California Bear

I realize the sarcastic intent in your post about using online aerial photos but the point is to verify CURRENT existence, not existence on photos that can be 10 or more years older. To do that, you need to see the intersection station is still there. I noticed that the logs you referred to appear to have been done by people who are primarily geocachers. The stats for these users are as follows: Turmousour - Traditional Caches* 107 / NGS Benchmarks 7 rocksusan - Traditional Caches* 127 / NGS Benchmarks 23 For comparison, let's look at some benchmark hunters: Black Dog Trackers - Traditional Caches* 15 / NGS Benchmarks 248 elcamino - Traditional Caches 0 / NGS Benchmarks 221 The logs that you pulled weren't done by people who have benchmark hunting as their main priority. They saw at they went by and logged it at the GC.com site as a bonus find while they were geocaching. That being said, the finds are legit as these stations are designated for the ability to see them from a distance. Those of us who are benchmark hunters are much more caerful about how we log our finds as we are not in this for a numbers game but are doing it to: 1) Help in maintaining and updating the national database; or 2) Get the pleasure of really finding the station as described.

While the marks are usually placed in high locations, the ones I have found are usually sunk into the rock by at least 1/2" or so. There are usually other things around that are higher than the disks that would attract the ligthening. Also, considering they are driven several feet into the ground, they are usually pretty well grounded and wouldn't develop much of a charge. That being said, I can't be sure that a disk wouldn't attract a lightening bolt. I would imagine that a disk that was hit by a lightening bolt would be pretty well melted.

Per the NGS website: The only way to update the site would be to download the datasheets. I think it is a time issue that pervents GC.com from updating the database. It takes time to download them all then upload them in the GC.com site. I wonder if someone was to download all of the info and burn them onto CDs if the GC.com staff would be able to update the database?

The GC.com database has not been updated for many years. They stopped updating it when the NGS stopped issuing updates on CD. The best way to find the latest info is from the NGS website.

Thanks for info. That answers some of my questions.

That is something I have wondered about, especially here in California. The land around here is always moving in different directions with faults everywhere. How accurate are stations that were placed 50 or 60 years ago? What about ones that were placed 1800s? With the number of faults running across LA and Orange counties in particular, it would be pretty easy to shoot a location across a fault line. For example, the world's best known fault, the San Andreas, moves about 35mm/year. Over 50 years, this would be a difference of 6'. If a mark was placed in 1890, today, it would displaced over 13' from a location on the other side of the fault. While the San Andreas is well known and is probably accounted for by surveyors, there are a lot of faults that aren't well known and are sometimes only dicovered when they rupture (i.e. earthquake). How are these accounted for in surveying? Or are they accounted for at all because the movement is relatively small (i.e. 5 or 6 " over 50 years)?

There's a station near me called DONE. While I suppose it is possible that there was a landowner or feature named Done, I am more likely to believe this was the last station this survey team placed and they celebrated by calling it DONE.

Wow! That's really awesome! I wish there were some around here that could match the age of those out here on the left coast. I haev trouble finding marks from as recently as the 1940s or even the 1960s as they are rapidly being paved over. Most of the real oldies (i.e. 1800s) around here were placed on or near the coast which is prime real estate .

I can echo what others have said here about finding benchmarks serving a purpose for the greater good. I enjoy being able to do something to serve the public interest. I have always had a fascination with maps and long ago noticed the BM markings on the USGS maps. Before finding geocaching.com and learning about the NGS, I would try to find the USGS marks shown on their maps. With geocaching, there is a possibility that someone has found the cache and thrown it out thinking it was garbage. There is usually no way to verify this unless the owner or someone who has previously found it verifies it is missing. With benchmarks, they are far more permanent and less likely to get carried off or tossed aside. While many are gone, it is possible with proper research to determine that it truly is gone and sometimes even determine when it was removed. I also got tired of finding geocaches full of geotrash. I am not one of those who charge out as soon as a cache is placed. Often, by the time I get to it, the good stuff has been removed from the cache and replaced with happy meal toys and cracker jack prizes.

Hmmm. My find rate seems to be a bit below average. There may be two reasons for this: 1) I really suck at this 2) I am looking in an aera with lots of development where they tear things up without checking what is there first. For my own pride's sake, I am going to go with #2. Orange County here in CA is constantly under construction. As a matter of fact, there is a park being built right on the spot where I found my first mark. The whole area is blocked off so I can't confirm if the graders they have been running over the bluff have taken it out.

Looks like my first hunt was 3/7/2003 but my first find wasn't till 3/9/03. My find rate is 43.9% but that includes a slew of notes I posted about not being able to look for marks located inside of a Navy Base near me. If I take all those out (after all, I never really looked for them as they are in a restricted area), my rate goes up to 54.6%.

Unfortunately, we don't get real seasons here in So Cal. The chaparral doesn't really drop its leaves at any time during the year. A metal detector wouldn't help because I can't get within 50' of the mark's location. Unless I trim back bushes, the only way I am going to see this one is if a wild fire burns off the brush.

One of the benchmarks I was looking for this weekend was in an area that was completely overgrown with chapparal. For those who don't know what chapparal is like, the plant life is mostly woody shrubs that often have spines. They grow very densely, usually all the way to the ground and often reaching a height of 8-10'. It is nearly impossible to pass through a thick patch of chapparal unless you are a rabbit, lizard or bird. Back to my question: The station is located inside of a National Forest. About the only way I can see to get to the station involves a set of loppers or possibly a powered hedge trimmer. Seeing as how this is on National Forest land, how would you handle this? Let it go or come back with a lopper and shears? Has anyone ever removed or trimmed overgrowth to reach a mark?

That'll teach me not to include the box score on my printouts!

I discovered something odd about the RMs when I found EW7694. The location description for RM 1 and RM 2 are identical: I found RM 2 but couldn't find RM 1. Anyone have any ideas (other than that the initial surveyor made a mistake) as to why RM 1 and 2 would have the same location description?

I'll check my menus. I also have a Garmin but it is an E-Trex Legend.

I have a question... How do you do averaging? Do you 1) Just park your GPSr on the mark for a while and then read the coords after a few minutes, 2) Watch it for a length of time noting all the coords that come up then manually calculate the location Does your GPSr have an averaging function? I've looked through the manual for my GPSr and it doesn't appear to have an averaging function as it was made post-Selective Availability and WAAS. TIA

Ahh! Home sweet home! I live about 15 miles from that point. Unfortunately, I think that 6,725 number is a lot lower. Here in So. Cal. we pave over just about anything developers can get their mitts on. I know there is a large number of markers in my area and around my work that have gone missing with notes such as 'A housing development was built in the area where the location plots to and the ground has been graded to a depth of 7 feet' or similar notes. That being said, there are still a TON of them everywhere I doubt I will ever be able to look for all of them... I am blessed to live in Benchmark Country.

The extra stuff at the bottom looks like something that was put in while developing the page to enable the programmer to see what the server was returning in response to various requests on the page. No doubt someone was debugging the page and inadvertently left the trace information on the page when they moved it from the development environment to the production environment.

I use mine for hiking and benchmark hunting. In addition, I am a volunteer for the National Map Corps for the USGS. I use my GPSr to mark locations of things such as municipal structures, power facilities, radio facilities, places of worship, etc. for inclusion in the National Map project.

Yup! About the only time I use the GPSr anymore is when the area has dramatically changed (i.e. description talks of sand dunes and I pull up to find a housing tract) to get an approximate location for a 'used to be here but probably not anymore' photo. I have also found that USGS maps can be helpful. Some benchmarks are noted on the maps and may be more helpful than the GPS. In addition, because some of the maps have been revised in many moons, features mentioned in a recovery may still be on the map while they have been demolished/altered in the real world.

The description indicates that the mark is/was below the surface of the roadway. Was there a cap on the opening in the photo? If not, gravel, dirt, etc. could have fallen into the opening and obscured the mark. Try moving/removing some of the dirt and gravel to see if the mark is under there. The description also mentions that the mark was surrounded by concrete and this picture seems to be all asphalt. Perhaps the mark is in a different spot. Did you measure from the reference landmarks listed in the description (if they still exist)?

It is really sad to see a mark that old be destroyed. The oldest I have seen around here is from the 60s.

Ahhh! I apparently haven't found any of those. Thanks for posting that. So I am going to assume if a PID matches none of the acronyms than nothing about station type is put on the photos, such as in the example photos in the PDF on the NGS site.

I read the information sheet about digital photos and am a bit confused about the Station Type that must be included in info box on the photos. How am I to know which type to put in? I don't see anything on the datasheets that corresponds to any of the listed acronyms (i.e. FBN, CBN, PACS, etc.).