bthomas

I've enjoyed both, including TotG, and including more than a couple 20 mile hikes at 14000 feet. They are different activities, with different challenge and different sense of accomplishment. I'm glad geocaching is broad enough to support many interests. Like the Basilisk and that mudcave nearby. Somewhat sad to see TotG go away. Have driven lots of places in the Mojave-- Mojave Road, Calico, Stoddard, Johnson Vly, Panamints, Saline, Teakettle, Titus, Death Valley-- but hadn't driven the powerline. Would have otherwise avoided it, actually. No one lives out there, no one in those 70 miles. Much better than urban micro caching. If gc .com can make a cache improvement, it would be to ban parking lot LPC's.

I now suspect TotG was either a joke by aliens that had escaped from Area 51, or they were attempting to lay down a Nazca Line visible to outer space to signal their hidden location north of Vegas. See GCF5CB Groom Lake / Area 51. MiB are now taking action.

Let's see if this pastes (Ha-ha, a cut and paste log) a graph by geoides of our 400 run. 400 is so old school. Just literally raise the bar from 17/hr to 27/hr. Watch that exit for gas at 9 hours, drop the 4x4 hills and fill the graph's valleys, and cache through 25/hr areas. Got bitter windy cold at 23 hours. Remember, this is 24 hours out in the desert on dirt... Don't try this at home. Rent a jeep out of Vegas, and put action to words with a credible attempt yourself.

If you arrive this way, breakfast on the mesa, near GC17EC9 November Juliet

A-mazing! That crushes. Congrats on the new number TGR and PiP.

Mr Bear? Reminds me of the 1700 mile road trip for California Delormes, and the 5 year STF on top of a mountain. We surprised a bear with a nice healthy coat, that was rolling in the snow within double digit distance of the cache. Hadn't seen a geocacher in those 5 years and was easy to scare away.

Inspirational. I like how geocaching can continually bring you to the unexpected, and maybe that's the next milestone.

It's a different game, so fitting the square peg of it into the round hole of your GC familiarity doesn't fit. I can tell you we did all of the above in 3.5 minutes and the team drove to the next hunt 600 to 800 feet away on the purpose built power trail, so Lil Devil could do it too. His credibility is off the chart, too. Me, I'm not a doubting Thomas. [edit] Myself solo, in more traditional urban caching or cross county rural caching, I've put together 50 days. In contrast, GC17 in the Orgeon forest was a 30 minute hike and jog for me. GC8510 http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...e6-215776bcf089 was an overnight backpack to 10000 feet, then a 5 hour climb to 14000, for a 4 year FTF. GCADCB http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...=y&decrypt= was three 300 mile drives and 3 hikes to 13000 feet for a 5 year FTF. So I know caches it takes under 5 minutes to do and caches it takes 5 years to do. [edit] The OP asked for data on solo day efforts, so I apologize for the side conversation about credibility.

Either poke them with a stick, then step back and give them a minute to get away... or with one hand plant the hiking pole between them and the cache, and reach for the cache with your free hand.

My props to Lil Devil. 250 tins in the desert in three-quarters of a day, and hampered by the Mojave sirocco. If one has doubt's about Lil Devil, most of us know him as a 2001 cacher, the gpx spinner guy, 49 states finder, a GBES desert rally winner, a GWS-VI organizer, a NorCal and Nevada Delorme challenger, and other GC-ish things. I've cached until 3 or 4 in the a.m. with him. Amazing he did it alone, driving un-autorouted dirt, navigating jeep roads, keeping the hunt under 2 minutes, and moving on. As someone who's been out there, I'm certain he had the endurance to go to 300 under better conditions. Any 10K cacher can find a 1/1 in a minute, and anyone with 24 hour ironman endurance can do this. My group averaged a cache completed every 3.5 minutes on dirt, with all the doors slamming shut at about the same time. As long as there's 500 1/1 micros in urban places in California, there might as well be 500 micros in an uninhabited sliver of the desert. [edit] If this topic interests you, but one doubts themself about being able to complete the task, there's a place outside of Las Vegas that's just a plane ride and jeep adventure away. And hey, staying up 24 hours, you save 1 night's lodging.

Congrats! I called myself a geocacher at 100 finds. There's a lot more fun geocaches and interesting places ahead for you. Best milestones... Back in the day, 1K and then 10K. Was happy to get my backlog under 1000, and log through 15K. Ah, the 400 day milestone with mjp303 and geoides. 100 5-stars is more characteristic for me. Big challenges were milestones: the 3 Delorme maps for California, Jasmer All-months, the first Fizzy challenge.

Posted this elsewhere, and realize it is a trip report. We hit the 400+ milestone at 23 hours on 3/13/2010. "I've added my kudos and additional comments in the other 566 Record thread. This thread is about the experience of caching 24 hours straight... There's the feeling of starting at the darkness of midnight, and the wondering if the group is up to task to navigate to and find 20 caches per hour, hour after hour after hour. There's the confusion of wondering what is beyond the 200 feet of headlight beam, and which jeep road, service spur, and burro track leads to the cache. There's Orion laying against the dark western horizon, as if asleep. During the night the Big Dipper swings from standing on handle, to pouring it's contents near dawn. It's cold on the night desert floor, but maybe the eyes of an active coyote reflect red and dance just beyond your headlamp. The crescent moon breaks a black skyline, and that's cool. Vegas casts a glow in the east, but at some point the eastern sky turns dusty rose. The sun soon follows with the hint of the warmth of day, and everyone takes off the headlamp, and the GPS screen changes from night colors. You think, wow, we got 100 caches before sun up. In daylight, you see the steep, raw desert hills. All of that stratified, layered, twisted geology. You can now see hundreds of power towers, making straight lines over hill and dale, towards the next pass 10 miles distant. On the far horizon are snow capped peaks. Nearby a weird cloud envelops a peak, and later in the day it dissipates to reveal a dusting of snow. Ravens flap across the sky, and the feathers make the wooshing sound. You come across a burro track, and maybe you don't see them, but you know they've walked that track to some faraway desert spring, for more than a hundred years. In the distance, a mine that hasn't been worked for half a century can be seen. Midday, your work tally shows 200 or 250, and everyone is pleased that they just might meet the goal. The routine is fairly routine: the vehicle rolls down dirt; the navigator calls out distance and bearing; eyes are outside for the turn or turnout because the flashflood washes look like road; brakes are hit so no overshoot kills 10 seconds in back up; doors open as the vehicle rolls to 20 to 50 feet from GZ, and 2 runners hop out; one set of eyes looks left at tower, base, and cresote bush, the other eyes look to the right for the same; the navigator steps out, and the driver turns the vehicle around if necessary; the driver steps out with camera or maybe just to stretch, but someone calls got it; one runner opens container and snakes the rolled and folded logsheet bundle with pliers, and hands it to the stickerer or inker; cache is replaced and everybody jogs back to vehicle; cache is marked found on GPS, maybe someone does paperwork or reads the map; the next cache is just over a minute away. In that minute, you talk about the desert, that copper mine, a tortoise, 4 wheeling, the Delorme challenge, radios or droid, GSAK tips, that other great caching trip, and food. You eat snack food and drink fluid in that minute. And so it goes, for as many hours as the team endures. The sun goes down, and you know you need to buckle down. The wind comes up, and on the open desert it has a force more potent than in town. The air is dry and cold, and chapstick can't keep up. Still the team is in good spirits, and focused on that final 50 caches. There was one 30/hr straight section that went on for 10 miles with hundreds of towers in view. We were in rhythm, and after half and hour I looked westward... and hundreds of towers were still in view. My thoughts weren't about the repetition or being bored, they were about buckling down, staying focused, helping my teammates, and working through the 24 hours of routing and finding. At some point, you hit X hundred and ninety nine. If you are after a milestone, you are excited with anticipation, and confused about how many extra to go over the next hundred. And then your team is done, and there's smiling, and chuckles, and giggles, and everybody just wants to get to the nice and cozy and warm hotel... and sleep. Wow that feels good.

An earthcache is like a virt, and in many appropriate locations replaces them, but unlike virts they do not necessarily consider historical, cultural, or even scientific learning topics like flora and fauna. In National Parks, a place virts were designed for, EC's are now the only "learning" caches. Locked out are interesting topics like the largest redwood tree in namesake Sequoia NP, bison at Yellowstone, ancient Pueblo indians at Mesa Verde.

Kudos to Lil Devil, one tough cacher. Bet he woulda nailed 300 if the weather was more favorable out there in the Mojave. GCJY9G http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...6f-52b52a67603c "bthomas found 100 Stars Challenge (Unknown Cache) TFTC, and I can separately thank Team Alamogul for a summed 100 star morning on 10/30/2009. That fine morning we paddled his 5-star canoe 8 miles for quite a few high star caches near Auburn CA, and the below sum of 103.5 for 16 caches does not include 22 other caches later in the day." More like fewest caches to D+T total of 100. Think the obscure stats since need to be those in GSAK and what not, so they are easily extractable. "On foot" or "By bike" are unlikely stats. Have 100 5-stars, wonder how that stands? Solo finds per day is a great stat. It does not diminish, however, the 24 hr day number of powercachers on teams; those team members are fully capable of finding the select 1- and 2-star caches within 60 seconds, and nobody is hanging in the back with sleeping mask and fuzzy bunny slippers.

Not out caching this week, so I keep coming back to these ToTG threads. Like watching a trainwreck maybe, but hey the Mojave has good trainspotting too with BNSF and UP. Suggest just posting an event rather than asking in forums. Primm casinos are inexpensive and sorta fun, and even have a stateline outlet mall. There's earthcaches on several dry lakes. And of course, less than an hour away are the day hikes at Red Rock, Hoover Dam, and The Strip. Showstop is correct, 500 cachers won't be prepared for a desert run, if that's what is meant by mega. San Bernadino County recently rescended a paid permit requirement for multiple vehicle recreation. Isolated landowners wanted some potential oversight of reck-creators, but open desert access continues for the county. TotG is an area empty of habitation. Dunno the exact BLM rules that apply here, but believe it is open desert access. This area used to be the Barstow to Vegas motorcycle race, much of it off-road, not on TotG. Bus run, hey Charles Manson got a hippie bus into Goler Wash and Barker Ranch, but we know how that end up. A Subaru could do half the run, but remember 2-ply tires are at risk for shreading. I suggest bringing an air compressor or bicycle floor pump, and slime or the augered tire repair wicks. The fastest group will be single vehicle. A standard jeep run may have 2 to 6 vehicles, to keep impact low and dust down. This is a number found with the great SoCal4x4geocachers runs, but some of their runs get up to a dozen rigs, and ShowStop will probably agree, that gets to be much. The tailgunner is a long walk to each geocache with that number. The back vehicle will need to have cabin vents closed; consider running into the wind (westbound, as previously described). Otherwise, carry a spare air filter in case the oxygen sensor/ check engine light comes on. My friend and Delorme mate, Motorbug, hasn't had a 100 cache day, and I've told him this is the place to get 100. It's better than urban caching, and he loves the desert too. Ckayaks & DuckyLee were a 2-crew, and they had a 200 day. My crew with mjp303 & geoides was a 3-crew, and first week runners, we had a 400 day. Of course, the VK crew was a 3.6 crew and they had a mid-500 day. Lil Devil was out as a solo, and we'll see what happened with him. Rate caching? Yes, this is all about rate. Sure you could expense a trip and cache just one hour, but a lot of cachers that start will continue and stack 24 hours. Padding the personal find count? Yup, happens as a matter of course. Those VK's increased their lifetime total by 2.5% !! Think many people will do TotG and Fears as a 2-day, with overnight at Primm. Just exit halfway at paved Excelsior Mine Rd, and interstate back to Primm for lodging. Weather cautions: triple digit temps are just around the corner. Baker temp will be similar to Vegas temp; up at 5000 feet it will be 10-15 degrees cooler. Wind. The other thing that probably stopped us in the 23rd hour was wind at 5000 feet. Lil Devil was just out there and reported wind was effecting his caching; some first week cachers reported they bailed because of wind. The wind is bone dry and has an edge, and chapstick can't keep up.

Well said! I've added my kudos and additional comments in the other 566 Record thread. This thread is about the experience of caching 24 hours straight, and setting a 500+ cache milestone. There's the feeling of starting at the darkness of midnight, and the wondering if the group is up to task to navigate to and find 20 caches per hour, hour after hour after hour. There's the confusion of wondering what is beyond the 200 feet of headlight beam, and which jeep road, service spur, and burro track leads to the cache. There's Orion laying against the dark western horizon, as if asleep. During the night the Big Dipper swings from standing on handle, to pouring it's contents near dawn. Vegas casts a glow in the east, but at some point the eastern sky turns dusty rose. It's cold on the night desert floor, but maybe the eyes of an active coyote reflect red and dance just beyond your headlamp. The crescent moon breaks a black skyline, and that's cool. The sun soon follows with the hint of the warmth of day, and everyone takes off the headlamp, and the GPS screen changes from night colors. You think, wow, we got 100 caches before sun up. In daylight, you see the steep, raw desert hills. All of that stratified, layered, twisted geology. You can now see hundreds of power towers, making straight lines over hill and dale, towards the next pass 10 miles distant. On the far horizon are snow capped peaks. Nearby a weird cloud envelops a peak, and later in the day it dissipates to reveal a dusting of snow. Ravens flap across the sky, and the feathers make the wooshing sound. You come across a burro track, and maybe you don't see them, but you know they've walked that track to some faraway desert spring, for more than a hundred years. In the distance, a mine that hasn't been worked for half a century can be seen. Midday, your work tally shows 200 or 250, and everyone is pleased that they just might meet the goal. The routine is fairly routine: the vehicle rolls down dirt; the navigator calls out distance and bearing; eyes are outside for the turn or turnout because the flashflood washes look like road; brakes are hit so no overshoot kills 10 seconds in back up; doors open as the vehicle rolls to 20 to 50 feet from GZ, and 2 runners hop out; one set of eyes looks left at tower, base, and cresote bush, the other eyes look to the right for the same; the navigator steps out, and the driver turns the vehicle around if necessary; the driver steps out with camera or maybe just to stretch, but someone calls got it; one runner opens container and snakes the rolled and folded logsheet bundle with pliers, and hands it to the stickerer or inker; cache is replaced and everybody jogs back to vehicle; cache is marked found on GPS, maybe someone does paperwork or reads the map; the next cache is just over a minute away. In that minute, you talk about the desert, that copper mine, a tortoise, 4 wheeling, the Delorme challenge, radios or droid, GSAK, that other great caching trip, and food. You eat snack food and drink fluid in that minute. And so it goes, for as many hours as the team endures. The sun goes down, and you know you need to buckle down. The wind comes up, and on the open desert it has a force more potent than in town. The air is dry and cold, and chapstick can't keep up. Still the team is in good spirits, and focused on that final 50 caches. There was one 30/hr straight section that went on for 10 miles with hundreds of towers in view. We were in rhythm, and after half and hour I looked westward... and hundreds of towers were still in view. My thoughts weren't about the repetition or being bored, they were about buckling down, staying focused, helping my teammates, and working through the 24 hours of routing and finding. At some point, you hit X hundred and ninety nine. If you are after a milestone, you are excited with anticipation, and confused about how many extra to go over the next hundred. And then your team is done, and there's smiling, and chuckles, and giggles, and everybody just wants to get to the nice and cozy and warm hotel... and sleep. Wow that feels good. The fact that a micro mint tin is 600 crow-fly feet across desert washes and arroyos, is not any different than a micro at opposite ends of a big box store parking lot. It's still geocaching. Lemme know when all 1/1 film cannisters and LPC are finally banned, because that's where the quality of geocaching can be improved. This talk about rules and stickers belongs in either the 566 record thread, or the future 600 cache record thread.

Just responded on my local thegba.net forum to a geokashers email, and that brings me back here again. quote from theGBA.net These TotG powerline jeep power trail caches represent less than 0.1% of the active caches in the world. There's enough of the 99.9% other geocaches in the world for most cachers to focus their attention on those. Well, yes, that's exactly what this is. Except it's harder because of the desert and sunstroke, because of the rattlesnakes and sharp things, because of the lack of fuel and food, because of the lack of routeable roads. And many of the caches are not on road, they are off rough service spurs. BTW, sticker gun... pure genius. My 3/13/2010 group had a great time out in the desert. We had mapwork but didn't have cacher beta, so we spent a lot of time on the hill caches at under 10/hr. Opening tins and unscrewing tubes at 18/hr, it took us 23 hours to travel 70 linear miles. We never made it to the 30/hr caches closest to Primm, so came up short of 500. Stopping at 23 hours, we passed 60 easy caches on our way to the pillow time. I kinda prefer that all of these 1/1 type micros (so called lame caches) are concentrated in one area. Is there other "good" Mojave caching available? Yes. Are we as geocachers locked out adjacent Mojave Natl Preserve and BLM WSA's? Yes. Would I otherwise cache the powerline right of way? Probably not, except if en route to Excelsior Mine or Keany Pass. Besides the Marines at 29 Palms and the tankers at Ft Irwin, this is a harsh area with a habitation density of about 1 person per 100 square miles. The hills were fun to wheel and added interest. There was one 30/hr straight section that went on for 10 miles with hundreds of towers in view. We were in rhythm, and after half and hour I looked westward... and hundreds of towers were still in view. My thoughts weren't about the repetition or being bored, they were about buckling down, staying focused, helping my teammates, and working through the 24 hours of routing and finding. If Sandy's fall was at the Nevada nano mortar case out on the west side, hey I almost fell on the steep there too. 300 feet up a rocky knoll, and beyond any steel tower, searched in the dark on a rocky crown for a 3 inch tin for 4 minutes (busts the 4 minute rule) before being embarrassed by a 3 footer, only 15 feet off coord. Could not get the case lid open at first; took a couple minutes to unjam it from the cold. I'm a numbers guy. I've had spirited competition with other number cachers. I've also shared a good many of Alamogul's first 10000, in good caching fellowship. I've also shared jeep runs and power caching runs with EMC, Fotomom, and the VK. I've given on-the-ground TotG data to quite a few interested parties, including the VK. Myself as a cacher who's cached many styles, as a power cacher, as a jeep cacher, as a 20 mile hike cacher, as a 100 5-star cacher, as a 5-digit cacher-- I can validate the VK/ Fotomom/ cachepal effort as a solid 24 hour, 500 milestone effort. Those who suggest on hearsay that one containerside sticker invalidates a 566 effort, are wrong or need to re-edit to opine that one GC is sketchy. Re cheating, most lay-cachers are missing the fact that the biggest cheat in power caching is leapfrogging to double the cache count. In setting their claim parameters, single vehicle was far and away the most important. All other issues are minor IMHO. On theGBA.net forum, I've cautioned if you are claiming any record, whether a personal 100 or a world 600, and you have thin skin at any forum, watch out for couch potatoes, keyboard jockeys, 2 month noobs, I-only-hike-for-one-cache-at-a-time zealots, or people who assume the Mojave Desert is just like a series of big box store parking lot LPC's. As suggested, buy a cheap ticket to Vegas and rent an SUV, visit the Mojave, set boots on the ground and set your own standard.

Stickers... standard practice in the US for team cachers and power cachers, for years. I should know, I've known top 10 cachers for years. If the label is correctly sized, it should take up less logsheet linear space than multiple inked names and dates in usually larger handwriting. Saves the C/O on maint intervals, but can thicken and clog the logsheet too. Real data on TotG logsheets: Three strips of paper, larger than film can sheets, stapled once. Currently, most containers are Eclipse mint tins with an unfortunate inner rolled lip that catches the rolled or folded paper. Forceps or pliers can be helpful, tweezers less so. Unfortunately the 3 sheets are too much for the tin size, and it takes some time to work the folded roll. Record guidelines: Refer to previous efforts... the VK etal at Colorado, GeoPirat German teams at several GeoWoodstocks, the Danish effort. As a power cacher myself, I recognize the most important guideline they offered is single vehicle-- this locks out any leapfrogging of multiple vehicles. All other guidelines have less inflationary impact. All. As a 400-finder on TotG 2 weeks prior, congrats and kudos to the VK/ Fotomom/ Cachepal effort. We saw 500 was obtainable, and suspected their efficient and practiced group would do it.

Previously I've written I'm not a forums guy, but I've come back to this thread for a fourth time, because I love the Mojave Desert and any talk about it... and because of that new 1856 cache claim. Wow. TotG is a cross between a rural power trail and a SoCal4x4GC's or a Wheeler Dealers desert run. Ammo can hides in the Mojave are located elsewhere that I've mentioned, like SoCal4x4GC's at Calico Hills. TotG is something different... a line in the sand. TotG is not urban caching LPC's at the big box stores in the burbs. Primary users are jeepers, dirt bikers, ATV'ers. No minivans. There's no AAA road service for gas, flats, key lockout. Out on the desert, gasoline may be an hour distant (Primm, Willow Station, Baker), plan accordingly. The motor stays running... you are not going to crank the starter 400 times in one day, and burden even a no-maint battery. This power trail uses the four Hoover Dam transmission lines as a handrail, and as a default, most of the containers are micros. In my experience, 95% are of the same type; the other types aren't hard and usually don't double the hunt time. Someone should post a photo of a Nevada nano. Ammo cans, it would be prohibitive for those generous NGA cache placers to expense $4 a pop, and power cachers wouldn't want the stack of rocks to unpile. Power trails are designed for power cachers. Non-power cachers will probably enjoy other topic threads closer to their interests. Power caching is all about numbers and endurance, coupled with pre-planning logistics and execution. The hunting components are navigation (the big time sink) and cache finding (quick). A cacher who's had a half dozen 100 days and maybe a 200 daze will have a handle on power caching. A cacher who's paid pilgrimage to GeoWoodstock will have a handle on power runs. Myself, I can speak from many caching perspectives. I'm the first Jasmer All-Months, and with Alamogul the first Well-Rounded cacher. I have a 400 day under my belt. I've also done 2000 mile cache runs. I've also hiked 20 miles or more for caches. I've hiked the 21 miles and 7000 feet for Mt Whitney, and several other 14K's too. I've jeep cached all over the Mojave and Death Valley. A 24 hour effort is all about caching for 24 hours. How many can speak from that basis? My group was up 40 hours between sleeps, including the cross-California commute and 23 hours on dirt. All of us were activate participants in teamwork. Everybody had boots on the ground, and everybody visited the GC coordinate, and everybody had eyeballs on the hide and logsheet. Sheesh, there aren't many rules for GC. Just because I kiss each and every logsheet is no reason to demand everyone else leave chapstick or lipstick on paper. If anyone needs to set their standard for this power trail, load the PQ, get a cheap flight to Vegas, rent an SUV with more than 2-ply tires, and give it a go for the 2 or 3 trails nearest I-15 and Primm. Easy, and lends credibility.

Dangerous terrain the Mojave. Surfed a cap rock for 2 feet, tumbled 6 down and landed upside down jammed between boulders; couple puncture wounds that took a few minutes to clot. Still, a 70 cache day, mostly ammo cans, in Dale Mining District near Joshua Tree NP. Good times, VK. To quote myself I'm a team player, and appreciate the fellowship and work that each member contributes. As myself someone who's worked through 8 hours of cross state drive and 23 hours of trail caching for 400 finds with a great team, I applaud and envy the VK/ fotomom/ cachepal 24 hour effort. Envy the otherworldly desertscape you saw, and the teamwork you experienced and have as a memory.

[Edit] Wow. Guess this is why this type of 24 hour effort quickly undergoes adverse reaction. I can't speak to the above stuck cache example, though I myself have logged similar DNF. I can speak to power caching though, and that comment is off base in a power caching thread, with regard to common accepted practice. When 3 of us are hunting, the shotgun seat is 15 feet away marking tally and scrolling the GPS, someone says found it, and one person holds the opened container or ziplock while another inks or stickers, and the other says please ink me-- there's 4 finders at the cache. Everyone's seen the hide and opened logsheet, and doesn't matter if individual names, initials, or team names make it to paper. And when we paddle a canoe 8 miles on a Sierra lake for a 5-star challenge, and the logsheet is not passed to the front of the canoe from the back where the number one cacher of the planet sits, hope [edit] that doesn't invalidate the event? http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...6f-52b52a67603c My philosophy: It's the journey, not the destination. For the June power cache run on the ET Highway near Area 51:

The Mojave Desert has a wonderful raw quality to it. Very close by is the multi-day 4x4 Mojave Road in Mojave Natl Preserve ('D' is for Desert Phone Booth and virts, and ammo cans outside the boundary), that I, ckayaks, mjp303, etal recently ran. Death Valley is an hour north, with the Badwater virt and 4x4 run up Goler Wash to the infamous Charles Manson hideout. To the southeast, the final for the SoCal Delorme Challenge is pretty much a jeep run out of Searchlight NV. An hour west at Calico Hills, last weekend Fishpoet of Socal4x4geocachers.org placed ammo cans in the polychromic hills of that mining area. The powerline trail is a great location as a power series. From a primary service road, cachers are navigating the correct spur to 1 of 4 towers, of the 4 Hoover Dam lines. On the knolls and ridges, it is possible to roll a vehicle off the shelf road, so driver ability and navigation sense are important. About 60% of it is linear, in my estimation, and the balance would be hindered with more than one vehicle in the caching group. To the comment, "bigger team to break the record" ...because of the rough terrain and single track, only a one vehicle team would be efficient for TotG. I believe the VK stipulate 1 vehicle, because it addresses the most egregious rule-bend, 2 car leapfrog. In comparison, it's hardly a violation for the driver or shotgun seat navigator to claim a team find, 15 feet from the container. Tozainamboku has some good comments about our silly game or hobby or whatever it is. Re stickers, I offer my apologies, but at 23 hours on the 5000 foot pass with gale winds, I placed a couple stickers on the outside of the logsheet roll. Of the 400 finds, I was good on a high percentage though.

First, kudos to the VK, fotomom, and cachepal. I knew a VK crew would be the first to crack 500 on those Mojave Desert caches. Their geocaching effort was all about teamwork, focus, and endurance. My group was out in the desert 2 weeks before, to set a 23 hour personal record. Congrats on the current GC world record. Since TPTB do not have this as a category, and there is no governing board, this forum serves as the appropriate depository for the claim. The above crew has dedicated themselves to caching for more years than most people on this forum, indeed visiting more GC locations in one month than most cachers have in total. And how many cachers are dedicated to task enough to spend 24 hours on goal? Power runs and team caching are well established GC activities, and fun activities at that. Caching machine runs and 7 GeoWoodstocks have established long GC precedent for the use of stickers on logsheets; not an issue. The VK crew used one vehicle, so leapfrogging is removed as an issue. Finders and crew duties: generally accepted practice that the driver gets credit on team finds. For power trail caches, the hunt and logging are too quick, and the driver works on the bigger time sink of navigation for the next cache. The driver may also stay with the vehicle to turn it around on sharp rocks, or for safety because the engine is rarely turned off. Since the hood is a work desk, the logsheet can come back to the vehicle. On my own run, many times everyone was out of the vehicle, though, because hunting is fun. These power trails are on dirt out in the mountains and valleys of the Mojave Desert. Things are sharp and pointy, and in one month temps will go triple digit. The Mojave Green rattlesnake loves to coil in the shade at the footing of towers. Though these Hoover Dam power lines are linear, they go up and down the desertscape, and jeep roads wind uphill to find some of the towers. Distance on the ground is probably 3x the linear distance. The nearest gas may be an hour away. All in all, it's an amazing adventure wheeling out in the desert. Me, another forum thread, March 18

Suggest camelback-type water carry, kids too. Remember that 2-ply passenger P tires are not 6-ply SUV/ Lt truck tires, and are prone to puncture. You may have cell coverage if you have line of sight on a tower, but most desert jeepers carry CB; 3 ft antenna will reach out 5-10 or more miles, and 1 ft on a portable or roof magnet will reach out 3-6 miles. Your fellow jeepers are your first responders and emergency road service in the badlands. With the winter rains, great flower displays should be coming on for the next month. Enjoy!

OMG, how ironic, there must be 500 posts in this thread! As many posts as caches on the ground. Figured there'd be hubbub about the jeep power trail. Now I'm not a forum guy, just a boots on the ground cacher. I've hiked over a 13,000 foot Sierra pass 3 times (at 400 miles from home) to get a 5 year unfound cache for FTF, GCADCB http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...2d-6fcc6d055035 and another 3 trips 400 miles from home to the remotest mining district in California, to get a belated STF, GCDE7F http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...70-557b4a5bdbc1 . Got trapped by snow, Donner Party style on the last one. Both adventures shared with Ranboze. Have also power cached with Alamogul, EMC, the VK, dgreno, and DT21&FW. So here's a boots on the ground report on TOTG. Strike while it's hot, the Geocachers of the Bay Area crew was mpj303, geoides, & bthomas. We packed up 1 vehicle (no leapfrog), and departed on the 8 hour drive from NorCal to SoCal. We started right away in the dark around midnight, and cached away as the Big Dipper spun around and the Sun later leaped across the sky. On the horizon, snow capped the top of Mt Charleston near Vegas and Telescope Peak above Death Valley. The desert was pretty in that raw desert way. We cached 34/hr when the road was Subaru-able with quick pull throughs, and 10/hr when the road was a low-intermediate jeep track or when we climbed some knoll or arroyo. We exited once to gas (at the World's Tallest Thermometer virt). Geoides had aerial photos loaded on his PN-40, and that cued us on access in the maze of jeep roads, service roads, motorcycle trails, and burro tracks. We came to the 400 milestone in the 23rd hour, on the cold, wind swepted 5000 foot pass west of Primm. It was a great team and we had so much geo-fun. Ended with 402 or 403 and opted for a 23 hour record. We arrived the day Orange County PC's wrapped 436, and we also came across Coach Steve's 464 group. When his Utah group had 350 caches from east, to our 300 from west, we knew we should've started at the easier end instead of skipping it. As mjp303 wrote on the GBA forum, "Power caching is more about time management, teamwork, and endurance, plus being able to make good decisions consistently when you're mentally and physically tired. It's one of the many 'variations' of geocaching, and that makes the game fresh and interesting for me." edit: flopped east and west