Palm Grunt

Finally logged my 100th find today !!!!! Today is my wedding anniversary and my wife let me go caching today too. 8 years married and 15 years together. Palm Grunt

If you got it from REI they offer an unconditional lifetime gaurantee on all products they sell. I had a Garmin 12 that I had for about 5 years and the units software crashed and they replaced it and upgraded me to an eTrex Legend. I bought a 60cs from REI this weekend and it had a bad antenna. It would track just fine then jump between 9-170 miles off course. Took it back and it was replaced no questions asked. This one tracks just fine. Just my opinion. You may pay a little more but they back every product they sell. I got my REI membership 20 years ago when I was 15; it was the best $5 I have ever spent. Palm Grunt

Has anybody hard wired a dedicated power sorce for their Garmin 60xx? I am looking to have power to the unit at all times while in the vehicle. I want to run the wires under the dash and have them concealed and come out by the windshield without using the cig. lighter outlet. Just curious if anyone has attempted this before? Palm Grunt Thanks to Team Nazgul I got the answer I needed. We both have Jeep Wranglers and he informed me of some hidden wires dedicated for powering different units. Thanks for all the replies. Palm Grunt

I have two from Team Redleg +1 other (veteran mountaineer and Army Mtn. qualified climber from the Mountain Battalion). All are from PDX too. The late July time frame, either 23-24 or 30-31, is a go for all of us. We have a field exercise the weekend after the 4th. Mid-August is taken up with camp for our kids and anniversaries. Palm Grunt

I would like to see an option on our user profiles to show that one of the .999 pure Silver geocoins were found. Since there were only 100 of them minted I think this would be a coveted find you can get credit for above and beyond the regular USA coins. I recently found one on my birthday a few weeks ago, nearly the best present I ever got . My office partner also found one that was never activated too. Just a thought, I know not many have found them so far. Palm Grunt

I'm in for the weekend of 13-14 August. I'm sure 2-3 more members of Team Redleg from Portland would join in also. Team Redleg is a bunch of caching Army guys. We could all take a days leave and travel there on 12 August too. Team Redleg will be at the Yakima Training Center from 5-8 August and can't make it that weekend. Keep us posted on any further details. Palm Grunt

“I am the Infantry …… FOLLOW ME!!!” I know if you aint CAV you aint …. METT-T definitely applied to this one Cav Scout. Good job on a great cache though. We should meet up at Ft. Lewis soon. I want to see this coveted little baby in person. I’ll bring my Silver USA Geocoin I found on my birthday two days before my attempt on the Skyline. Palm Grunt

I would like to see the option to have a 2nd email account added for premium members so notifications can go to two email addresses. I would like to have them sent to my home and work addresses. I have the flexibility during the day to get away a few times a week to do caching if the urge hits. Is than an option that can be incorporated for us? Palm Grunt

I did a cache in Portland, OR where the cache log was a digital voice recorder. This was an indoor cache located in the store so there was no chance of it getting wet. I thought it was a great log idea. Palm Grunt

Here is my cache log for the Skyline the Top cache (GCME5F) I attempted on the 14th. Palm Grunt I drove 512 miles round trip and 18 hours total from Portland, OR to attempt this cache today. I also did two other caches placed near here by the same owner. I had planned to winter camp on the pass to bag about 8 other caches on Hwy 2 the next morning while heading back home. Getting to the base of the cache site was fairly easy once you get to the top of the trail and cross the lake, when frozen. I attempted this one with snow shoes and did great until I got to the base. While climbing the loose powder I was sinking to my waist in some places with my snow shoes on. I had to zig-zag up the slope near the summit. A direct route up the slope was too much work. Once I got near the top I approached a slope of large rock formations. This is where it gets very dangerous. While traversing the slope between the rocks I crossed a small snow shelf and fell on my back due to the loose powder and nearly fell head first down the slope, this took me a few minutes to get back up and get going. Now comes the part that could have cost me my life. 30-40 feet further I was crossing between two rocks when I sank into a snow “crevasse” up to my armpits. To say the least I began to panic. It took me nearly 20 minutes to dig myself out while still wearing my backpack and snow shoes. I had been trekking pretty hard for about 2 ½ hours to that point and was soaked with sweat. I could also tell I had the onset of hypothermia due being wet and the snow falling down my shirt while trying to dig out. I took a weather reading on my Kestrel weather station near this area about an hour before and the temp was 12 degrees, winds 23 mph, and the wind chill was -17 degrees. So you could see my concern for my life due to the weather. Once I got out of the hole I got a GPS reading and it said I was 91 feet from the cache with 7 feet of accuracy; it was a very clear day. I scouted out the area ahead and only saw a snow shelf about as wide as one of my snow shoes. I took a deep breathe and swallowed my pride and turned around; I did not want to temp fate for a third time. I ended up pulling my hip-flexor muscle trying to get out of the hole and it took me 1 ½ hours to get back down. It was about ½ hour past sunset when I got back to my Jeep. I was told by some of the Stevens Pass personnel that they did not advise anyone to attempt to go to the peak near Skyline Lake due to the snow depth. The snow conditions will only get worse as the snow season progresses. This would be a great summer or spring cache when the snow is seasoned and packed better. It is much too risky to attempt right now; even to retrieve the Moun10Bike coin that is in the cache. That was my main reason for attempting the cache. I am not logging this as a DNF due to the terrain and weather conditions; not due to my caching ability. I encourage everyone to go to the Skyline Lake and Skyline View caches though. TFTH – Palm Grunt

I got a Jetboil stove and a Petzl MYO 5 Hybrid LED Headlamp for the extreme backcountry caches in the PNW. If you haven't seen the Jetboil check them out at Jetboil. Happy caching. Palm Grunt

My geocahing team we have at work is trying to do a seach on the GC.com site for a filter option for difficulty/terrain. Is this option possible? We are a group of Army guys that are looking to do 4/5 terrain rated cahces, the more extreme the better. We are also looking for some multiday ones in the PNW to get ready for our deployment to Afghanistan for a year. If someone knows how to do this search please let me know. Thanks, Palm Grunt

Anyone have experience mounting a Garmin GA 27C low profile remote automobile antenna on a Jeep Wrangler TJ? I want to permanently mount the antena to the Jeep. I am thinking of making a mount out of angled sheet metal that is riveted under the gasket on top of the windshield. The gasket is the one that seals the hardtop to the vehicle. I'm not worried about leakage, I can seal it back up just fine. Just curious if anyone has any hard / permanent mount advice or design ideas. Email me if you have any suggestions at jasonphelan@comcast.net. Thanks, Jason