Black Mage

Here in Utah we still probably have a good two and a half to three months till we get a lot of valley snow (if we get a lot (stupid drought)). Even so, I started geocaching last winter, so I don't think it'll stop me, though I probably won't be able to hit many, if any, caches on the trails. We'll just have to wait and see.

I hate having to climb to the top of a steep talis field. Usually the lower parts are okay, even fun to climb on, but when you get up higher you start getting onto small and unstable rocks. A few weeks ago I tried my first "talis cache." At one point on my way down I lost my footng and slid down like 10 or 15 feet before I stopped, it scared the %$ out of me.

I love to find foreign currancy.

Welcome to the club DaJeep. Those caches were just the beginning. Just wait until you get out onto some harder trails with 3 or 4 star ratings, that's where the real fun begins.

A similar thing happened to this cache. Sometime before June 30 someone went up and stole the ammox box and replaced it with a cruddy wooden one. At least they left the items inside.

I chose my avatar because I am Black Mage, and thus I chose to use the Black Mage sprite from the early Final Fantasy games (personally this one is my favorite depiction of Black Mage, simple and economic.) Here's my original avatar Recently, though, I decided to change it to this: Which is a slightly edited and more 3V1L version of Black Mage from the "Final Fantasy 9" game. It's also one of my sig cards. Oh, and I like your avatar kayaker22589, have you had any "light switch raves" recently?

Of course you can take a sig item, I do it from time to time myself if the item is interesting enough. As for you putting it in another cache, well, that's something I personally wouldn't do. It could cause confussion.

Yeah, developers suck. They destroy what's beautiful and replace it with hideous split-level cookie cutter houses with absolutely no personality.

I would create the Über Cache! It would be a large cache, I'm talkin' like, 50 gallon drum here. The container would have a number of combo locks built-in. It would also have a auto play message that would greet finders and ask them to log their find via both log book and the built in video camera. These videos would then be put on the Über Cache web site for all to see. I would fill it with the best items money could buy. A few new Garmin GPSmap 60C units, some eTrex Legends, map software, $200 gift certificates for various stores (Media Play, Best Buy, Cabelas, etc), portable DVD players, DVD's, gold jewelry, valuable coins, Game Boy's, games for Game Cube and X Box and PS2, digital cameras, and so on. I would buy a piece of land to place it on, maybe out in the desert between Salt Lake City and Wendover, or maybe in the Uinta Mountains. Then I would make it a multi cache with clues placed throughout the Salt Lake Valley, some in urban micros and some in more challenging caches. In each leg on the multi you would find the coordinates for the nest micro, as well as a combonations for the various locks. You'd have to find all the micros to get all the combonations to open the final cache. The final cache would be placed such that you'd need to suffer a little to get to it, maybe a 4/4 or 5/5. Of course I'll have to wait until I win the Power Ball lottery.

I'm quite partial to my picture, though it isn't the one that I really wanted to enter, but my scanner is broken, so I had to find one that I took with our digital camera. I'm also fairly proud of my essay. I just wish they could be longer, it was hard to cram all that I wanted to say into 300 words. It would have been easier to write a 3000 word essay. My Essay

Some people just get their jollys from screwing up someone else's day. Believe me, I've encountered plenty of 'em. And when you ask them why they do it, they just tell you to "#$&@ off."

I've seen decon containers used for larger micros before. I think they are just small ammo boxes. They don't cost much (about $2.25 each) and measure 3" X 2.5" X 4.5". You can buy them here.

A few months ago, while hiking to a new cache, my little brother (Red Mage) and I ran into one of the most famous local cachers, Scout Master. When he found out who we were he said that he had expected us both to be young, hot college chicks. I don't don't know how he got that idea.

I prefer, "Ecky-ecky-ecky-ecky-pikang-zoom-boing-mumble-mumble!"

Foreign currancy is my fave, but I also like to find camping related items and a new Garmin GPSmap 60C or CS would be acceptable as well.

Due to a general lack of fundage, I use home printed business cards. Here's a few of them. When I get a job, however, I'm going to start experimenting with maybe making little Black Mage figures out of clay of some sort.

There is actually a cache near me that is dedicated to bottled water. The container is mostly underground and the owner stocks it with frozen bottles.

I always manage to find the hardest possible way to get to a cache, though never intentionally. This also goes for any other situation as well, such as trying to drive around traffic during rush hour. I've made trips that should have only laster 10 minutes, last an hour, or more. What can I say, it's a gift.

I began geocaching last fall, but didn't get a GPS till Christmas, so for all intensive purposes I started caching in the snow. I actually hit my first cache with my new GPS a few days after Christmas. Although I should note that we got about two feet of snow on Christmas. Fourteen of my early caches were found in the snow, so I got adept at winter caching rather quickly. Nothing quite like walking through 3 feet of snow without a bib or snowshoes.

"Just Like a Pill" (a la Pink)

A few weeks ago we went on an early morning hike (we left at about 5:30AM to beat the forcasted 97 degree heat of the day). We were out for about 3 hours, not too long really. On our way home we stopped for a second breakfast at Sill's Cafe in Layton, Utah. Best food ever!

Being an unemployed college student, my shoe budget is very small. I have a pair of Earth Shoe hiking boots that I bought from Wal-Mart for about $25. They have a good thick and hard sole, they're comfortable and waterproof too. So far I have no complaints. I've used them on hikes of up to 7 miles with no problems. As for socks, I have a pair of Fox River hiking socks. I got them at Sportsman's Warehouse for about $5. They too are comfortable and have worked well for me.

A spoiler can also come in the form of a log entry where the person gets too chatty about details. ex: We got to the park and started looking, we walked up to the electrical box by the swings and lifted a black rock and found the cache.

I use a Garmin GPS Carrying Case. It has a belt clip on the back which comes in very handy. It also prevents scratches to the screen. I also use a cell phone carrier that came with a backpack as a storage case, it clips to most back packs as well.

Recently a student journalist for the University of Utah's newspaper, The Daily Utah Chronicle, appeared in the UTAG forums asking for the assistance of local cachers to write an article on Geocaching. A couple of cachers responded and the article has just been published. (I decided to quote the story here to save you all the trouble of having to register with the web site)