woody_k

Here is one I took today. Not much of a pic but it's my first try at it other than just the disk.

Thanks.

Trying to find the oldest benchmark in San Bernardino County. Is there a way to search for that? Keep in mind that SB county is over 17,000 sq miles. Largest county in the USA and bigger than Rhode Island.

I play Golf and if I golfed everyday I would get tired of it. If I geocached everyday I would get tired of it too. One needs to spice it up every now and then just to keep the mind sharp and the desire burning.

John, Sorry to have you look up those but thanks for your help. I now know why reference marks are not used. Papa-bear, I think you are right because the description does lead me to where I found that mark. So for the sake of arugument, Grouse 2 was a reset and is the mark on the page...it still wouldn't qualify if it was reset in 1962. Thanks for your info. Ernmark....Grouse 2 doesn't point to the station. The other photo of Grouse 1 does BTW. I sure hope I didn't give anybody a headache!!! LOL! I appreciate all the info from you guys. I am here to have fun and learning is part of the fun. So far I have had a blast except the rain washed out my afterwork searching today. On my Mapsource I still have 1080 to look for before I need to do a search of another zip code. Ken

No I do believe you are right. I did find the reference marks mentioned but not the BM stated on the page. Jeez you are right this is quite confusing. Oh well back to the drawing board. Thanks for your input.

Woody_K, can you give us the PID# of the one you are in question about? When we check the contest posts we look at the benchmark page and see what is supposed to be stamped on the disk for the "station" mark. Or in one case the station mark was the remaining stem of the disk and it had an "X" cut into the top of the stem. If the finder had not found the stem with the "X" it would not have been a proper find. If the Reference Marks have their own PID# and benchmark page, then they will count as a seperate find. Hopes this clears things up for you. John Well no!! LOL! It was the two you had ask me to withdraw from the contest because there are reference marks. You mentioned the arrows on them but they also had their own GC.com page. EV3187 and EV3195. EDIT***** Sorry I did figure out that I DID NOT find them and I did indeed find the reference marks.

O.K. so I have a newbie to the contest question... Why are reference benchmarks not allowed when they have their own PID designation?

Finds for 4/3/06 EV1186/1956/yes/no EV1015/1949/no/no EV1188/1956/yes/no EV1191/1956/yes/no

Post edited because I made a boo boo. I had reference marks and not a Benchmark. Sorry guys and gals. I am new and it really was an honest mistake. Also I was advised on how to title the link properly. Thanks. EV3187 & EV3195 withdrawn.

Here is my one find today. I thought the contest was starting later but no biggie. I do have a ? but i'll ask in the other thread. EV3591/1950/no/no I hope I linked this right.

Yeah....April Fools!!!!

but it isn't a NGS. It's a State of California water resource BM. I found it while out caching today. I will post a pic here but if anyone wants the bigger/better pic...pm me your e-mail and I will send it to you. I know that some of you out there collect photos of different or cool BMs.

Don't feel so bad. I too an deathly afraid of snakes. That's why I seldom bushwhack to a cache. I'd rather confront Uzi toting terrorists in a dark alley armed with only my duty weapon that see a snake 20 feet away.

Although I do agree with pretty much everything these posts have said I would like to add one thing. Eventhough you are worth "nothing" judgements are good for 10 years and can be renewed after that. Plus here in Ca if you have a judgement against you your driving privilege can be revoked. Just food for thought.

Oh. O.K.. I thought you needed a pic that you could see the numbers. But you just want a pic verifying I was there and some good scenery shots to boot!! Cool!!

If you do not take the coords from the top of the cache then it is either a puzzle or multi-cache. The only other way around it would be like I just did. Got the coords 6 feet away to get under a bush/tree but then say so on the cache page how far off you took the coords. Don't put that info in the hint. Some cachers don't use the hints (I do). And please don't do that on a micro...that's just plain wrong! LOL!

WOW!! I really do appreciate the offer but in reality a metal detector has no place on a sport bike!! LOL!

3 times while hiking/caching I have encountered Rattlers. Twice they were sunning themselves across the path. I threw small rocks at it, kicked dirt at it etc... just to get them to move on. I wasn't trying to injure or kill it...just bother it to move along. So I said so in a post. You should have seen the uproar I got. I might as well have killed them. I bet I would have got less static. I too wouldn't kill a Rattler without necessity.

I do have a metal detector but I do all my caching from a motorcycle so taking it is out of the question. I did take my probe and hand held shovel for detecting with me. I also knew the coords would be off and relied on description. The ones I went after would not have qualified for the contest. they were all newer than 1960 plus most of them were not found by NGS or were placed in 1993 by a water department. I honestly think that when the new railbed was placed it covered many fo the marks and bases that I couldn't find. There is plenty of evidence of this.

Armed with 17 benchmarks to look for,I took off on the motorcycle. Found 5. One thing I noticed is that besides the coords being so far off ( I already knew that) the descriptions are off sometimes. Either the description was for a different disk or the area had changed so much that the stuctures, landmarks or other things are no longer there. For example the description said XX feet south of powerpole #####. There isn't a powerpole in sight!!! Or at the base of a RR signal. No overhead signal. And another said at the base of a RR signal with a catwalk. I also figured out that I had better do a search before the next time I leave if I don't know what specific landmark item they are mentioning is....such as a sephamore box. Part of this area is in the midst of big time housing construction. One description led me to an area of this construction and I stepped off the measurements. It led me to a 6 foot high pile of dirt. I also found a survey marker pole and I dug a bit and didn't find the benchmark. This one was outside a pipline station. I did have a page with a similiar description but that one was about a mile away. I don't think the coords were off that much. Anyway still new at BM hunting and learned a few things today.

I have this cache in which I swapped out log books and checked to see if everyone who found it logged on-line. This one in particular had about 20% of the finders who did not log it on line. In another one of my caches I had 5 people who found it and not logged it. In all the rest that I have checked were 100% logged. Before anyone gets upset with me I only checked because the first cache is in my front yard and I would meet the cachers and never see an on-line log. That got me wondering about my other caches. I have checked on 4 of my caches this way. What I thought was interestiing was the notes left in the logbook versus what was written on-line.

I do take the logbook from the cache, write in it, then leave it in the cache. You know I have never thought of it that way! LOL!! I liked your post. I'm glad you took it as it was suppose to be....a slight joke.

There is a few locals out here that I think do that but in reality it doesn't matter because if they were together it would have been a find for all.

The rules on the "getting started" page say this: 1. Take something from the cache 2. Leave something in the cache 3. Write about it in the logbook. So by the letter of the rules simply by not trading is not a find!!!! Also nothing says you have to log it on-line either. With that said, in jest, only a few logbooks I didn't sign. Either there wasn't enough room on the log and no room in the micro to replace another sheet of paper or as was said in another post. It was attached in a place too high I couldn't reach it. In which there have been 2 so far for me. I also know of one cacher who doesn't sign logs!!! But has also found his own caches. Not to sure if he gets the game. LOL!