bthomas
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Posts posted by bthomas
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Me, too. Given a choice between 30 altoid tins or film cannisters in strip malls and playground shrubery, or 30 containers between point A and point B along an established trail or rec path... I'll happily take the latter.
The LaQuintas I did in December were well designed. The Bear rec path was a nice morning warm up. The Pushwalla ridge hike was adventerous. The Morrow Trail night hike was exciting, as was the 4WD road.
If the proximity rule increased to 0.25 miles on lands administered by hard-nosed agencies, I'd still be good with that. A trail of caches may startle some land managers, but the bottom line is that park usage increases only slightly. 100 users per day becomes 104 users. Parks are created for people, and this is just another use of parks, just more park visitation.
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Ziplock observations (for both regular and micro):
1. Observed failure modes (in order): Micro bags tear at top corner at the zip track; medium bags are punctured by pen; larger bags w/ slider, slider comes off.
1a. Zip track will crimp or foul. Sliders skip at some point. Realistically, slider bags are designed for what 10 unsealings?
2. Best to use the heaviest thickness (mil) possible. Freezer grade is good. Thin bags fail by the second rain, and end up trapping moisture and mold. Have we all signed a moldy wet log before?
3. Ammo cans don't really need ziplocks; only for organization. In a full ammo can, 1 outta 10 times the bag gets nicked when the lid is hinged shut.
4. The pen does not need to go in the zip bag... it will only puncture it at some point. Placing it with the logbook may force it into an awkward position that prevents good container sealing. We all can figure out that the pen is not swag.
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The Palm Springs power trails we did were Bear, a sidewalk rec path; Pushwalla, a 2 hour loop hike along a desert ridgeline; Morrow, a hike over a desert pass; and we did a 4WD night run. We did some suburbans that day, and then the next day for half a day in the rain. I'm looking forward to the 60 mile Bradshaw 4WD run past the naval gunnery range.
Our hosts Darryl and Jamie were wonderful.
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4.0 miles to 100 caches, and a big chunk of that radius is mudflat and bay. For the Bay Area, this is a cache thin area.
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In 2002 I was west of Lake Tahoe, going for a 5-star peak. Two hours from the trailhead, I had already forded a stream and was at about 8000 elevation. The trail on the map turned out to be unmaintained, and I was cross country, out in the sticks. I was thinking the loop was now going to take longer than 2 Power Bars.
Then up the ravine, I catch a glimpse of a big animal with cat-like grace leaping away. The motion was fluid and silent, and after that one framed look of its back, the animal was unseen again. It wasn't that pronghorn springing of mule deer, it wasn't that crashing through the thicket, there wasn't the second sighting of a deer stopping to look back.
While I was pondering eating 4 ounces of Power Bar, someone else may have been considering 150 pounds of hiker on the hoof.
I puffed up the windbreaker and banged the hiking stick, and continued on unmolested.
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Rather than mention caches, I'll offer a route strategy. YMMV, depending upon your interests.
Park early for free at Marina Green; there's a wonderful view of the Golden Gate and Alcatraz from there. BTW, drive to Sounds either before this or at the end of the day. Walk to YABA at the garden in Fort Mason, find the back stairs down to Hilaire if the museum is open, do Laughing Sal and any close, catch either the Mason or the Hyde cable car mid-morning before the wait gets too long.
Do Union Square (it's not where you'd first guess). Grab a Market Street old fashion F trolley when you can; if they're full hop on a regular bus. Get on and off along the Embarcadero where you care to; you can easily walk the distance from the Ferry Bldg to Fisherman's Wharf. Grab some sourdough and dungeness. Walk or cab back to Marina Green. Do Sounds of the Bay if you didn't earlier.
Enjoy the City by the Bay.
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Just some thoughts about the presentation of geocaching to land managers. Perhaps these folks think of geocachers as treasure hunters with metal detectors and shovels.
We can do a few things to re-spin our image into something they can better comprehend. By and large, in these parks we are actually just another subset of day hikers. We merely hike the trails, visiting points, enjoying nature along the way. We bring along our friends and family to experience a nice day outside. We carry a GPS to route our way, and the device is a good safety tool.
Many land managers bring up ecological damage, and invariably mention digging. They would probably view turning over boulders, unpiling bark and logs, and pushing aside leaves as digging. As placers, perhaps we should be more cognicent of this type of hide in regional parks. Perhaps we need to upgrade our hiding methods.
Of late, I've been thinking maybe the land mangers need to be part of the process by approving an official container. Maybe an approved decon container will be more palatable than a mix of rubbermaid, gladware, and pringles containers.
Another eco note: Use trails. We can assure them that the deer tracks we use to duck out of sight are used by maybe 6 people per week. We can present actual usage stats.
Final eco note (my request): let's not place caches in squirrel dens and woodpecker holes. Someone wants to live there, and besides, it's icky! Please add eco-protection notes to your cache pages-- Not in animal den... No need to uncover tree bark... Not more than 4 feet off trail.
Think eco, they are. Remember habitat protection for 50 garter snakes can put the skids on a $50-million project. Can certainly put the skids on an unheard of game with a $100 electronic device.
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Ghirardelli, Oakland CA
Mourning, Oakland CA
Dove of peace, Oakland CA
Early date for California, Sacramento CA
Anchor of hope, Redwood City CA
Columba, San Francisco CA
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Es Effo GCBC09 was placed to complement Grand Central LAX, as the West Coast's other busiest international airport. It's in a runway-side park, one of the few "legal" places for plane spotters, hence the location. There's free public parking across the street.
Initially, the cache was a medium sized ammo can safely hidden in bushes beside the walkway, but feral cat control and security concerns caused the hedges to be bonsai trimmed. Odd combination, eh?
The on-site landscaper helped me move it to an existing enclosure, with his supervisor stipulating that the containers be clear. I believe most of the canine patrol knows of the cache.
I'd like to move it further away from prying eyes at a view bench 60 feet away, but there you go. The cache page suggests tying your shoelaces.
I've asked for no rules like 1:1. I usually visit every other week and replenlish travellers 3:1. I try to post-it note the destination goal for each, so the owner's wishes are the take-rule. Occasionally, long distance fliers forget to log out bugs. That's about the only problem.
Travelwise, domestics go quickest; bugs to Australia will wait longer than bugs eastbound across the Atlantic to the UK.
Fingers crossed and bon voyage.
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I too depend upon the kindness of a 60CS owner. I get an e-mailed list of the 60CS found log.
On marathon days (>50) we bring a checksheet for the clipboard; think it comes from the gpx or loc file. BTW, the clipboard is a time saving device-- you're quicker in and out around muggles when you look like the meter reader/ parks maint guy/ elections registrar/ survey volunteer.
Nowadaze, most finds are SLTNLN. Photos sorta help, in that they have an order, but two-thirds of the caches don't get a photo. On rare occasions, I'll photograph the logbook page. Voice recorder sounds like a good idea.
I tried using the Palm to mark found in Cachemate, but was only noting half the finds on those 5 caches per hour days. Think pilots call that too much workload when they're flying. One of these days, I'll get efficient at paperless, maybe use that Boulter thing.
I'm probably 100 caches behind in logging. Oh well, that means I'm 98% up to date.
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I run into cachers all the time, probably 150-200 by now in 3 years. Would it be a typical marathon day, if I didn't run into a pair of cachers?
My most memorable was at last year's GeoWoodstock. We'd flown in from cross country a little late into the afternoon. After chowing down on the last of the marvelous catfish, we headed into the woods to do the park's caches. The thicket limited visibility to about 30 feet, and voices were moving towards me. At about 5 feet, I was surprised to recognize the Number One cacher on the planet, her daughter (who'd just passed my find count), and mtn-man. Too kewl.
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Yeah Bloo!
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Oh, and in the evening I add
11a. Princeton Tec xenon lamp (birthday gifted frm Ranboze)
11b. Headlamp or D-cell Maglite
11c. Wristband compass if I'm riding shotgun, looking down at maps
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Just love looking at lists. I'm a list person. When I go caching...
1. Attach head
2. Screw on tight (lefty loosie, righty tighty)
3. Bring an extra pen
After 4000 caches the fanny pack regularly contains these 10 essentials:
1. Garmin Venture
2. Recharged NiMH, pair
3. Digital camera, w/ 128 card
4. Cell phone
5. Palm PDA, maybe, cache page otherwise
6. Leatherman Squirt or Swiss Classic
7. Gu energy gel
8. Bandaids and wipes, maybe poison ivy wipes
9. ATM card (rule-- if w/in 200 ft of ATM, get cash now)
10. Space pen or pen from the Marriot or pen from work
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This afternoon I was in Almaden, and a couple of Marky caches were off by 30 feet! Well, maybe 20 feet.
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Congrats DT21&FW on 4K. See you at 4.5K soon.
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Most of us have watched the scene in some horror movie, but there are still people out there that aren't clued... the next victim.
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The devil made me do it.
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You can leave a physical log in this National Park at GCHV0X http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...9a-0b6aab96ee19
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Es Effo GCBC09 is in a park the borders SFO, on Old Bayshore Blvd by the Westin. In downtown Burlingame, I recall only the CalTrain in the adjacent park and a couple of virts (including one of mine).
BART: You ticket in and out at the minimum fare. I'd suggest getting off BART at a location with density, like Embarcadero Station or Walnut Creek Station.
Happy caching!
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Congrats Team Alamo, on hitting the 6K. BTW, how did you get that 2K bump on me?
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I just donated a Leki pole to the State of Nevada. If you find the stick in southern Nevada, maybe Area 51 or somewhere, please put a coordinate on it and add a logsheet. Thanx.
Yeah Bloo!
What's The Perfect Micro Container?
in General geocaching topics
Posted
1. Waterproof. No wet logsheets. No redundant ziplocks that end up puncturing at the folds, and don't fit into container after day 1.
2. Magnetic = no harm, no foul. No need to disturb nature or property when placing.
2a. Film cannisters don't cut it. Magnets hot-glued, epoxyed, barged cemented, crazy-glued on to HDPE, LDPE, PVC, ABS, PTFE, etc don't stick for long enough.
3. The above plastics or metal should take Krylon Fusion paint for camo, and coverage should last for 2 years outdoors.
4. Interior should be big enough to hold sig cards (business card).
Me, I'm all thumbs rolling up log pages for that undersized 1 mil ziplock or a Bison keychain container.