Waterboy

Congratulations Toast. Sounds like you had a great time. We are honored that you picked our cache for number 100.

Congratulations to the man with many original tricks in his cache hides. He also is the maker of the best souvenirs in geocaching.

If you want to see a store with a large supply of maps (topos and other) in the Philadelphia area check out Patton Maps on Swamp Road (Rt 313) in Doylestown.

Note to Embra, Despite what others may have said, the definition of Magnetic North here in wilds of Penn’s Wood is sometimes different. The definition is “MAGNETIC NORTH IS THE DIRECTION TO THE NEAREST IRON MINE”. On the serious side, there are places where the above definition is true, both in Pennsylvania and neighboring states. The magnetic compass can still be used for navigation, in most places it is good. But be prepared for surprises.

Would love to go, but may have some scheduling problems. Will update.

It is a great time to be out on the trails. Yesterday we were hiking the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania and saw a considerable amount of damage. This past winter has left most trails in the Northeast in need of maintenance. I would like to urge all trail using geocachers to volunteer for maintenance with some local club that performs maintenance. For those in the Delaware Valley (eastern PA and western NJ), if you would like to help with maintenance please check this website DVAMC. Request geocachers involved with other clubs performing maintenance list their websites.

Congratulations. Please continue to enjoy geocaching and the great outdoors. Some individuals may be worried about the stats page. You are amazing any way you look at it. Thank you for contributing so much to geocaching.

Congratulations HartClimbs. In four months, that is amazing. We love looking at your picture as a hiker on the forums.

One hit wonders. I have found some with high difficulty ratings. (CoFR) Sticks and Stones by Manimal, Mystique & Monty (2/4). We have taken three routes to this cache. The most popular and the shortest is a 900+ foot ascent on the Appalachian Trail. This is probably the steepest ascent on the AT in Pennsylvania. There is plenty of times you will need your arms to help climb this section of trail. Pocono Mountain Geocache by TimberlandTimberland (3.5/4). Two routes to this cache. The one we took was coming in about 2.5 miles across swamps from the west. The other is a 1 mile hike from the east, but this one includes a military cable bridge. Wanikaminplay Mountain Cache by Jethro (2.5/3.5). Located in the Adirondacks. Although the terrain rating may be the lowest, it is definitely the most difficult cache in the group. It shortest way is a six mile (one way) hike on the Northville-Lake Placid Trail. To date we are the only finders of this cache. "Steeps over Greenbrook" by Team Regal (3.5/4.5). This is considerably easier than three caches listed above. I believe I could write some negative comments on terrain ratings here.

If we were to rate the terrain by the hardest route as Night Stalker suggests all caches should have a rating of 5, and this rating would be meaningless. If you have any imagination you can make the trip to the cache harder. One simple way is to ask the potential cache finder to start walking, canoeing, swimming, or whatever 40 miles from the cache. This would make Dave54’s comments to ignore the rating apply to everything. Concerning Night Stalker’s the comment about whining. Reading comments by several new Geocachers I realize that many of them do not know how to read a simple map, and are completely lost on topographical maps. If they take the harder route, who’s fault is it? To come to the answer Night Stalker arrived at is to cater to the uneducated.

Can we say farewell to this winter? We loved you, particularly since we have not had a real winter since 1995/96. Did not do much caching, but we did get out into the snow often. Please come again next year. Now we look forward to a gorgeous spring. Then an awesome summer and a terrific fall. FOUR GREAT SEASONS.

Brian and Hartclimbs - concerning the NY/NJ Multi-State Multi-cache. We believe the initial (or Jersey) cache would be pretty difficult in the snow. The final (or New York) cache could probably be found. Incidentally we plan to check all our caches and perform required maintenance as soon as we are sure the winter snows are over. To Hartclimbs - We are honored that you would like our cache to be your 100th.

Our best cache - New York/New Jersey Multi-State Multi-Cache. It is not very popular. Probably because it involves the longest hike of any cache listed in the state of Jersey. The second best - No Hints Bridges the Gap. This cache, located in Jersey was hidden three days before Christmas. Like all our caches, this has a longer than usual hiking distance, and will not be popular. It has been found twice in the snow to date, both times by Pennsylvanian cachers.

This is tough. We know our first three choices, but also know that they will never win a popularity contest. What are we looking for. We are looking for: 1. A good work out to get the cache. An option to return by a different route is desirable. 2. Nice scenery. 3. A well coordinated cache, showing that the creator put a good effort into making the cache. 4. Good possibility to see wildlife. Our first three choice are good workouts with good scenery. All located in the northeast corner of the northeastern states. Or more precisely, in the Adirondacks. First is Leonid Cache by markus. Tied for second and third are GOODNOW MOUNTAIN CACHE by BobSr and Wanikaminplay Mountain Cache by Jethro. As far a popularity contests go these three rough cache will never win. Goodnow is the most popular with four finders. We are the only finders to date for the Wanikaminplay cache. For areas closer to home for most of our more active forum members we will pick two Rich in NEPA caches for the best. The primary reason we pick Rich’s is the effort he puts into them. His caches are loaded with his homemade gifts. We rarely recall what gifts we pick up at caches, except for Rich’s caches. Our favorite cache south of the Adirondacks is Cary Mountain followed closely by Seven Tubs. Cary Mt is the better workout, but seven tubs is the more beautiful area. The cache that we found to be the best workout in Harriman Park is Herbert Mine cache by Lara Croft. Our favorite in Harriman is pm|_ by c_n|njA, which unfortunately is unavailable at present, but we hope the cache ninja will correct that. Other good ones are: The Love Shack and Beyond by renegadejane Covert-002 by CovertGPS (CoFR) Sticks and Stones by Manimal, Mystique & Monty Pyramid Mtn. Roaming Cache by BrianSnat Pocono Mountain Geocache by Timberland The SplitRock Splendor ! by The Artful Dodger and SomethingAboutMary was found by Waterboy Without Wife. It should be mentioned among the great caches, even without the wife’s okay. Two new creators of caches that should be recognized for outstanding jobs are "Juanbob n Sparky" and "deadhorsepoint". Juanbob’s Foul Rift is located on privately owned property, open to the public. It is a well organized cache in a beautiful area. Deadhorsepoint created two strenuous caches, Pingyp and Ramapo Torne in beautiful Harriman Park.

Long ago the Thesaurus ran out of way to describe the fantastic job you have done. I am sure you have heard/seen the word CONGRATULATIONS over 800 times. But once more: CONGRATULATIONS.

Congratulations Jon. We are looking forward to meeting you again, preferably on some remote trail for a terrain 4+ cache.

For trail maps one of the best places to look is the web site for the state parks/forests in your home state. I have not found a state that produces them better than your home state of Massachusetts. You might try MassParks. Good Luck.

Let us hope for a real cold month of March. Then the swamp caches will be easy.

mattb5 and Warm Fuzzies may be interested in an Army Corps of Engineers program named Corpscon. This is a free download, and may be used to convert state planar coordinates to more recognizable formats. Mattb5, the coordinates you listed as NAD83 meters: 175083.68, 890273.65 will convert to NAD83 N 42º15'45.12444" W071º48'07.17476". A location in the center of the city of Worcester. (I am assuming the first figure of the coordinates is the easting.) I would like to thank Warm Fuzzies for Markwelling us to an interesting NOAA Manual. It is a long manual, but in Section 1.3 titled "SPCS 83 Design" the author discusses problems and inaccuracies of the UTM system. He refers how surveyors and engineers are unhappy with the system, but does not mention how this effects real estate people. In many high population density areas, such as inner cities, small variances in the property lines are important, Worcester is probably one such city. As an example let us look at the coordinates listed by Mattb5 of 175083.68, 890273.65 and call this location A. For location B we will use one 2,000 meters north and 2,000 west of location A or 173083.68, 892273.65. There UTM coordinates would be: Location A: 4682727.88461, 268892.95192 Location B: 4684786.36458, 266951.96761 Calculated distance between A&B using SPC: 2828.42712 Calculated distance between A&B using UTM: 2829.26844 A difference of about 84 centimeters, or about 1 part in 3400. Surveyors measurements show that the state planar coordinate calculations are consistently closer to the actual measured distances than are calculations using UTM. If you use UTM to make calculations please remember that it is most accurate near the center of the zones and least accurate at the borders. Worcester, MA is near the border or near W072º Longitude. The quality of UTM also deteriorates the further the user is away from the equator. Now the important item, whether you use UTM or not THIS WILL NOT EFFECT YOUR GEOCACHING.

There are several good hard caches in Jersey, but some have been missed. The most notable one is Dreamcatcher by RAT Team 6, located in the Delaware Water Gap area. This cache has 25 accounts watching it. Many more than any of the others caches we checked. BassoonPilot found this cache recently, but most of your more forum oriented Jersey cachers have neglected this one. When we started hiding caches we decided to make all those we hid difficult, terrain wise. We have hid four in Jersey, two in Harriman Park, NY, and four in our home state of Pennsylvania. The easiest and that hardest both happen to be in Jersey, and have been mentioned. The easiest is Rutherford View, the shortest way in is a little over two rocky miles on the Appalachian Trail. The most difficult is the New York/New Jersey Multi-State Multi-Cache. The two not mentioned are Helispot and No Hints Bridges the Gap. Helispot may be unique as the only traditional cache in New Jersey over a year old that BassoonPilot has not found. On additional cache that we believe is more difficult than several listed by other cachers is The Love Shack and Beyond by renegadejane. Please ignore the terrain rating of 2.5, it should be higher. This was also one of our most enjoyable caches. Talking about enjoyable caches, how could I finish without reiterating the Dodger's comments on Pyramid Mtn. Roaming Cache by BrianSnat. (We found it twice.) It is difficult, and particularly difficult while the last finders were Waterboy With Wife.

Brian, What is more important than the 100 caches is what you have contributed to the game of geocaching. 1. You have helped all of us on the forum. 2. You hid a number of real quality caches. Our favorite, Pyramid Mountain Roaming Cache. 3. Your contributions to the May 2002 geocacher’s picnic was outstanding. THANK YOU BRIAN AND CONGRATULATIONS

We went out and performed maintenance on one of our caches today. Waterboy came back with his shins badly scraped. The wife’s advice to all geocachers: When Waterboy goes caching, it is a good time to invest in Johnson & Johnson stocks.

In Pennsylvania we not only have State Parks and State Forests. We also have State Game Lands to add more confusion.

Usually where you find poison ivy growing you will find a good, natural cure/preventative growing nearby. This herbal medicine goes by many names, but I believe the most common in Jewel Weed. Named “Jewel” because morning dew often beads up to glisten in the sun like a jewel. Two (of many) web sites that describe the weed and its use are: Essex Region Conservation Authority (Ontario, Canada) Revenge of the Botanicals The web site that LoneHowler refers to also leads you to jewel weed information.

Brian, like you we love that Seven Hill Trail. That area south of Pine Meadow Lake is great, as long as we stay away from the electrical power substation. I would like to throw out some questions for thought. 1. Many parks that have lean-tos do not permit overnight camping except at or near these shelters. Does Harriman have any such rules? If these rules do exist we have seen may who disobey it. 2. Also some places have limits or require registrations for groups over a certain size. Would this apply? 3. Are we looking for a short hike to attract beginners? If yes should the distance be planned as four to five miles a day. We will be interested in the overnighter short or long. Like Brian, we have some extra equipment that other cachers could borrow.