skeezicks

Mine would definately be from my signature at the bottom of my posts..."Aaaahh...the great outdoors" I love everything about being outdoors from hiking,caching,fishing,taking photos,etc...That one saying says it all!

I live about 25 miles East of Helena,Mt.There are 41 within 10 miles of my house with 13 of those being mine.

I like to makes hides both ways...pretty easy for the average cacher and on the difficult side for people like me who enjoy the long hikes and getting away from it all.I also enjoy finding both kinds,but I enjoy the ones with long hikes in the mountains the best.

I've been caching for a few years now and I still enjoy doing it as much as the first time I ever went.Here where I live,the weather sometimes makes it difficult to go,but I go every chance I get even in nasty weather if I can get to where the caches are.I just wish more people would get into it here so that there would be even more caches to find.I have done several hides and plan on doing more which I also find very fun as well.

It takes time to get used to finding micros.Even after tons of finds,you will still run into some that are very tough to find.I found a nano yesterday way back in the mountains at a pine tree.What makes this type so hard is,not only are they small and well camo'd,but with all GPS units having various accuracy depending on the unit and conditions where you are looking...like in my case yesterday where there were many pine trees here in this spot,you just have to do a lot of looking and sometimes just get plain lucky.

A couple of years ago,My wife and I took a road trip to do some caches in another town about a 100 miles from where we live.While we were walking to one of the caches,we went down a back street between buildings to get to the cache site.Just as we were rounding the corner,we saw a vehicle and a couple of people looking through the rocks on the ground.We knew right away what they were looking for.We watched from around the building for about 10 minutes.They finally gave up and got in their car and left.We walked over to where they had been( the coords zeroed in right where they were at) and looked for a few minutes and found the cache.It was a very good camo and hide,so we weren't surprised that they didn't find it.

I went across the lake I live by (Canyon Ferry Lake) in January a couple of years ago while it was frozen and got the cache "Eternal View" (GCY1G8).The ice was very clear and I could see down the places it had cracked to kinda judge the depth of the ice.It was about 3 feet thick where I crossed.The island is called cemetery island because the only thing on this island is a cemetery from an old town, that now is at the bottom of the lake here,flooded after the dam was put in.It is a very unique and historic island.

I found this shed deer antler while looking for a cache a couple of weeks ago.

I just ran across this one while getting a cache in the Elkhorn Mountains here in Montana.

Here is another one in Montana.If you look to the right of the tree under one of the branches at the skyline,you will see the face of a famous mountain here in the Helena area, The "Sleeping Giant".

My wife and I found one a couple of years ago called "Trash Out!"(GC148NA).It was intentionally placed in a pullout area on the interstate here just for that purpose.It contains CITO bags in case you don't have any.We stayed about 15-20 minutes picking up trash and just barely scratched the surface of what was here.I think these caches are great ideas.I always seem to come back from a cache with at least a couple of items that someone has tossed on the ground.

I hope that someone has the time to take this over for you.I didn't realize this site was here,but I think it's a great idea and I will definatley bookmark it.I spend quite a bit of time between this site and geocaching.com...I am always looking to see and hear about other caching stories,pictures,etc...and like to contribute some of my own as well.I would do the same on this site if it stays on-line as planned.

Mine was in December 2006...my folks and my sister and brother-in-law had flown up to spend Christmas with us.My brother-in-law kept talking about geocaching and said he found out about it from a magazine article.He and my sisiter had been doing it for a little while already.I love to hike and be in the outdoors all the time,so I told him it sounded fun.He got on our computer and found 5 or 6 he said were in Helena,Mt. which we live about 25 miles outside of.The night before we were going to go into town,he decided to look from where his GPS put his coords here at our house instead of using the city zip code like he had before.Lo and behold,there was one less than a mile down a dirt road right by where we live.We got up the next morning(the whole lot of us) and walked down the dirt road and up the hillside and after about 10 minutes of looking we had found it.I was hooked right away.Later on that afternoon,we went into town and found the other ones ( which included a really cool mystery cache with lots of walking and information gathering to find).They flew back home a couple of days later.I bought a GPS within a week and have been geocaching and finding benchmarks hot and heavy ever since..."takes a breath"...

I also feel that travel bugs should be moved from cache to cache more quickly than they sometimes are.I have one that has been stuck in a cache for quite awhile...I hope someone rescues it soon.Anytime I see a travelbug or geocoin,I trade for it and move it along within a week or so at the most.I like to see them get as many miles as possible.I am hoping that mine eventually make their way to other countries after completing their original goals.

I go by "skeezicks" because it is a nickname my dad started calling me when I was very young.I'm not sure where it actually came from,but it has stuck with me for 40+ years.I'll have to ask him one of these times just out of curiosity.

Here are a couple: "spokane" benchmark in Montana "Bend" benchmark...had to find it with my metal detector

All done.

Survey completed...I will be curious to see the final results.

These two bucks just wanted to see what I was up to...they were very close to the trail obviously.

My first favorite would be "Grace Lake" (GCK92K) because it was a 13 mile round trip hike high in the Big Belt Mountains here in Montana, with 3 mountain lakes all within a mile of each other at the furthest point back in the hike.The last mountain lake in the hike was Grace Lake, which I stopped and fished for a little bit and caught some nice cutthroat trout in.My second favorite would be "Hanging Valley Cache" (GCKEFZ) also here in Montana.I like this one because it is another long hike in the mountains (12 mile round trip) with a nice trail through the mountains followed by a part of the trail toward the end through rocky walls and canyons and even a small rock archway to go through ending at a scenic drop off where the old waterfall used to flow.Luckily there is a fence over the drop-off for safety reasons...very cool spot and hike getting there.

I use a Garmin eTrex Vista Cx.I bought it originally when I got into geocahing and have used it while hiking/backpacking and it has served me very well with no problems.

I hike and backpack into alot of caches here in Montana.There are many longer hiking type caches here from a few miles to 10+ miles.I like the farther ones so that I can get out where very few people will take the time to get to.Plus,you can't beat the scenery on some of these hikes.A couple of my favorites here have been "Grace Lake"(GCK92K) and "Hanging Valley Cache"(GCKEFZ).

I have always been into hiking and backpacking...geocaching at the same time is just one more,on top of lots already,of reasons for me to get out and hike.

I have ran across some interesting looking trees while hiking.I was wondering if anyone else had any pictures of unique looking trees seen while hiking.This one was in the Elkhorn Mountains in Montana.

Here is one of my hike into crow creek falls in Montana.I could only use about half of my clips making it due to this sites time restrictions,but it will give you a pretty good idea of the hike.