ddnutzy
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Posts posted by ddnutzy
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I was looking at this post and saw some remarks about the usps. LX4700 was recovered by wildbird and myself in early 2003 while there was about a foot and a half of snow on the ground. Later in the year the usps tried to recover the station and they couldn't even find Bald Hill Rd. which is right off of Rt. 190 in Union Ct. I wonder if they would have found the station if they had found the road.
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I don't know about the Magellen but I have a Garmin 60cs and I have the topo's for all of New England downloaded in it.
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On 10/30/05 there is a geomeet in Massachusetts. If I go there and see a hundred travel bugs, write down the serial numbers on the bugs and log them in as as found, would that be considered cheating? Just a thought.
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Holograph,
My3617 (Beaconpole-Borden 1834) is the oldest benchmark in R.I. and MZ1913 (Jilson Borden) 1836 is the oldest in VT. Do you know if they have anything to do with the person who setup the Borden baseline in Massachusetts.
Dave
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I have found a few benchmarks listed as underground. The only three that I remember are MY3817 which is 12 inches, MY3795 at 18 inches under and LX4706 at 12 inches. There is another one at 6 inches that I'm going for in the near future.
Dave
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I have to say I'm disappointed in my metal detector success in the end. We bought one a while back, and have tried it on about two dozen occasions. To date I have a single find, and that was a disk which was visable on the surface and simply covered with cut grass.
In the end I'm not sure if it's operator error, or that simply we're looking for benchmarks that are gone. I'm going to keep trying with it, but I'm a bit more down on them than my initial success indicated.
Bicknell,
I don't know what kind of detector you have but I have a cheap radio shack detector that isn't much good over 6 inches and even that is suspect. I also have a whites classic 3 that is invaluable to me. I've probable found half of my finds with it up to 15-18 inches deep. It's heavy but worth it to me. Hell, my pack weighs about 15 pounds.
Dave
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1. 99% alone.
2. Alone or with wildbird. I will spend many hours looking for a benchmark and I've driven over 500 miles to find to find a difficult station on a mountain in Me. or NH. Most benchmarkers don't want to do that.
3. 1. Wildbird and he was with me yesterday looking for 3 bm's.
4. Any of the old stations on mountain tops. Drillholes and copper bolts are my favorites.
5. This is a hard one. There have been some comments in the forum's by some benchmarkers that have found some impressive benchmarks. I don't remember who they were but if push came to shove I'd find them.
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Yesterday I went hunting for 3 bm's with 3 rm's each. I used the metal detector to find 2 of the bm's and 6 of the rm's. MZ1603 and MZ1607. The other one I didn't need it. Without the detector it would have been difficult to find any of the bm's or rm's for those 2 stations.
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A lot of the oldest bm's are in New England. These are the bm's that I like to look for the best. Some of my old finds are.
MZ1502 1832 FTF oldest in MA.
MZ1615 1832 2ND
MZ1702 1833 2ND
MY3611 1834
MY3617 1834 FTF oldest in RI
MY2666 1834 FTF oldest in NH
LW5088 1835 FTF
MZ1913 1836 FTF oldest in VT
MZ1700 1837 FTF
OC2210 1842 FTF oldest in ME
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The way I look at it, if no one supported geocaching.com it probably wouldn't be around to long. With all the equipment it takes to run the site, and no support I don't think that it would be around.
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I don't agree that Holograph should discontinue charting the benchmark finds. As long as there are people in the world, some will cheat no matter what you do. Holograph is doing a great job on his website and I don't think that he is responsible for what other members of geocaching or benchmarking will do to enhance their count.
Dave
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My favorite bm is MY3840 (Barrett Mt. 1871). It was on Barrett Mt. in a small field surrounded by a pine forest. The discription was vague stating it was on the highest part of the hill. With all of the trees there I could not distinguish the highest point so I decided to take a chance and strip a large pile or rocks. I dug around in the dirt under the pile and there it was. It was monumented in 1873 and not recorded since it was monumented. It was the last BM of a really good day of benchmarking.
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Bicknell,
I read something about the bulge a couple of years ago and then forgot about it. It is interesting and I'd like to see a update on the subject in the future.
Dave
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Today I drove to Mt. Mansfield in Stowe, Vt. This is a 472 mile round trip.The Baja only got 24.5 mpg because of the high speed. This came to just under 20 gallons of gas. At 3.99 per, it cost $79.40 plus tolls for the trip.
The only bm I was really interested in was Mt Mansfield (PG1699) but checking out the NGS site I found that no one had logged any of the bm's on the mountain to the NGS so I got all of them and logged them in to the NGS.
It was a 7 mile hike with a 2800 ft elevation gain plus almost 61/2 hours of driving to find these benchmarks. Needless to say I'm one tired puppy.
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On Sunday, I'm driving to Vermont for six bm's and to climb Mt. Mansfield. Round trip is 480 miles. I think that this will be the last real long trip for awhile. There are not to many interesting bm's very close to my house to find anymore. I get around 25 mpg with my Subaru Baja.
Dave
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OC2210 Whites Is.1842 Oldest BM in Maine
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This is a picture of PF1171 (Speckled Mt.) in Maine looking west toward Mt Washington in N.H.
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I find this to be the most interesting and informative section on the benchmarking website.
Thanks,
Dave
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Check out MZ3015. The marks are called nails but they could also be rivets. At any rate they are very small. I can't download the pics because the only place that I have them is on the Geocache site and I don't know how to get them from there.
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One of the rails should have a joint close to the square concrete box. Count down two joints to get two rails. Usually the track joints are staggard so that the train wheels don't hit the joints of each track at the same time. The 12 1/2 and 9 1/2 will be on that tracks on the other side from the concrete box. Measure 10.2 ft from the right rail and you should be in the area. A metal detector will help.
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*Dress for the job. Torn jeans and a tee-shirt will make folks wonder if they should even SPEAK to you--not to mention letting you on their land. I prefer white or kakhi slacks (especially during tick season) and a "dress" shirt with collar and pocket. I have been known to wear a tie, when working in urban areas.
-Paul-
hmm that might work in your part of the country
Out here if you show up in a shirt and tie, you are either pounding a bible, selling insurance, or "Hi I'm from the Government and I'm here to help you"
Most of which will get you shown the gate pretty quickly.
My disguise is an older, somewhat beat up Toyota 4runner with antennas and a yellow "kojak". An aluminum folding clip board and a faded traffic vest.
It really doesn't matter if I am in jeans, workboots and a t-shirt or the same ensemble with Carhart shorts. It looks like I am just another working stiff with a sometimes boring outdoor job.
I have had law enforcement drive by and see the car in the ditch, slow down and wave before driving away. Ranchers see me inside the fence line at the orange post and wave.
I don't think the slacks and ties would do too well with barbed wire! Last expedition I probably crossed 6 or 8 fences.
Since most of the maps that I use to find benchmarks are topo, and not street maps I usually wear jeans or upland game pants, hiking or work boots a sleeveless shirt, booney hat or ball cap and a orange vest. Dressed like that I have never been refused access to anyones land.
If I wore a wihte shirt and nice slacks they would really be turned into work clothes in a heartbeat after crawling on my hands and knees through the brush with a metal detector and then digging down 1-18 inches to find the station.
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I use a orange open mesh vest with ten pockets and two gromets that I keep small biners attached to clip my gps and compass to the vest. I got this vest from the Ben Meadows Co. ( benmeadows.com). I bought the vest for search and rescue work but I also use it for benchmarking. I only wish they made it in lime green which is more visible. The vests are not to expensive either. $39.70 ea and $35.90 for five or more. Item #5JB-105156
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If the land is not posted I just hike in the the station. If you want to get permission and want to find the landowner go to the local board of assessors and look at the maps. The assessor can then tell you who owns the land and how to reach them.
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My problem, like most of the serious benchmarkers is that we've found most of the stations within a long distance from home. Since I rarely look for any that have been found unless there very old or hard to get to, it cuts down on my local finds. Also I don't look for to many that are along the road or tanks or towers so my production has to drop down without a lot of traveling. As for Spoo's question, I don't have much more trouble finding them away from my home territory.
Time For A Get Together?
in Benchmarking
Posted
I may be going to Va Beach sometime in December so I might be interested in going to the meeting. I'm having knee surgery on November 29th but I should be ok in a week or so.
Dave