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monstercatambush

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Everything posted by monstercatambush

  1. You might want to keep checking on status as far as Deam Wilderness caches go. We've heard some discussion that the IDNR may be taking a harder look at cache placement, and there may be some changes coming down the trail. The Deam is one of my favorite areas to hike, camp, and cache, and I've got a few very cool (I've been told) caches out there. If it turns out we're directed to pull them then they'll get pulled. I just mention that so that you don't plan your trip around hitting the many excellent Deam Wilderness caches, only to find they've been archived out from under you. It is indeed an extremely beautiful area. I'm sure you'll love it if you do go do your hike. Can't comment on the hammock camping. I tried one of those things and felt like I'd been snared in a web or something!
  2. TheRoadAndTheSky is a geocacher from my area that I HIGHLY respect. He and I both waited anxiously to get our new eTrex 30 units. I didn't notice the problems at first, but then again, Road is a detail person. I've had the same issue with getting within 30 feet or so of a cache and the unit locks up. If I wander around enough it does free up and then is pretty accurate. I won't gripe about the end result, but the journey can be troublesome. I like the compact and rugged nature of the unit, and the ability to expand the memory with additional memory chips. I have a HUGE number of maps and caches loaded now, but do get frustrated when the thing pouts. Sort of like having Albert Einstein in the back seat, but he's not talking when the car abruptly enters a quantum dimension shift and my dog turns into an otter that insists on playing a banjo while I'm trying to drive. Anyway, that's how weird it is when this seemingly wonderful little gizmo takes a crap in my hands. I'm going to be patient, for now, and hope Garmin fixes it. I'd still rather hike with a Garmin than any other unit... But dang... that new Magellen that's dedicated to caching and costs $145 is starting to look pretty good. (Hint Hint) -Monstercatambush
  3. Hmmmm... should have read the other posts first! There's a really good multi called Bucket of Fun that is on campus you should try. As Jeni notes, the hide in plain sight series is pretty decent, if I do say so myself. A fairly new one called Historic Treasures is available at the History Center at 6th and Washington. You download a history quiz you can answer from the exhibits. Among Dead Trees is really clever. Everyone loves that one. The entire Rails to Trails and Clear Creek Trail area is slathered in caches. One almost every .10 of a mile for several miles. A couple others in town I like are More Parking Problems and Where's the Fire? Those either get found right away or drive people nuts. If you do take a little drive you should check out Wow, What a View, Too, down by lake monroe. You can park fairly close, and hike up for a spectacular view of Lake Monroe If you look up I.U. Geocaching Club they have a six cache challenge going on until the end of November. You have to download the caches from their web page (they're not really posted on geocaching.com) you can get the listings. If you find all six you're entered for a drawing for a gift card. The cacher that hooked that up is Mickey4jes if you want to contact her. Good luck! Monstercatambush
  4. Hey there, Monstercatambush here from Bloomington, Indiana. I could probably put you onto some good caches around here. We have loads in town, and a lot of very good ones out in the woods. Are you more into looking for urban ones or do you like hiking out into the wilderness. There's also a few that split the difference: Great scenic spots but not too terrible a walk. We also have some pretty substantial hikes with caches out there if that's your type of thing. Let me know and I'll get back with you pretty quick. I can say that, as late as a couple years ago, Bloomington sucked for caches. Now we're getting to the point where people make this a caching destination. Welcome to Town! -Monstercatambush
  5. My own personal reason for paying for PM status is to be able to use the expanded features. I've got about 100 hides out, many of them fairly elaborately modified ammo cans with various features to surprise the cacher when opened. None of these are PMO since most are so far out in the woods and may only get hit 3 or 4 times a year. And frankly, I enjoy hearing the little stories when these are found. I do agree that posting with the PMO option keeps the casual jerks in town from going and trashing the caches just because they have a smart phone and a free down load and crappy sportsmanship (or "manners", as another poster noted.) I've an acquaintance who is a reviewer and she LOATHES this topic. She points out that Groundspeak is a listing service, not some kind of police force. She has enough work to do enforcing the proximity issues and location concerns (don't put a sketchy looking tubular thing near City Hall) to keep responding to complaints about who is logging what. I know several players who cache in groups. Some PMs, and others POMs (plain ol' members). No one I cache with gets too excited about player status. The only time we do talk about it is when we're encouraging newer players to help support Groundspeak while also getting premium features to help them play. I played for free my first year, and have paid my dues ever since. Didn't make me feel any different.
  6. I followed this thread, having wondered the same thing, but then saw its not exactly in my neighborhood (I'm in Bloomington, Indiana, USA). I agree that a lot of urban hide spots just can't hold an ammo can (our favorite containers in the states.) These are totally water tight and practically indestructible, and available at the many army surplus stores. Being of steel construction they lend themselves to modification, which little film cans do not. (Example: two ammo cans I recently put out where one starts a little music box movement when opened and plays "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" and another where a very life like hand and arm shoot out and grab your wrist.) Cans like that I try to put at least 3 or 4 miles from any parking to make sure only dedicated hikers/cachers get them. I'll look for a nano or micro is its in town, but won't look for one in the woods unless its just on my way. And I agree with whoever posted lamenting the lack of trading. I try to put a mix of decent camping/outdoors type things in there for adults, as well as some toys and other items for kids. In every case (I have about 100 hides) when I check back after 15 or 20 people have found them all that is left is the log book. People just don't bring anything!
  7. There's a series of five caches here in Bloomington (IN) that were placed a couple years ago by a team from Indy that were here for an event. All five have needed maintained or replaced, and I've been doing that. What gets me is the owners asked me to adopt them, and I said I would, but after that they fell off the planet. The last versions of the caches (ones I put out) are still there, but the real owners won't respond to anything. They're in good spots, too, which stinks since three of them aren't very well done at all, and the spots could be used by other cachers. Another player locally that gets in and out of the game every year or so has the same thing going on. Nabbed good spots a long time ago, lets the tiny, fragile, plastic condiment containers just about disintegrate, but runs out on the very last day after being warned by a reviewer and puts ANOTHER crappy container with a slip of paper for a log out. Make you wonder if there should be a mechanism where you can nominate a cacher for "needs archived"!
  8. That's right, DJ... They're DRAINS, not SEWERS We ain't climbin' into no steeking sewer!
  9. DJHobby got in touch with our reviewer and (s)he is saying they have no idea what its for, as no cache has been in the local tunnels before. The numbers took us right to that grate and subsequently into the tunnels on the North side of town. There are some e-mails going around for those that are interested. I think we're getting to the point where if we keep putting everything here it won't be any mystery or fun as to what we end up doing. Not that we're cutting off the discussion, by any means!
  10. Ah, finally, the light of day again! Just back from a major scouting mission along with DJHobby. I hadn't been in the tunnel in a LONG time, and it has really changed. Near as we can tell we've got Maria, Mouse!, Poppa Hoppy, DJ, and me interested in working on this. Here's the locations and some thoughts so far. We had some ideas while doing this, and want to bounce them off Maria, since she'd already been doing some planning. So anyway Tunnel from the meadow heading under town. This one is pretty decent for a while. We walked it to the point where it has no roof (open to the sky). The ceiling is much lower than I remember. It seemed unrealistic to cover the entire town crunched over like that. The first hundred yards or so were pretty reasonable, though. You could stand most of the time. We found a couple good spots for caches or clues to other locations. We also found a strange little aluminum tag, sort of looked like a travel bug, hanging from a chain along the way. It had GPS numbers written on it and appeared to have been there a while. More on that later. We retreated from that one and drove to the end, on the south side near the Rally's burger joint. This entrance is HUGE. More than two cars wide. Getting down into the stream was a bit tricky, but do-able. This one you easily walk standing up. There are dry areas either side of the stream. We used the map and followed the channel a ways to the split. The tunnel to the right eventually hooks to the meadow area. We followed that to a cool little waterfall where there's a couple hiding spots. We went back and followed the other branch north under walnut quite a ways. We have an idea for a gadget finders would have to make to get the clue at this stage. Then back into the sunlight. Next we went to see what those numbers from earlier in the first tunnel lead to. Its a spot in the parking lot by the football stadium. We could see a grate, and running water down in the bottom. We scouted around a bit and found where the creek flows out. There's a tunnel there. We could follow it to the point where we were under where the numbers took us. This was a little chamber with a sort of waterfall down the side from another drain. We're kind of liking this spot for the final destination. Getting back to town we decided to take a look at the tunnel on the east end of Dunn meadow. Mouse! said he'd looked into this one. We had already gotten into dry shoes so we didn't go in this one. It looks good, though. Mouse said it went quite a ways. This one would be good for planting another clue to the final destination and finding the next clue. Then we were walking around on campus checking on some caches and came across another tunnel. This one comes out from under the music school practice building. This one doesn't go too far before it gets kind of cramped. The first ten feet or so are pretty roomy. We were thinking maybe a small match type container with a powerful magnet to cling to the ceiling. Again, this one would only have a clue to the next destination. Having a beer at Nicks after the fact we were thinking up some other stuff which we could probably share in e-mails. One thing we thought we'd be sure to do is post a link on the cache page that takes the reader to weather.com or one of those so they'd be sure to check if it looks like rain. All in all a great adventure. We also re-found monolith merger (still there) and DJ finally got Informatics. Anyway, this is going to be a great multi cache. We're looking forward to getting it up and running. -Monstercatambush
  11. Okay, its raining.. lets see how we look tomorrow. Maybe me and my dogs will be the only ones in the tunnel... we'll see...
  12. Hmmm.. maybe Ill just go check on this. I"ll be there at ten o clock. with my dogs. everyone else can come along. we rock...
  13. I checked on SAS. Its back. Regarding the big tunnel. I think we're in business. I just came by the Rally's burger joint on the south side where the tunnel ends. That was around noon. Took a look into the mouth of the beast. Water is about two inches deep in the middle, and leaves sidewalk portions dry along each side. Water is VERY low. Water quality must be good. Saw several schools of minnows playing in the little riffles in the water. Wide enough for a wide car to drive down it. Impression of standing room: Maria can practice her vertical jump. For me it will be close. DJ is probably going to have a crick in his neck. If its this low at the exit it must be nearly dry in places up stream. Man, its sunny out. And no rain predicted for tomorrow. Usually on something like this I'd say we park a car at the Krogers to use to get back to the entry point, but its really not that far back walking above ground. We can play that by ear. I'll be on and off the computer today, but I can be reached (txt is best) at 320-1392. Anyone want to check it out?
  14. Lets keep our fingers crossed for Sunday. I go by the place where the creek comes out down on the southside pretty regularly. I think the key factors to going in would be how heavy the water is coming out, since there's a LOT of different drains that feed into the creek underground, and how sure we are there's NO chance of it raining. If those factors line up we'll just have to be ninja sneaky and go take a look. I saw where Mouse! checked out the tunnel at the other end of the meadow. That got me thinking that maybe this cache could require the finder to go to a few of these urban tunnels. Just a thought. Maybe just the ones on campus. Hey, speaking of that, I'd heard that SAS Goodies cache has gone missing. That's cute little tunnel near that one. Guess I could just check the listing... (Duh!)
  15. Anyone know what the weather is supposed to be like this weekend? I'd be interested in doing a walk through (with the map) and checking out some of those side tunnels. Not if its going to stay rainy, though! As far as waiting until the construction is done: Don't see any good reason. Even when they're working on it they have to let the creek flow. Most you'd have to deal with would be that you'd come to a stretch where the roof was missing. And you could always come in from the other end!
  16. Did everyone get the map I posted as a PDF? That came from the city's utilities department and covers every aspect of the down town tunnel in great detail. Sounds like Mouse! has already done some good scouting. Also sounds like Geomafiosa has gotten started working on some plans for this multi. Since there's several tunnels around town (who knew?) maybe we could have cachers visiting any number of them (and going a ways in there, by golly) to get clues before they're taken to the monster tunnel under town that starts in the meadow. I definitely want to be in on this! I've got a few good PVC tube containers already made up that I'd be willing to contribute. Is this cool or what?! I am soooooo jealous of Mouse! for him already scoping things out. I've been in the tunnel before, but that was ages ago when it was mostly made of stone. I think we need to convene somewhere and have some kind of round-table discussion. (On the other hand, that's sort of what we're doing here!)
  17. Most of the time I'm hiking at least a couple of miles, so I've got a 3-day army issue pack with two, one-quart canteens, one on either side, clipped on with ALYCE clips. I have a replacement cap that goes on either canteen that came with a hose and bite valve, making either one a camel back type hydration unit. A pouch for my GPSr and one for my military lensatic compass are clipped on the shoulder straps on the front. That makes the GPSr ride high enough that I don't lose signal in the woods like when it hangs around my neck. I include a nalgene bottle full of dog food for the pups and wrap about twenty yards of parachute cord around the narrow part of the bottle. My other nalgene bottle holds trail mix and has a considerable length of camo duct tape wrapped around it for mending things. An army issue poncho is strapped in the loops on the bottom of the pack for when it rains, but it also makes a pretty quick awning I can string up with some of the parachute cord. Also packed in there is a thing called a "dog canteen" from the local pet store. It looks like an old style round canteen but has one side that screws off and makes its own bowl. The water tight seal lets you pack it along pre-filled. Other than those things I'm carrying some of the same stuff as everyone else: A big ziplock for things to trade, and another with spare log books, pens, pencils, a sharpner, STASH NOTES, batteries, and other cache essentials. I usually have at least one micro (though they suck) and a waterrproof lexan box painted camo, about 8"x8"x4" for a medium cache. There's room in there for food for a day or so if need be, as well as for a regular ammo can cache. A good army surplus store is a true blessing! All this stuff is typically in the pack and in the jeep for when the mood strikes.
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