GrnXnham

hydnsek, that would be great if you are able to switch days and go Saturday the 31st to Lookout Lookout. But we understand that if there are several people going they shouldn't have to make the switch just because we decided to. But then I just saw this trail report from 2 days ago for the Hidden Lake Lookout http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/trip-reports/...7-18.2423453752 Ice axes required? Do you think the snow will be gone by the 31st? Hidden Lake Lookout could be more difficult than Lookout Lookout if there is still snow. Looks like Lookout Lookout is nearly snow-free now. What do you think?

Now due to other commitments, we are going to have to back out of hiking to Lookout Lookout on Sunday. We will be hiking to Lookout Lookout on Saturday the 31st instead and we'll have to skip the other two hikes. Sunday just isn't going to work for us and Lookout Lookout is the hike of the three that we most want to do. We will be day hiking and not camping this time.

Don't say nuthin bad 'bout them beans! I had 4 helpings of them and my wife survived the night! Thems miracle beans!

Marble Creek appears to be full for that weekend already. Mineral Park still has some campsites available. We are considering this. We are for sure going to hike Lookout Lookout on Sunday. Saturday is a maybe. Friday is a no-go.

Less than a week away! Come on snow!!!! melt melt melt My husband and I (mostly him) are offering to cook for the camping group on Saturday evening. Let me know if you want to join us and depending on the number, we'll ask for a few $ from each to cover the expense. Og, the two of us are in on the dinner. Should we bring something?

I am actually encouraged by this trail report. It looks doable, however, it also looks like it will take a LONG time to get to the top due to trying to get around snow fields or cross them slowly. We are still up for making the attempt but think we should start the hike really early in the morning. Hope we have another hot week ahead of us so it will melt a little more snow.

Here is a Mt. Aix trail report from Friday: http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7984561

Just a FYI, you didn't state anything about not counting hikes prior to July 8th in the "Challenge Rules" section on the cache page. You will probably have someone logging a FTF today by counting prior hikes!

Excellent idea! Finally, another new challenge that we will enjoy!

According to the Garmin website: There is an expansion slot on the 62st. It comes with 500mb of memory. There is no expansion slot on the 62. It comes with 1.7gb of memory.

I also saw the Mt. Aix trail report from June 26th reporting lots of snow up there. Things could change dramatically over three weeks in the summer. Keep your fingers crossed and keep watching for trail reports for this mountain. On the plus side, it's supposed to be REALLY hot over the next week. There could be some serious snow melt in the mountains.

Since everyone else seems to be camping, we've now grabbed spot #48 for both Friday and Saturday night. We'll be bringing our camper. Looks like fun! The TH is 2.5 hours from our house, so camping just makes more sense.

We sent you a PM

Yeah, it's a tough one but the two of us are in. I agree. Best to read the cache page before committing on this one.

Og, we can't hike this Saturday, but with the expected good weather this weekend, we are planning on hiking up Mt. Washington (GCMYA0) on Sunday if you are able to hike on that day and want to join us.

hydnsek Do you want to make this a July AHOTM? We could go ahead and set a date--maybe something like Saturday July 17th? Maybe the snow will be gone by then? If we plan this out a month, maybe more people won't have the day already booked.

The snow level in the Cascades yesterday and today is around 6000' and this cache is at 7600' So there still might be some snow up there this weekend.

Alright, well when you decide to go GrnXnham, let me know if you don't mind. I'd really like to head up there with another person or persons. If your ever wondering if anybody else would be interested...this guy always is. Just FYI. Take care Will do

We plan to do Mt. Aix sometime this summer. But just to play it safe, we will probably give it another month to make sure we aren't slogging through the slick snow on that steep hillside.

This issue has come up before with people changing the ratings on caches and we've talked to Fluteface about it. She said that as long as your find of the cache was made prior to the rating change, you are okay to use the cache for the prior rating. Simply include it in your bookmark list under the old rating. This is only fair. Lots of cachers change the ratings on their caches over time for various reasons. It could become difficult to complete this challenge if you are constantly having to go out and look for "replacement" caches because you just lost one of the less common of the 81 categories due to a difficulty rating change. Take a look at the updated difficulty/terrain grid on our profile page. Because of the rating change being discussed here, we are now back to only 80 categories filled. So a year after completing this cache, should we now lose our smiley? Of course not. Although I do find it irritating that we are missing a category and we WILL go out and find another 4.5/1 cache!

We have found many caches while riding our ATV's. We've also placed a few caches while riding them. As far as terrain difficulty ratings on these caches, most people around here assume that you walk to them and rate them accordingly. For example, lets say you place a cache 2 miles in the woods on an ATV trail. You could ride your ATV, mountain bike, or just walk to the cache. The cache might get a terrain rating of 3 because you could always walk to it. The 5 terrain ratings are for caches where the specialized equipment is REQUIRED. Here, the ATV is not required. It is optional. Since most people don't have ATV's, they just walk to the cache--so the cache gets a rating of 2.5 or 3 or whatever it would be if you hiked. If the hike were to be extremely long and difficult, like 20 miles one way for example, then the cache might get a 4.5 or 5 terrain difficulty rating anyway.

I did some research after last weeks HOTM. It definitely was a juvenile tick I found crawling on my shirt. It also was the type that carries Lyme disease west of the Rockies. That is second time I have found a tick on my clothing. We pulled our first tick off one of the dogs at the end of February. Since then we have removed 6-8 more ticks from the dogs. Yep, it's the season.

2 people and 2 dogs are in for Rattlesnake.

We just got a Canon PowerShot SD780IS 12.1 MP camera. It's very tiny so it can easily fit in a woman's purse or in your pocket and you won't even notice it's there. We got it to replace a larger camera that I got tired of lugging around. I used to only get cameras powered by AA batteries because I didn't want to mess with a "special" battery, but right after getting this camera I ordered three extra batteries off ebay for a dirt cheap price. Now we don't ever worry about not having a charged battery for the camera so it's not a problem. It costs right around $200. We love it so far.

I don't have a very good sniffer so I've found that taste works better than smell. Your mileage may vary.