NorthWes

While visiting New Orleans in Dec 2004 I rode the streetcar over from Canal Street to the New Orleans Longitude mark in Lafayette Park. I finished up my notes on the marker, then gathered my two daughters to head east across the street to find AU1064 (benchmark C 169), located on a 'massive structure with deep foundations' (which proved useful some months later). My log details the interaction, but I was intercepted while crossing the street by a US Marshall who recognized my peculiar hobby. He escorted me to the mark, entertained my daughters with witticisms about the Big Easy, and freaked out when I started to open my camera bag... NO PHOTOS OF A FEDERAL COURTHOUSE! Wow... They'd been watching us in Lafayette Park via camera & figured they'd better intercept us before we came over to the courthouse. I've had several interactions with the Alaska Railroad police 'bulls' - the worst was when I was photographing the bolts on the windowsills of the old railroad station in downtown Anchorage ('tidal stations' - TT0723 - a bolt) - I was asked to delete the photo from my camera. Once the officer recognized me (I fabricate signs for the Alaska Railroad, including installation to this very officer's truck fleet) and I had a chance to explain what I was doing and show him the website on his computer in his office inside the building, I was free to go... without my photo. I have to be very careful accessing benchmarks along the railroad's right of way - no travel within the right of way parallel to the tracks is allowed, but I can cross the trackage at a 90º angle. Makes the hunt a bit challenging in the railroad corridor (and let's face it - no one in their right mind wants to be anywhere close to a train highballing the main line - a good way to die messily). Working for a sign company which installs most of the new highway signs here, I have the 'highway worker' orange vest and hardhat gear. I use it whenever I'm in a road right of way; it makes you "invisible" as to your motive along the roadway - I just hope folks are seeing me while I'm out there! I've had far more interactions with law enforcement while benchmarking vs geocaching - I suppose it's because most marks are out in right of ways or on building.

Alaska's version of Wild Parsnip is called Cow Parsnip (or in local vernacular - "Pushki"). It grows over 7 feet in height and loves the edges of trails... I had a nasty burn from Cow Parsnip two years ago. I'd spent a day spent clearing downed trees on a side trail off the heavily-traveled USFS Resurrection Trail (on the Chugach National Forest near Hope, Alaska), wearing full coverage clothing (gloves, long sleeves taped to the gloves, overshirt, neck bandanna, hat, face shield, long pants taped to high rubber knee boots). The cow parsnip was in its full glory, and I tromped fearlessly through several miles of it knowing I'd covered up from any contact. At day's end my partner & I got back down to the main trail, stripped off & bagged our work clothing and changed into our 'trail cruise' lightweight shirts and shorts. Strapping on 50# backpacks with chainsaws, fuel cans and so forth aboard, we swung into a 3.5 mph pace and began our 5-mile cruise out to the truck. At a narrow steep downhill spot on the trail we were overtaken from behind by mountain bikers. Stepping off the trail (on the downhill side - the only place with any room), we let them pass. Before the last biker made it past he lost control and careened into me at speed, knocking me head over heels backwards down a steep slope into a huge patch of cow parsnip. I landed on my backpack, and rolled a second time heels over head, ending up facefirst down in the weeds, over 40 feet below the trail. Fortunately I'd gotten my arms over my face, and they absorbed both the impact and the fluids from the crushed cow parsnip. Unfortunately, I had scraped skin absorbing that fluid... and another 3.5 miles to hike in the sunlight. Got back up to the trail, cleaned my wound, washed as thoroughly as I could (we had a full backcountry first aid kit with surface antiseptics etc), changed into a spare longsleeved shirt, and washed the arms again when we made the truck, and when I got home that evening as well. Next morning I awoke early to a burning feeling - my right arm had blistered (inside the scraped areas as well as 'virgin' skin). Ugly and 'uncomfortable' - I assure you! It took 5 weeks for the blisters to heal, and a reddish-brown 'stain' persisted in the affected areas for over a year and a half. The skin was super-sensitive to sunlight, with crawly-itching burning sensations springing up even from wintertime exposure. Moral of the story - avoid Cow Parsnip (AND novice mountain bikers!)... Here's a link to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge's online article about Cow Parsnip. This is a photo (taken at 5' above ground level - face height) of the top 2 feet of a field of Cow Parsnip I encountered accessing a cache in Anchorage AK last evening:

If I was a Cuban 'unfriendly to the US' govt official, the GPS reciever I'd be worrying about wouldn't be handheld... it'd be aboard something with wings... and it ain't gonna get stopped by the customs police.

...and I in no way see myself (or anyone else up here in the discontinguous 49th state) to be anywhere near the 'inner circle' of geocaching... whatever that may be. Just good 'ole boys & girls having fun the geocaching way! Besides, I'm a big fan of Thumper's mom's rule... the one that ends " ... don't say anything at all!"

As for me and my state... well, we have dandy reviewers who do their best to be speedy, effective in communication, and very up-to-date on geocaching.com policies, land use issues etc. We Alaskans have improved the overall quality of our cache placements through the patient tutoring and encouragement of our cache reviewers. Beyond cache placements, our reviewers have given sage advice on everything from land manager interactions to how to develop a statewide caching organization. IMHO, most interactions that aren't enjoyed on the cacher side of the cacher/reviewer interaction are related to not seeing the individual applied-for cache's flaws in respect to following geocaching.com's cache placement guidelines. I can't speak to issues relating to speed (our caches up here tend to be approved within 24 hours if there are no issues). Most cacher questions in our area regarding reviewer interactions show the cacher to be on the short side of the learning curve. Ignorance on the part of the cacher is by no means unforgivable here, as long as the cacher learns from the cache reviewer how to be more effective at hiding a cache that meets the geocaching.com guidelines! Sometimes those guidelines seem unnecessarily restrictive at first glance, but they've been developed through long experience to provide a better caching outcome for all cachers - not just the placer of the cache. Long story short - because of their effectiveness, we like our reviewers up here. And no, they're not locals - they're from the far side (of the contiguous United States, that is!)

Here's a link to a locking system for attaching a padlock to a can; drawback in your case is shipping (hey - what's FedEx overnite for anyway?) and installing the device. Unfortunately for your purposes, the GI ammocan wasn't meant to be 'locked' as an individual unit... I have seen other locking systems fabricated, similar to what Clan Riffster describes. All required some fabrication or fitting. I had 20mm cans bolted to the top of the rear fenders in my CJ5 as tool lockers; they had been modified to take a padlock using a device similar to what's described in the link above. Good luck - and if you find a solution share it with us!

Well, the first letterbox cache I've seen in Alaska is the APU Music Box Letterbox Hybrid Cache. Check out the cache and contact the owner. Perhaps he's interested in placing more letterbox hybrids. I'd considered placing one in a city park near downtown Anchorage, but the climate here is not friendly to inks through the depth of winter... I had to go all the way to Tombstone Arizona to snag my first letterbox hybrid cache!

Welcome to Alaska!!! (Well, almost...) We're approaching a thousand caches available here in the Great Land... Visit the web page hosted by Geocache Alaska to scout local cacher's favorites. They're listed on the 'Alaska Cache Info' link found on the left side of the home page. Of special interest to you, based on your trip plans, are the Ladybug Kids bookmarks listed in the Interior Alaska section (that's Alaskanspeak for a huge area centered on Fairbanks). The Ladybug Kids are a family of cachers whose travel modes range from car seat to skijoring or sledding behind their team of sled dogs. Their well-done bookmark lists are designed to help cachers of all abilities sort out the wide range of caching options available to visitors in Alaska's interior region. Sitka's going to require study on your own, as Geocache Alaska's website has no links to bookmarked caches down that way. Perhaps some recent cruise line guests have some suggestions. If you have time, follow the link to the 8-page forum thread on the '2005 Great Alaska Cache'n'Dash'... a top-flight story about the best the caching community has to offer. See Alaska's cachers at Geocache Alaska!!!

Eligible find for July 1, 2006: UV4405 / 1941 / N / N

Oh Mopar - not complaining - just envying the benefits of contiguous American citizenship... Yup - the only thing we give away up here is the individual Alaskan resident's share of the Permanent Fund earning$. Most Alaskans (correction - most noncontiguous northern-tier US citizens) just love that $70/barrel oil price! That, and the opportunity to harvest a few dozen salmon per person for 'personal use' are about all you get the opportunity to receive here. Oh - there's a few other giveaways too - but you've got to be a noncontiguous northern-tier US citizen to earn them! It ain't the 'Big Easy' up here - but then, most of us like it that way! Please don't ask me to trade a freshly-caught Kenai River Red Salmon for a Signal Green Jeep TB... that'd be so wrong!

I thought it'd be fun to show our contiguously-dwelling cousins how much countryside we have up here in Alaska to drive our Jeeps (and hide our caches) across... Yup, this discontiguous state has more coastline than the rest of the country combined, is one-fifth the size of the contiguous states, sprawls across an area as wide as... well... the 'lower 48,' and is looking forward to the Signal Green Jeep TB with real anticipation (see - we're even green on the map!)

Once again, Jeep's contest is limited to residents of the 48 contiguous states. Those of us lucky enough to live in the parts of America which aren't contiguously connected to the rest of the country will bemusedly wait for the new jeep tbs to trickle their way west and north... to be shared in caches and at events... etc etc etc. Yes, I've got a yellow and a white jeep in a cache container right now that are shared at events for the benefit of new Alaskan cachers, as a consequential reaction to this very rule (regardless of what folks think about it in the 'contiguous' Americas). The rules, as we see, are applied differently here. Right now those jeeps are in a care package headed to a caching contingent of the USA's military (they're stationed across ALL the fifty states - not just the contiguous ones) deployed 'somewhere in southwest Asia'... Hilarious - a certain large West Coast dealer chain has a huge Jeep store here at one of the city's largest intersections, and I've been told it's one of the top sales points for Jeeps in all the fifty states (apparently they know how to ship jeep products up here...). As a non-contiguous geocaching resident of America and a former CJ-5 owner I'm mildly annoyed; as an Alaskan I once again feel like I'm being treated as a part of colony populated by folks whose citizenship doesn't confer full privileges. *sigh* Let's not even open THAT can of worms! I do sincerely appreciate Jeep's support of geocaching.com in a big way - what other corporation steps up to the plate with such a big contribution? It adds a lot of fun to the game and financial support to the infrastructure that makes the fun possible - and it IS their contest! So, we'll enjoy the TBs we see, and watch the gallery fill up with those great contest photos... with a slight tinge of envy. Good luck, you contiguous Americans!

I have no issue with those who logged a cache they found in the coordinate location; I see the mistake here is replacing a cache without contacting the owner first. If the owner doesn't respond, then either ask for the cache to be archived or go through the rescue process... and certainly, if the original cache construction was unique and the replacement detracted from that uniqueness then even less respect for the 'helpful' replacer. Sometimes we forget the cache belongs to the owner - not to the caching public! Still - if the cache has fallen into such disrepair that it's now 'trash' - I'd be very proactive about getting it removed or replaced. I've done so in four cases here - local land managers that are benign regarding geocaching hate "trash' on lands under their stewardship - and that's what a cache becomes when it's open to the weather & animals and is being spread all over its hide area. As in all things involving contact between people, good communication practices help forestall confusion. I replaced one of my own caches when it was dnf'd 3 times (and I couldn't find it either.) Two days after I put in the replacement the next cacher found both cache containers nestled next to each other. Wierd. Did someone remove the container from the cache site only to return it later? If so, why didn't they contact me to let me know there were now two containers on site!?! If only the cache container could talk...

Most logs this past week were from the 1964 post-earthquake surveys, or were 'destroyed' notations. I did get to walk the entire length of the 2.5 mile long Anton Anderson Memorial Rail/Car tunnel from Portage to Whittier AK, searching in vain for three marks destroyed in the 1998-2000 modification of the tunnel for car traffic use. Here's the only contest-qualified find from my June 11 journey along Turnagain Arm, south of Anchorage: TT0808 / 1923 / N / N The lupine were flowering in the verge between the highway and the rock bluff at this location - what a lovely time of year here!

Kudos to Knappling - GeocacheAlaska's youngest cache-placing cacher - on achieving his 100th find! Just to add sauce to the story, he made his milestone find at Olerun's Challenge, a cache that's rated 4.5 for difficulty!

Let me add my congratulations, Scobey! Now, having done that cache myself, was it Beamer who got to eyeball the critical item? Oh, and AeroAK sends congratulations to Beamer...

Ahhh... the delight of being back home, with good cable internet service. These benchmark logs are from a journey across northcentral Arizona earlier in May... some 'classic' locations here... ET0119 / 1934 / N / N GQ0267 / 1902 / N / N FR0076 / 1955 / N / N GQ0293 / 1920 / N / N GQ0290 / 1934 / N / N (*RESET - MAY QUALIFY...)

Here in Alaska? Perhaps the easy ones within 300 feet horizontally and 50 feet vertically of the road system... but there will always be another mark waiting for my visit - perhaps around the next headland, perhaps at 5,000', perhaps (ha ha) only a few hundred miles distant... Gosh but I'd sure love to recover some up in the far far north of this state - like TT3769 - Prudhoe 2... that's about 630 cromes from the homestead here - and you can drive to it (sometimes)...

Good to see you chiming in here, Wigi&Callie! AeroAK & I visited your caches 'Castor Canadensis' & 'A Few of our Favorite Things' earlier this week, late late at night... 'Things' was creepy after dark! This wasn't yourfavorite couch out there, was it? My my - what a nice green chenille upholstery... Seriously - looking forward to meeting you soon - perhaps on the trail, or at one of our events. In any case, I'll be watching for more cache placements - we enjoyed finding these two, although I did need AeroAK's help at 'Things'...

Email sent to Covenant House!

CENT5 clued me in on your request via email... We just hosted an "Introduction to Geocaching" class for Muni Parks & Rec out at Kincaid Park Chalet last Saturday morning at 10am-noon; well - attended with over 60 folks total there (learners & guides). We used the coincidence of 'Earth Day' and our follow-on CITO Event to bring emphasis to the ethics underlying the geocaching 'game' we play. The class has four 'Thursday Evening GeoRambles in Kincaid Park' left to do - beginning tonight at 7pm. We've got Channel 11 News and the Anchorage Daily News out to do interviews at 6:30pm tonight as well. Can you vector a contact person onto us tonight to see what we might have to offer? I've got an educator in the group who's in the process of developing a curriculum for middle school students who might just be the ticket for this project... More conversation needed but we've got resources. You can contact us via email through the geocaching.com site or through geocachealaska.org's website.

UW7581 / 1912 / Y / N Another prehistoric (i.e. pre-establishment of the city of Anchorage) find along Turnagain Arm, Anchorage AK.

UW7581 POINT RESET 1912 - 1964, looking eastward to Bird Point (at middle left of photo). Found today (April 23rd) along Turnagain Arm south of Anchorage, Alaska. Winter still holds a grip on the land here!

Anchorage, Alaska's Kincaid Park CITO 2006 Event. A portion of the more than forty folks who attended are shown; we'd already dumped a bunch of trash into the dumpsters when we remembered we needed an event photo! Delighted to have the only sunny break in the weather this weekend for our event - even as this photo was taken it was snowing along the east side of the city against the mountains.

5pm Easter Day 4-16-06 UW7862 DARK RESET (visible at lower left). Mrs NorthWes was kind enough to accompany me on this first benchmark hunt of the year along Turnagain Arm (upper Cook Inlet) on Anchorage's south side. The goldrush town of Hope is visible across the Arm at upper left. Our standard poodle Aero is an experienced cache hound... finding her first cache at the tender age of 10 weeks in Talkeetna AK last June. In September she sniffed out Moun10Bike Coin #398 at The gold mine cache north of Wasilla AK. She's a keeper!