2oldfarts (the rockhounders)

You missed the point of my post - It costs money to file those recovery reports. Not necessarily in cash, but in time that must be paid for by the folks doing the survey job where the mark may well end up being destroyed. To fill out all the paperwork and then submit it, takes time and workers do not do this for free! Only so much money is allocated for a specific job and if there is not enough allowed, then guess where the cuts will be done. Rarely does anyone get a fine for destroying a survey mark. What is the "Deal" that professionals don't know, but you do? John

It was not listed as destroyed because that would cost time and money! They were probably on a tight budget for that job and did not have the funds or time to file the destroyed report. John

OK. This is our favorite way of benchmarking. We have Topo 9 on our laptop and GPSrs and the BMXs on the topo maps are normally within 20 ft. We can drive along with me watching the laptop and then I say stop right here, John gets mad because I didn't tell him to stop soon enough, so he backs up a tad and then uses his GPSr to go to the mark (if he doesn't see it out his window). Here is the link to the GC benchmark page where you can click on the topo map on the right side of that page. Zoom in all the way and you will see the BM "X" right where that red arrow is on the map that John posted. Simple. Shirley~

The red arrow points to where you should look. Try a different mapping program to see if the details are better. John

The real reason that things were trashed is quite simple. If you have something that does function properly you have 2 choices, 1, is fix it yourself or 2, get someone else to fix it for you. Of course there is a third option - If you don't know how to fix it and don't want to get someone else to fix it for you, then you just toss it into the trash and move on. Guess which option they chose? John

We have found several, here is one. HALF GQ0276 - Note: We found half of HALF - the remains of HALF and Ref. mark 1. NGS DATA SHEET - So you can go to see the box score. HALF RM 1 34.519 METERS HALF RM 2 42.849 METERS That was just a quick search of all of our finds. If you want another, you might talk us into searching further. Shirley~

No need for me to catch up as I will just devote my time and efforts to those thing I enjoy and can afford. I can not afford to spoil my free time in the outdoors with a worthless piece of social junk. I get in the outdoors to get away having to deal with those that can't even turn off their phones while at a check-stand in a store. Thanks, but No Thanks, John

One of the roads closed ran to the southeast from Hwy 93 in NV and the other that has a nice line of 1941 marks ran to the southwest from Pahranagat Lake. The road from Pahranagat Lake was posted - no unauthorized vehicles - and no info on who to contact to get permission. We stopped at the state line on old Hwy 91, because we have recovered just about everything going north from there. Are you going to help carry that ladder back up to the road?

We went looking for benchmarks yesterday, but the road was closed to all unauthorized vehicles. So we took some pictures instead..... Have a heart. See the heart? Here is a closer pic. We enjoyed ourselves even if we could not get a whole slew of marks.... Shirley~ -----------------------------------

To get an idea of how well a metal detector will work for this adventure, you will need to set a nickel flat on the ground and the see how close the detector must be (directly over head of the nickel). If it is 5 feet or more then you will need to put the nickel on edge and see if it will read it at the required distance. It needs to be able to read the coin on edge since you will be measuring from the outside edge of the cairn to the bedrock under the center of the cairn and not from the top down. Most detectors are designed to measure through the ground and not the air. I don't know if measuring through the rocks of the cairn will work at that range. If you do decide to try this, be sure and scan the majority of the rocks in the cairn to see if they are "Hot Rocks". If they are "hot", that will kill the idea of using the detector. Good luck, John

Try this link and see if it is what you are looking for. John Edit to add - it is a PDF file of the old Hippo list.

The update last night has shut down all pictures on the GC site. Lets hope they can get them back.... Shirley~ =================

There are no pictures being shown anywhere. The benchmark pages recovery photos have an error that states 404 - File or directory not found. The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. I only hope that the site can recover all of the pictures that were being stored on their server, as many people will be upset across all of GC land. I never realized just how important pictures are to all of varied activities of GC. Pictures seem to be at the very heart of what we love about GC.... Shirley~ ===========

Remember caching involves Hiding caches as well as finding. Maybe he would be more interested in the hiding part. Challenge him to hide one better than any that you have already found. Have him try and hide a 5* difficulty cache using a regular size container (not some micro). If he can do that, then he would probably enjoy reading all the DNF logs as well as the finally found it logs. He hides them and you find them, sounds like a good compromise. John

It is still there waiting for someone younger and more agile to get it. When we were there with Klemmer and Fossillady it was very obvious that I was no longer the billy goat that I once was. Sanity took control and convinced me that I was out of my league on that one. Would love to see someone actually get to that one. John

I get the feeling that the cache in question is NOT on the archery property and the OP is just venting because his practice was interrupted. Someone trespassed on the property and it bothered him. As to only seeing the target when using the sight on his bow, I don't think that is quite accurate. He may be concentrating so hard on his target that he doesn't see anything else, but if he is honest with himself there is still a small field of view in the aperture of his sight. It may not be very large, but it is still there and can allow an archer to see something moving into the path the arrow will take. Is the cache actually on the Archery Range? John

Did you check "include destroyed marks"? John

We have a series of caches designed for 18 wheelers and large vehicles. Most of them are regular in size with just a couple small ones. Every one has safe parking for a Semi. We had seen Semis parked at almost every spot before placing a cache there, so we knew there would be no problem with the parking. The problem we now have, is someone has put them on a bookmark list (RVs Only, Difficult for trucks). We sent the owner of the list a request to remove our caches from his list about a month ago. He sent us a note saying he would. They are still on his list, so we sent another note asking if there was a problem removing them. He replied "Appreciate the reminder, will get on it when broadband restored." He has internet access and can send e-mail, but can't remove the caches from his list. Right. Is there a way to get the caches removed from his list, since all of the caches can be done by any 18 Wheeler without creating any problems for the drivers? Help. John

Way cool! Ya gotta love those golden oldies. Thanks for sharing the tree and stone culvert pictures, beautiful. Shirley~

Your find is in better condition than 1 of our finds today. The concrete post of our find is definitely in good condition, except that it is clear out of the ground. Anyone want a souvenir, just e-mail Deb for permission to retrieve the disk and we will be glad to show you where it is located! GP0054 - P 49 Here is a good picture of it. A good day benchmarking 3 finds (with the last logs being N/F), 1 destroyed, 1 N/F, all of them set in 1934. John

We sign the log and if we like the cache, we leave our heart (psssst, we are rockhounds). Like this one - rose quartz or any other type of stone that has been polished. It is something that people of all ages might like to grab and keep or pass along. Shirley~

Would they not have numbered the second pair of RMs as RM3 & RM4 and use the same name ("CAMPBELLVILLE" not "CAMP")? John Here is a pair of marks where there are 2 sets of RMs numbered 1 & 2 per each set, but they are for 2 different benchmarks. SHINARUMP CAIRN SHINARUMP Both of these marks are and RMs are within about 50 feet of each other. Perhaps the lookout tower had its own PID, but is now classified as destroyed and does not show in the current list of nearby benchmarks. John

Would they not have numbered the second pair of RMs as RM3 & RM4 and use the same name ("CAMPBELLVILLE" not "CAMP")? John

After reading the description for LT0708 CAMPBELLVILLE it appears that you did not find any of the 3 marks listed at the given coordinates. What you appear to have found is an RM for "Campbellville", Not the station mark, since that is set in concrete and the RMs are set in boulders. The RMs for "CAMP" are set in the concrete base of the lookout tower, not in boulders. The "CAMPBELLVILLE" RMs are set in boulders. Without being there it is impossible to tell which RM you found. Where is/was the house and driveway? Where is the base of the lookout tower? I'm guessing that "CAMP" RMs are for the Tower that is now gone. John

We went benchmarking for a couple of marks that have eluded us for some time now. One of them is set vertically in a rock wall according to the datasheet. It is supposed to be 3 feet above ground level in the bottom of the dry-wash. We think that the dry-wash has filled in over time and we will need to wait until there is a real gully-washer to clean it out so we can find that mark (or wait for cooler weather to dig down along the face of the rock wall). The second mark HN0568 G 144 was found as described. If I had listened to my own advice, I could have avoided climbing up to a rock wall (not the one mentioned in the datasheet). We know that USGS Topo maps have symbols for benchmarks quite often and they are usually pretty close to where the benchmark is located. In this case we measured the distance from the entrance to Crosby Canyon and noted where it put us and we re-read the datasheet. It seemed off a bit so we did as we recommend and went to 2 known BM locations and measured from them, 1 in each direction. When we finally got to where we felt the mark should be we read again the datasheet and Shirley looked at the map and decided to clear the GPSr track and then saw the BM "X" on the map. I started looking out my window to see if I could spot the require rock wall and noticed at the same time as Shirley, that there was a "BM" marking where to look. If we had only looked at the map and saw where the BM X was marked, we would have saved ourselves about an hours time in looking for this mark. It was still a good day of benchmarking. John