zdv

Source: http://www.ktvb.com/news/topstories/storie...e.9bdf118c.html Very unfortunate that this has happened...

Wow, that is quite impressive. It's hard for me to imagine how such a cairn survived so long unless it is cemented together. Did you notice if it was? I understand Idaho used to have many such cairns on mountaintops, but I've yet to see one intact like that one. I'm guessing the rough winters have taken their toll..

I decided to hike Whiskey Mountain in Idaho, which happens to have BM Whiskey on top (OH1363, not listed on this site). I was somewhat amused to notice a nearby hill is marked with BM Jack! Also, a friend told me he was looking at some maps somewhere and noticed a "Republican Mountain" with BM Democrat on top, or maybe vice versa. I didn't confirm that but it suggests at least some surveyors enjoy leaving a little humor behind..

There are several in my area that are discs set into the top of elevator shafts on the roof of buildings. I guess whether or not you hunt these might boil down to why you hunt benchmarks. I personally don't enjoy "access hassles" so I typically avoid marks that require permission to access, are in the curb in front of someone's house, on private land, etc. But if you enjoy the possibility of haggling your way to the BM then maybe it's for you..

Maybe this isn't the best spot, but I'm curious what CORS is about. I looked around the NGS page for it but couldn't find any info that really made sense...

This thread is awesome. Sure enough, I searched through my DeLorme Idaho atlas and found an "easter egg". Very subtle and funny the way they placed it - I like it!

Thanks for the info! The only place I've seen these is out in the rural areas of central Idaho. I haven't tried to find any of them, I just noticed them while surfing through the database. The above mentioned marker has several other "unmonumenteds" within the 10mi radius.

I've found several marks that list the "Marker Type" as unmonumented and provide minimal description. Anyone encountered these and have any idea what they are about? One example is NU1803. Could I just walk around the area and log it?

My favorites are located on mountain tops. I originally started "collecting" BMs when I began hiking/climbing peaks in 2001. Usually on mountains the BMs are easy to spot, in good condition, and almost always have awesome views! Some of the more isolated ones haven't been recovered since they were monumented 30 or 40 years ago. I've even seen a couple with intact wood cairns from over 30 years ago. Check out this one: http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.asp?PID=OZ0969

Thanks for the info. Neither one is in the database, which must just be a coincidence. Here I was thinking I had found something special!

Found an interesting one the other day: OY0929. It is a mast on top of the "Experimental Breeder Reactor #1", which was the first place in the world to produce electricity from atomic energy. So basically it's the world's first nuclear reactor, which is now some kind of tourist site (I think). http://www.asme.org/history/roster/H039.html

I've now found two BMs that look like the one below. One was shown on a USGS topo map but the other was not. The tablet design is different from most I've seen, so I'm guessing there is some kind of significance there. However, neither marker shows up in the NGS database. Any ideas what it is? http://rm-f.net/~zdv/photos/20010824/blackmanbenchmark.jpg

Anybody have any opinions on GIS software (both freeware/shareware and commercial)? I would be interesting in using various GPS data that I've collected to make some maps, but I'm somewhat ignorant of the best tools to do this. Basically I'd like to make some custom maps and create views into the data, possibly yielding JPG files as artifacts of the analysis. In college they had a tool called ArcView which worked pretty well but I'm guessing it's pretty spendy. Anyone have thoughts or recommendations about other tools?

They do indeed, I remember seeing one while I was in Victoria not long ago. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture, but it was a BC agency of some kind that monumented that particular one.

I've been using the ImageMagick tool called 'convert' for awhile, which runs on both Unix and Windows. On my Linux system it was pretty easy to construct a script to auto-thumbnail large batches of images. This tool is free and available at www.imagemagick.org. Just another option for those of you who like command-line tools!

Figured I'd add my two cents.. I think it would be great if we could browse logged benchmarks by radius and/or state. I just like to browse benchmarks "already found" in my area, just to see what others have posted. This feature would make it slightly easier than searching a radius and only selecting the found entries. The benchmarking is my favorite part of the site!