jonboy

Here is the link. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...0e-fd98990806a1 In my log, i describe a route from the Wilcat Ridge trail at the junction of Rt 17 & 17A.

I'm afraid I won't be able to make it. I was out hiking today and my Lyme disease started to really kick in, that and the anti-biotic, and I was forced to bail out and come home. I'll be sorry to miss it.

I would like to go, this area appeals to me because of the time I spent on the downed aircraft search here, I was stuck working in command. I don't think the trail data I have of this area is accurate, it is largely based on Rod Johnstons maps. This doesn't sound like an all day hike, would anybody be interested in going to Silver Lake afterwards? We could pick up a few more caches and check out the crash site (41 08.010' 74 32.010'). It would just be a little stroll in the woods.

I have contracted a tick borne disease for the ninth time, this time it appears I have a more severe variant , known as Ehrlichiosis. I had this variant 12 years ago, when it was just being identified and was little known, and it darn near killed me. My doctor is a specialist in Lyme, and his office is always full of patients getting their intravenous injections of antibiotics, these injections are required three times a week. This treatment is needed for those who failed to treat their Lyme early enough or didn't respond to oral antibiotics.

Quoddy, I hadn't realized "Old Glory was just a three star, all my others around there are fours, so I upped the rating. It was the first cache I put out and I had no basis of comparison, it just seemed to me an average sort of hike. All of these ratings are both subjective and comparitive. I like to place the cache on a topo map and judge for myself, plus I read the cache write up for indications of things like ascending cliffs, climbing trees or crawling into tunnels. The other factor I bear in mind is the cache placer, if the person who placed it is a strong hiker and describes it as difficult, I am more likely to take it seriously.

The wreakage has been removed and the site has been cleared. http://www.njherald.com/283639937083646.php The crash site is at N 41 8.010' W 74 32.338'. It is one kilometer north of the old Paterson Camp on the north west corner of Silver Lake. It is on the western corner of a swamp, at the 1,200 foot contour level, directly below the "H" on Hamburg on the USGS Hamburg Quad. The helo that assisted in the find was from Westchester County.

That individual might have been on scene the whole time, but I doubt that he had a full understanding of what was causing the delays he encountered. The real problem was that only the Civilian Air Patrol Teams were equiped with aviation radios, which generally operate in the HF or low bands. All the rest of the search communications were conducted via VHF using the State Police Emergency Network. Consequently, there could be no direct communication between the air units and the searchers on the ground, apart from the CAP teams. When he called in a location, those coordinates would have to be manually relayed from the CAP radio operators, to our command radio at Hardyston Fire House, then on to a radio relay team on top of Hamburg mountain, before finally reaching the ground search team. Naturally, since these were not automatic repeaters, there was a real chance for a digit to be transposed or some such other error to occur before the coordinates reached the field. It might seem to the pilot lingering up there watching his fuel guage go down, that these guys on the ground didn't know what they were doing. Likewise, when we received plots relayed to us from the air that seemed to indicate locations miles away that these pilots were making errors, but the error almost always occured because of miscommunication. I won't claim that there were no errors made by ground searchers, I made some myself in command, but you really need to be careful in making claims about others not being adequately trained, especially when such dispariging comments originate from locker room scuttlebutt.

That is utter nonsense. I was working in command for three days, plotting those coordinates, both from the ground searchers and the aircraft. I would estimate that maybe 10% of the ground teams had problems with coordinates of one sort or another, usually being in the wrong datum. I know the leader of the find team, I know that he used coordinates provided by the helo to move to and locate the crash site. You do these volunteers a disservice to spead this kind of misinformation.

I don't think the whole of Hamburg WMA can be closed off, but almost certainly access from Silver Lake Road will be restricted. The crash site will be treated as a crime scene pending the FAA investigation, and efforts will be made to keep away curiosity seekers and scavengers. Scavengers often descend on plane wrecks and start stripping off parts, which doesn't help investigators. The find was made by a team of volunteer searches with two from NJSAR. two Ski Patrol members from Mountain Creek and one fireman from Hardyston FD. The area had not previously been searched. Searchers found debris, a helicopter came in at low altitude, spotted the crash site and vectored the ground searchers to the plane wreck. Volunteer teams responded from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania along with Hardyston Volunteer Fire Department and Hardyston Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

I am involved in the search for the missing small plane and was wondering if any of you have track logs or other trail data from Hamburg Wildlife Management Area and the vicinity. I have some data from Rod Johnson Maps, but would like to verify it. You could send me data in TOPO!, Terrain Navigator or Map Source formats. The search may be scaled back on Wednesday if no clues are found, but some of the SAR teams may continue to search on weekends. Thanks, jonboy

A couple of caches in that I found particularily scenic were Fire on the Mountain , Ramapo Torne and Scunnemunk High Knob. For challenge and wilderness qualities I liked Ay Caramba! by Artful Dodger.

Thanks Teepee, I agree that that thread had gotten too cluttered. There is a better generic version of the Permit Application HERE . Note that although the park Supervisor, Bill Bauman(845 225-7207), might prefer to meet the geocache owners in his park face to face, it is possible to mail in the permit application if you cannot make it to the park office during normal business hours.

Thanks to Quoddy, Phone Dave, Team Demp, Avroaire, Rose, Helmut and Mike for joining us on this group hike. It was just as tough as advertised, but we had a game group who persevered without complaint. Helmut had to leave after "Sign of the Cross" and Stormchild didn't catch us with us till "Agora", but we were a tight little group. A special thanks to Rose, for keeping my wife company when these geocaching nuts went off to do their thing.

Quoddy, You really put out some effort to get these caches today, you were in a world of hurt and just wouldn't quit. Darielle and I were both impressed with your grit, well done.

The group hike is still on for this morning at 9:00 AM at the Casino Trailhead in Beacon. Afternoon thunder showers are a distinct possibility, so bring rain gear. Anyone having trouble finding the meeting place can try calling me on my cell (914 715-0252). I will be coming with my wife and a friend from NJSAR. Worf's Pack and Maximum Hunter have cancelleced due to maximum Hunter being ill.

I started out being quite obsessed about the numbers, but the caches always need some interesting terrain if I was going to drive any distance to find them. Now I find I am even less interested in non-wilderness type of caches than ever. Also for me, I want to spend most of my day walking, not scrabbling around in the leaves looking for a needle in a hay stack. I look for a series of caches, in a wilderness setting, so that I can visit an interesting area, have a nice hike, and yes, roll up a few smilies, but if those smilies entail nothing more than walking a hundred yards from the car, I could care less.

The coordinates for the Casino trailhead at the base of Mt Beacon are N 41 29.630' W 73 57.590' . This is on Rt 9D, just where it turns right and heads down into Beacon. I checked out the mileage of the loop I am planning and it is eight miles, but it is a pretty strenuous eight miles.

I have Team Demp and Quoddy planning to join me next sunday for a circuit of the eight caches up around Fishkill Ridge. The meeting place is at 9:00 am at the base of Mt Beacon on Rt 9D. The distance will be about ten miles. Is anyone else planning to join us?

On reflection, I think going from the base of Breakneck is a bit ambitious, one has to allow time for cache hunting as well as hiking. What I meant about cutoffs is that there are eight caches up there, some people may elect to skip some of them, also there is an extensive network of ATV trails, and these offer good short cuts if you know where you are going. A good bailout route for anyone who burns out is to walk down the road that comes down from the microwave tower on North Beacon, parallel to the white Fishkill Ridge trail. This would require walking about half a mile along Mountainside Ave and Depuyster back to the parking area. If someone thinks they are likely to be in this category, they could spot a car over there, I know an unmarked trail that leads back to the parking area from the Fishkill Ridge trail, but it might be difficult to spot for someone unfamiliar with the area. I would say meet at 9:00 for a 9:30 departure, to allow time for any who might have trouble finding the Casino Parking area and spotting a bailout car .

So how about Sunday. the 15th at 9:30, at the corner of Wolcott Ave. and Howland Ave. on Rt 9D at the Casino Trailhead. Ascend via the Red trail and return via the White trail, full circuit about 10 miles, cutoffs possible. I don't know if any of the strong hikers want to try the approach from the Breakneck Ridge trail, it is truly spectacular, but very demanding. I would say this group would need to depart at 7:30 in order to rendezvous with the main group, it is five tough miles to Mt Beacon.

Das heist "UBER" Junge, wie im Uber Mensch. Seriously, it is only a death march if one follows the entire Breakneck Ridge Trail to get there. There are several easier approaches, so it need only be a pain and suffering marathon. I'm up for it if any of you are, how about May 14th or 15th?

I don't think there is any way for the park authorities to know if an archived cache has been physically removed or not. In order to do so, they would have to have made a printout of the cache sheet before it was archived or had created an account and logged a visit to the cache before it was archived. Then they would have to go out there and check, and since few if any of them are experienced cache hunters, the fact that they could not find it would not neccesarily mean it was gone. If a cache is archived, either involuntarily or not, the cache owner will of course be aware of this, and as such should also be aware that it is their responsibility to pick it up. If they have not done so within a month or two, one can assume they will not. In that case, the other cachers who have already posted a find of that cache will still be able to access the archived cache sheet, and if they perform the public service of picking up the irresponsible cache owners geolitter, they should be praised, not censured. There was such a case in Teatown Reservation where all the caches were delisted, including one of mine. I was hiking in there a few months later and stopped by at the location of one of the other archived caches to make sure it had been picked up. It was gone, but had it still been there, I probably have taken it and e-mailed the owner, telling them I had picked up their cache, and would hold it for them if they liked. My first concern would be preserving the reputation of our sport, and if a cacher who had abandoned his cache didn't like it, that would just be too bad.

It is possible that some park managers may move to have caches disabled until such time as permits can be obtained. I agree that as long as caches have not been archived, they should be considered inviolate by other cachers. I do feel that if a cache becomes archived, and hence geolitter, there is no ethical constraint against other geocachers removing such geolitter. In such case the proper thing to do would be to hand the cache into the park and allow them to hold the cache and notify the cache owner to come and retreive their cache. There may be cases when park offices are closed or they don't wish to hold removed caches, in which the cache owner should be contacted and offered a chance to retreive their cache. In the case that the cacher is no longer active and has no e-mail contact available, the cache would have to be disposed of. One thing that would be wrong is to lose travel bugs in this process. I retreived a cache yesterday that I had archived some time earlier, and it had a travel bug in it. This was an oversight on my part to allow a travel bug to sit in limbo in an archived cache for over a month, but this was in a remote location during the difficult snow and ice period. The biggest drawback I have encountered to obtaining a permit is that the contact person is usually only available monday through friday, during working hours, and is is often out doing other tasks. The best thing is to call ahead and make an appointment with the contact person, or arrange to mail in the permit aplication if this is not convienient. I do not feel that parks would have caches archived if contact with the park has been made by the cache owner and the application process is started. There will be cases where the cache does not fall within the placement guidelines as established by OPRHP, in which case archiving the cache may be the only option. I have found them ready to stretch the rules a little, but not break them. I feel that it is the moral obligation of the owner to see that any cache they place conforms with park regulations, and that if and when such a cache becomes inactive, it is their obligation to remove it. Other cachers will only need to step in if delinquent cache owners fail to live up to this obligation.

I was just issued two more Geocache permits for the Hudson Highlands from Bill Bauman. He told me none of the other seven cache owners who have caches in Fahnestock and the Hudson Highlands have come in to get permits. He is a nice guy and eager to issue permits, but he seems to be getting ready to become a little more coercive. Don't think that it will all go away if you just ignore it.

There would be a need for the rangers to take the intiative on this, after all, they are their regulations, and only they are in a position to know who has or has not obtained a permit. Did he give any indication as to how many people have obtained permits in Harriman to date? My gut feeling is that the local compliance rate is rather low, and cachers are not going to beat a path to the door of their offices clamoring for permits. I don't think they understand how loose knit and unorganized we are.