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Letterbox - YES Twas a Fun one to grab on the 25th Attributes - We-re at 51 JUST in Hawaii. I Completely FORGOT to check the ones that were only on Oahu before leaving. That meant that we would have gotten another 4. BUT we are now only 3 Attributes away from having ALL that are available within 1000 Miles of our home. Just need the +10K, Snowshoes, and X-C Skis. Next week those Should be done! The trip was TONS of fun as everyone can see. The Steaks P.S. Hatlat - Incoming. Pull up a chair...

We're Finally Done Logging our caches from our Great trip of 2012... I Think. I'm sure there's one or two that we found that we haven't logged yet due to having finds recorded in multiple places and times. If you recieved a "Generic log that had Nothing to do with the cache..." Sorry. I tried to convey the overall JOY that we had when we were in this state. The biggest question that we now have is for Next year... we have 4 choices. Europe, APE in Brazil, Australia, or Back to Hawaii! If you have a trip planned to Hawaii and would like a copy of our routes, Just e-mail us and I'll send you the data. Our Logs, as they were intended: 1/23: We left Rock Springs, WY Really early in the morning, and arrived in HAWAII! Grabbed our First cache of the trip, and it was Fun! Only a short walk from our hotel we found our first Gecko and Cache! Got back to the hotel and started loading the GPSs. Shortly thereafter, we were asleep! 1/24: Today was our SE Loop on Oahu! This included driving over 67 miles thru some absolutely amazing landscape! The only down side to today was that our routing GPS was doing Shorter Route instead of Fastest Route. This got us OFF the interstate at the wrong area and Completely frustrted and turned around. Due to this, we did NOT get Diamond Head done. Ohh well, Gotta leave only 1 Single Virtual cache to do next time! 18 caches total today was not a bad day either. Highlights of today were the Pali Hwy, and finnally getting OUT of the Tourist trap that i've been restricted to the last couple times to Hawaii. Would have liked to see Hanuma Bay as well, but of course on Tuesdays its Closed. Maybe next time. We also had our Geo-Event today as well. Thanks to everyone that showed up. Its Great to meet the Locals when we're anywhere! 1/25: Today was our NE Loop on Oahu! Happy Birthday to my Lovely Wife(Lizard_sme)!! We started by repeating the Start of our loop yesterday, due to missing 1 single Letterbox(Pali Lookout)! Of course, we were going that direction anyways, so it was a worth while "Climb". I would have ALmost put the Climbing attribute on That LB. We Also had our FIRST DNF of our trip. It was GC13WBE on Goat Island. This was only mildly frustrating due to the fact we had to SWIM across the rip currents coming from Both directions during HIGH Tide(I think it was +2). It took awhile to get out there and back. From there, it was up to the North Shore to do some Geo-cleanup of an archived cache, place our one cache to stay in Hawaii, a Challenge Cache, and finished up the day by missing the Dole Plantation by quite litterally 5 Minutes. Got back to the hotel, and CRASHED onto the bed. 10 caches found and 2 DNFs 1/26: Today, we came out to the Furthest West spot for our trip! Our NW "Loop" included filling the car up at Schofield Barracks, The Dole Plant was interesting. Somehow, I don't remember paying THAT MUCH for the Pinapples last time. Either way, we opted to not get any. Only 7 caches found today, but they were all fun. That included the NW Point cache(GCJ45Y). It was "Fun" to walk the last few Miles in to it due to having a car instead of a jeep for today. Live and learn. There's another cache down that road that we're going to come back for next time we're here, so JEEP for Oahu next time! Somehow getting back to the hotel each night is feeling SO much more comfterable each day, and NOT wanting to get out of bed the next morning. 1/27: EARLY! I Love seeing a NEW ISLAND! Being to Hawaii 2 times before, and never getting out of the tourist trap on Oahu made the 22 minute flight WORTH IT at o'Dark 30. We landed at 1045, and had the car only 5 minutes later. After booking Snuba for my lovely wife on this island, I re-worked our plans to today being the North loop of Maui! We did the Entire loop Counter-clockwise. I'd recommend doing it that way, cause the road on the West side is a bit more strait than the East road. After 8 caches, we went up to Hosmer Grove and slept like a rock! 1/28: Beings we were at Hosmer grove(N20 46.071 W156 14.230), and the TOP of Haleakala was only a few miles away, we HAD to get up Early(0530) and see Sunrise at the Summit! OMG! If you have Never seen a sunrise above the clouds... above 10,000ft... When here, you HAVE to do it at least once. Your body won't want to get out of bed, but Trust us, Its Worth IT! From the TOP, we went back to the ranger station and picked up our Backcountry permits. Read on to see why. from there, we drove the ENTIRE Length of the Hana Highway. Don't let the Highway word confuse you mainlanders. It has 620 Curves and only 59 Bridges in just over 52 miles! If that scares you, you WILL spend 4 HOURS to get from one end to the other. We only stoped for 3 caches, and it still took us 3 Hours! Luckly, on this trip we had Specific caches in mind for specific goals. It makes this "Less Hectic" for us. Once done with the Hana Hwy, we went back into town for fuel(Filling the tank for only $0.37) for our stove. we Promptly forgot to fill the tank for the car. Ohh well. Our backcountry permit had us staying at the Holua Campground IN the crater at an elevation of 7000ft. The Trailhead was at 8000 ft and the trail was just under 4 Miles one way. It dosen't look that hard with the switchbacks(30 each way), but the trail is only slightly improved. We got thru the switchbacks and the gate and about 10 minutes later, we were in complete darkness using flashlights for the last Mile of trail. Found the campground(N20 44.389 W156 13.099) above the cabin and pitched the tent. I would estimate my pack weight to be right at 50 pounds, forgetting only ONE thing... Matches or a Lighter! Luckly we ate already... 1/29: Woke up this morning on our "Slow Day" on Maui! Only had 3 caches planned and it was noon when we reached the parking lot. By this point, the Solar Pannel we got had completely charged the spare sets of batteries(One set stays on charger at all times...) Ran to the Summit(again) did the Earthcache, and then Virtual and Munzee on the way down from the Summit and then into town to fill the tank in the car. Once the tank was full, it was simply back to Hosmer Grove grabbing the one OLD cache thats up the road toward the park (GC76E). That was a FUN cache. Didn't add any Hubs to it though. Slept in Hosmer Grove again and had a lighter this time to start the stove for hot dinner! 1/30: Today we woke up, and I realized that I hadn't been checking one of our goals progress "Attributes in Hawaii"! After a few minutes, I revised our route for today to add a few more caches. With a Total of 2 caches before planned, I raised it to 6 caches for various attributes. This becomes more aparent as the days go on from here. The Highlight of today was really spending 5 HOURS on one cache! See our log for GC1QAVZ and its Pictures! I wish all the pictures underwater came out good, but get what you can take! After our Adventure of SNUBA, we drove up to Papakea Resort and slept there. That was a GOOD Idea, cause they LOST our reservation. After a short wait, our room was Supersized and upgraded to Oceanside condo WITH a Washer and Dryer! This made it Alot nicer to pack things up for our flight in the morning. 1/31: Another Early morning Flight. Flew from Maui(OGG) to Hilo(ITO) and picked up our rental 2012 JEEP LIBERTY! AWESOME! I Love JEEPs! We started out the Big Island with a rather challenging Webcam cache. It wasn't challenging because of the location, but because of the Links to get TO the actual webcam your supposed to use. From there, we went toward Mauna Kea for a Group of caches. Started out by grabbing the one at the start of the Summit road(GC325E), and then a Short stop at the Visitors center to "Acclimate" i.e. call parents and tell them to pull up the webcam page for GC3D6D. Once they got the right cam loaded, we headed out and Up..up..up..and away! Once at the top, a quick call to them confirmed they were ready to take the picture, and another two pictures later, we were en-route to the Highest possible cache in Hawaii(GC2Y6MA) on the Summit of Mauna Kea at the Benchmark. Looked for the Peakbagger tube as well, but its not there. Being literally Feet under 14k, our trip to the top was a short lived one that was Completely worth it! Oh, I forgot to mention that I was wearing my Vibram 5Fingers at the TOP in the SNOW! YEAH, but Cold... On the way down, we grabbed another 4wd cache(GC2VB13) and then finished our valley tour into Kona. upon arrival to Kona, we grabbed one last cache for a total of 7 for the day. 2/1: Its Amazing how many miles you can drive in a day. Especially After we went Para sailing with UFO Para sail!That was FUN! We started driving at about 10a and found a total of 16 caches. Over 185 Miles traveled as well. This was All Driving miles, and the only other days that were Above this were days we were Flying. We did the North Loop from Kona to Hilo in the day, then after dark drove down to Mackenzie State Park. We also did 2 "Stabs" North from the main Hawaii Loop Hwy for GC190BC and GC5B98. Of course, we added the GC3A6F7 as a "On the Fly" cache for the day. It was cool. We drove strait past GC1E2W6 just to see where the road went, and COQUIS OMG!! Yeah!! If we lived here all the time, I'd HAVE to be in Politics JUST to correct this atrocity on this species that's practically an Endangered Species! Listening and looking at/for them was one of our BEST experiences in All of Hawaii! Though this day wore us out, it was worth it! Quite a few more Attributes were crossed off the list of Attributes to find today as well. 2/2: We started our day at Mackenzie State park, so HAD to do the Hot Tub cache(GC1PR24). We could have swam in the pools for a bit, but then we may have never left for the day. After there, we did the Lighthouse cache(GC2WNAD). That was Fun, esp since the coords that we had were the OLD ones, and nobody mentioned the new ones in the last 5 logs. Thanks for the Update GSAK! We then traveled a few miles down the road to Volcanos National Park and got All the Earth and Virtual Caches with the exception of GC1A5E4. That was Fun, except the lava wasn't flowing when there. The last flow was on Dec 23rd. Exactly 1 Month before we got to the islands. After Volcanos, we went to South Point, was Tempted to JUMP from the cliffs, but didn't. Grabbed the cache and then went off to Manuka State Park for the night. 2/3: When you look at the map, Manuka State Park is situated about 4 miles from the West coast of the island. There was a cache down there that we decided to go after(GCX38J). Failing to read the description before hand proved to be a Blessing in disguise. Of course, when she read thru it the first time, she went 6.1 Miles of THIS?!? then the facemask and snorkel Required... GREAT!?! We were already 1 mile in! We stopped and I read it for good measure. Luckily, its not Really Required for the cache. Got Down and Back. 45 Minutes each way,l and a 15 minute walk due to my not wearing the right kind of shoes. From there, we went to GC2PJ9A. Make sure to Read the Description well, and Start at the Parking Coords. I will upload a Picture at request of the Trailhead your supposed to use. Parking is good there as well. From there, we went on up to Kona to get a few caches along the way. Upon arriving in Kona, we ran into Wal-mart for our lunch for the event tomorrow(2/4/12). WAL-MART does NOT have DRY ICE! After asking around, they refereed us to the Arctic Ice house a few long blocks away. Got there, and No Dry Ice! asked the older gentleman there in charge where else would have it , and he recommended Gaspro by the Costco and Subway. a short bit later, after about 10 miles Total of driving, we spot the Costco... with NO Subway in sight... Drive around in the "New Kona Industrial District" for a bit, and finally found the Subway... not remembering the name of the place to actually go, we asked the people next to Gaspro if they knew of a dry ice supplier and they said one door over. They were CLOSED, but in Awesome Hawaiian spirit, the guy inside came out and I asked to buy a small amount of dry ice. not more than the size of a pop can. He opened the container and GAVE us a block that was ALMOST too Big. Needless to say, That kept our lunches COLD and even created frost on the cooler by the morning. 2/4: This was one of the BEST days of the trip. Of course, we were running ragged by this point, but Its Our Anniversary! Happy 7 Yrs Wifey(Lizard_sme)! We started out the day by a relaxing drive down to South Point to attempt the Green Sand Beach Cache(GC4E6E) We got appx 1/2 mile past the fist gate and gave up so that we wouldn't miss our OWN Event at the Kamilo Beach CITO Cleanup! We just happened to stop and ask one of the locals if we were on the right road for Green Sand, and Kamilo eventually... We WEre, but there's a Rainbow Gathering going on at Kamilo Beach right now, so you won't want to clean there up. Great?!? I guess we'll go to Green Sand and just clean the beach from there to South Point. Did the CITO Event, and WOW! That's some TONS of TRASH! And just to think, we ONLY picked up the Rope and Nets that washed ashore. If we had picked up the Plastics as well, we would have needed another 2-3 Trucks for Just the bigger plastic. From the CITO, we went to Hilo to "Stage ourselves" for our Late Outbound flight tomorrow. Of course, there was 1 single Virtual that we had skipped a few days ago that we hiked into. That was Fun! 2/5: Today we woke up in Hilo and did a quick search for caches that we had not gotten one of a few attributes still missing. This meant that we'd be driving some of the area that we'd already driven, but they were all for specific caches. 11 to be exact. Had 1 DNF though. Of course I forgot to figure out exactly what attribute that one was for and replace it. I think our favorite cache of the day was the multi int he Lava Tube(GC38385). Of course, it wasn't the last one, but in our last one we dropped quite a booty of coin and bugs(GC302zv)! From there, we headed off to the airport and waited for our flight. Its sad when your driving toward the airport, and just want another couple weeks! Thanks for Everyone that we met, either at events or randomly throughout the state. If I remember, we met other cachers Almost Every Day throughout our trip! Its Nice to exchange stories and ideas with other cachers when we see them. The Steaks

Feel Free to come by our other event on the Big Island on 2/4. Its just another plane ride and rental vehicle. Would also say just host an event, but i think its almost too late to get one listed for that time period. Will be Tweeting and such All trip long. Of course, to figure our info out, check out our Website... The Steaks

I Thought I would start the 3rd page as well, but thats good Team Pixos. When we started caching, we didn't pay attention to this or that statistic, but lately its been good to be able to do specific caches for specific goals to "sort" the caches. Of course, we've already cleared 365 days of caching this last year, and our D/T Grid is almost full...The Historical caches(+10 Years active) are really cool, and the Virtual/Webcams are Really good to get!! The Steaks

Team Pixos - Center Coords of 21.45657, -158.01114 and Radius of 35 miles will gove you a PW of all the caches within the Island of Oahu. We plan to do 57 while on island! Of course, If Smes is up for it, we'll somehow add another 15 and almost complete Both of our 81 Grids. Arriving on the 23rd, and Departing Early on the 27th That'd be an additional hike. The Steaks

You laugh... I was frustrated.... Of course, had I done what I thought of back in May of last year, she'd have NO Clue still... The STeaks

So, Last night I asked if we had a Thermometer... Needless to say, she started thinking and looking for this intrepid cache!! A Few hours later, SHE FOUND THIS FORUM! Drat!!! The surprise lasted til today! She knows about Most of it!! We'll be there on the 23rd!!! See Y'all then!! The Steaks

Kamilo Beach CITO(GC39E96) has just been published!! Its 2/4/12 from 1100-1400. Bring your lunch for a meet at the Beach! I read about this beach yesterday, and it just CRIED for a CITO! Of course, It'll require 4wd to get to, but Hopefully people are willing to carpool with those that don't have the right type of vehicle. The Steaks

We're planning a trip that'll happen in 2013 or 14 to the ONLY REMAINING APE CACHE in the world. Its over 6000 Miles from home. That'll be expensive. The Steaks

I will Completely AGREE with you on that... Even though, depending on your intended route, it could be an additional 6 Hours driving for it. Either way, You'll love the cache!! The Steaks

Also, Check out our website and follow them directions. Its http://steaks.hobby-site.com . From there, goto the Geocaching link, and Copy Me for the directions. It was Originally set up with the eTrex Vista HCx. I use the macro All The Time to send caches to our units! The Steaks

If you check out the main Aloha Thread, there are some on there that are recommended there. The Steaks

Current questions I have: Where in Maui would be a good area for a CITO Event?? Where on the Big Island is a good place for an event? The Steaks

What week... We'll be in maui from 1/27-31... Big Island is 2/1-5... The Steaks

If you check in the Aloha Forum, you will see some caches listed in maui. Hopefully your going to more than one island!! The Steaks

First event has been Published! Hau'oli Makahiki Hou 2012(GC39E95). 1/24/11 at 1800. If you have a Geocaching.com flag, Please Bring it. I'd like everyone to know where we are! The Steaks

will do!!

Found a place... wait for it to be posted. The Steaks

Where in Maui would be a good area for a CITO Event??

For GCJ45Y if you rent a jeep you can drive in all the way to the sanctuary (GC2T0AQ - Fire Dice) from Hwy 930. You can only drive part way from Hwy 93 and it is much narrower, not much room to pass someone going the other way. However, if you are walking in both parking areas at the End of the Hwys have break in risks , but Hwy 930 might be a bit safer in my opinion. I guess we're gettin a Jeep!! Will get that reserved tomorrow! The Steaks

Also, Looking for a good Close place to the Aqua Waikiki Wave hotel that I can host an event. would be on the 24th of Jan. Any ideas?? I've looked at previous events and see some ideas. Of course, I don't just want to copycat event or wait til the day before to announce the REAL coordinates after looking on idland. Where Should there be an event that hasn't happened recently. The Steaks P.S.. CITO on Maui, and maybe another event on the Big island ideas would be great as well!

Another Question... Gcj45y. Is it better to hit it from hwy 930 or 93... Or is the road thru that area still. I can't tell from the maps and google Earth... The Steaks

Seems the last party is this one... GC37EJC -TwoCs- and CoBiker Visit Hawaii from Colorado Hopefully you make it... Its Today(the 19th) at 1800. The Steaks

Was watching H50 tonight, and started thinking about a GREAT hike... Can you hike from GC1FFGC to GC1E5ZN to GCRDEC along the peak-line?? We're expieranced hikers and would like to do both trails, but for a day would want to go up one trail, and back the other... Is there any'easy' way to get from one Trailhead to the other??

Snuba! That would be fun, but I've asked my wife, and she wants to snorkle first. Of course, that means she needs to get more comfterable with the water to begin with.... wol be working on that Tomorrow. Our dates are Confirmed. 23 Jan -5 Feb. 1/23 - 1/26 Oahu 1/27 - 1/30 Maui 1/31 - 2/05 Big We're looking to have a TON of fun, and everything is planned out. Luckly, this forum has answered all my inquires thus far. I've done some looking at different sites, and am wondering what vehicle will I need to get to Mauna Kea Webcam Cache(GC3D6D). The Planned day for visit is 1/31. I've looked around and seen that a 4x4 is Recommended. If I showed up to the access road with a vehicle thats not 4x4, would I not be able to get to the top?? The Steaks