" instead of only two, might encourage more people to make that hike. Where I placed "Mega Boulders, Micro Cache," the rocks and boulders were huge and incredible. Even though the cache isn't an ammo can, I hope people who make the journey across the mountain to that cache appreciate where it is placed.

The next day, P.T. and I chose to do some easier caches in the Sweetwater/Spring Valley/Bonita area.. It was cloudy and overcast and hazy much of the day, so I didn't take very many pictures.

For part of our afternoon, it was very frustrating because there is new construction on a huge freeway and our City Select maps were not up-to-date. We got caught up in Swap Meet traffic and had a hard time finding our way to the correct detour around the construction that has really disturbed the lives of people who had nice homes and "ranchettes" near the open space souteast of the Sweetwater Reservoir. After seeing what has happened to that area, I now understand why people fought so strongly against the construction of the toll road through there.

While we tried to find our way to the trailhead for "You're Fenced In," we saw some people walking their three dogs across the back side of the dam -- an area that is restricted. I wished the Park Ranger who told us we couldn't park where we had parked, where there was no "No Parking" sign, had been around when they were doing that. The reservoir is used for drinking water and access to the area is very limited, and completly restricted for domestic animals.

Even with the frustration of the detour, and our difficulty finding the trailhead for "Your Fenced In," it was a fun day. We were in a completely different area from where we usually cache and we found two great little restaurants, one with Mexican food where we had lunch, and one with Italian food where we had dinner, plus we found all ten caches we tried to find.



 

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