Blog Template Musings about Geocaching: A fun day hiking with fisnjack on his birthday!

Musings about Geocaching

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

A fun day hiking with fisnjack on his birthday!

It wasn't until late in the day that I found out today was fisnjack's "milestone" birthday. I wish I had known about it ahead of time, but I felt honored he chose to spend the day hiking with me.

We found a couple of caches in the Rancho San Diego area before driving up to the small community of Crest where, over the next few hours, we found several caches along two different sets of trails. We also met another cacher who lives in the area.

The first trails were accessed from a trailhead at the end of Rios Canyon. We hiked up to the first cache, and found it out of its hiding place within an "APR" (Artificial Pile of Rocks). As near as we could tell, the cache was intact. One of the tabs on the Lock 'n Lock container looked a little chewed on . . . I left a T.B. in that container and we rehid it the way the cache owner intended.

From there, we walked up to the top of the hill, wondering if there was a puzzle cache hidden up there. But, at the top, we found ourselves right behind a home. What a great view they have from that high vantage point.

We hiked down the road, and made a few wrong turns on the oddly-intersecting trails, so our tracks are complicated, and the profile of the cache is not symetrical.



Even though it was a beautiful day, I didn't take very many pictures. It wasn't as clear towards the west, as it had been these last two days after the rains, but it was clear to the east. I got this picture of another one of the view homes with Gaskill and Lawson Peaks in the distance.



After finishing up that hike, we worked our way to the center of the small community of Crest where we found a cache outside the fence in front of a house. As I signed the log, the cache owner who lived there came out to talk to us. We had a nice conversation. It was good to meet someone who has been involved in this activity for a few years longer than I have.

From there we found the parking for another set of trails where SD Rowdies and the Splashes and "lostguy" and other cachers have placed caches recently. The sun was getting low in the sky, and it got much lower as we tried to find "Jerilee." My GZ was a long way from where fisnjack ultimately found the cammoed container. If I had been by myself, I would have called it a DNF at least 10 minutes earlier in my search.

Further down the trail, I took this picture when the afternoon light was beautiful.



I ended the day with a "Not Found," although I logged it as a "Note" because I never got to GZ to start the search. The vegetation was tangled, there were dogs barking, and fisnjack arrived, after driving around from the other parking. Since it was his birthday, his wife probably wanted him home, so I didn't want to take any more time looking . . . and the dogs were driving me crazy. The cache highlights a great old home built on an impressive pile of rocks, so I'll be back someday.



The odd route I took to attempt to get to ground zero allowed me to see this unusual cactus.



When I return, maybe the dogs will be inside, or off with the owner somewhere else, so they won't disturb the entire neighborhood while I look for the cache.

It was another great day. My thanks again to fisnjack for motivating me to get out of the house on a day when I didn't feel all that great. My best wishes to him on his birthday, and I hope he has many, many more.


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