skeezicks

Up here in Montana I have ran across mostly deer,elk,and of course the usual small critters.I have ran into a few mountain goats and 1 black bear (I backed away slowly and luckily as soon as he seen me he took off running the other direction.I always make some noise as I hike( including talking to myself...go figure) to hopefully let any dangerous animals hear me way in advance.I also try and keep an alert eye around me as I go along.

I am going to Glacier National Park in August for a few days to do nothing but hike.Next summer I am going back up there to do a several day backpacking/camping trip.I can't wait.I am lucky enough to only be about 4 hours from this beautiful park.

I was introduced to the sport by my brother-in-law.He came up here on vacation with the rest of my family and was talking about it.He brought his gps along and took me to find one that was only .7 of a mile down the road.I've been hooked ever since.

13 miles round trip.It was an awesome hike through the big belt mountains here in montana.I brought my fishing pole because there were 3 mountain lakes located at the last part of the hike in.I caught some nice cutthroat trout.There is another cache in this general area that I plan on finding this summer...just a couple of miles from the cache"Grace Lake" that I found on this hike.

I work in retail...so getting out in the middle of nowhere finding caches is a nice change of pace.I enjoy the long hike in the mountains caches most of all.

41 here

I cache solo all the time.I'd say about 80 % of my finds have been solo.I enjoy the peace and quiet ...especially doing the out of town hiking caches in the mountains.Very peaceful.

When I use my garmin etrex vista cx, the icon I click on to safely remove my USB connections doesn't show it as connected either.I just turn off my Gps after I am through downloading cache files and then unplug the USB from my computer.I have never had any problems doing that.I figure that if it was a connection through my USB that needed to be disconnected by the computer first,it would show up when I click the safe to unplug icon.Hope this helps.

Some of my family took a flight up for christmas one year and my brother in law was talking about it.He had brought his Gps up with him just to take me out and show me what geocaching was all about.The first one he took me to was only .8 of a mile from my house...who knew! After we found the first one,I was hooked.I bought my own Gps shortly after they left to head back home,and have been geocaching and finding benchmarks ever since.I, in turn, have also turned a few people on to geocaching as well.

If it is easy to get to,I will usually look at least 30 minutes.If I had to hike a long ways or it was hard to get to, I will give it at least an hour.I will go back as many times as it takes to find it.I had one cache that was about a 30 minute walk to get to that I had to go there 4 times before I finally found it.I had about 4 hours total time invested in finding it,and was just getting ready to leave the area again when I found it.It might get frustrating,but when you finally do find it,you are just that much more excited about it.

I use my Tacoma 4x4

This page will give you the information you need on getting a cache published. http://www.geocaching.com/about/hiding.aspx Hope this helps.

Here is a great one in Montana.It is a trail to the cache "Grace Lake"(GCK92K). It ate up most of my day. It is 13 miles round trip after the 15 miles or so up a dirt road into the mountains.Towards the end of the hike there are 3 mountain lakes within a mile of each other. I brought my fishing pole and caught some nice cutthroat trout. This is a picture of the trail This is a picture of where you have to drop down into to get to the mountain lakes...there is a nice trail leading to all of them. Here is the 1st mountain lake (un-named lake) Here is the 2nd mountain lake (Hidden Lake) Here is the 3rd mountain lake (Grace Lake) The cache is hidden near this lake.

The right when I'm walking or navigating and the left when I'm entering coords or something using the thumb stick.

I have had several of these that I have found.The worst one was one that I hiked to last winter.There was over a foot on the ground at the cache site ( it was a 3 mile hike to get there)I was movimg snow around looking for it when I found it.It was an ammo can that hadn't been found in almost a year and a half.It was on a hillside and was about halfway covered in frozen dirt from where the ground had moved from freezing and thawing out a few times or more.It took me about 30 minutes to dig it out,but all was fine once I got it open...which was a chore all its own.I filled in the hole where the cache had been buried with the dirt I had to dig it out from and rehid it in the same place.It has since been found by others.If it had been there through one more winter,it would have probably been gone for good.

Thanks...that fixed it.

I tried to change my signature earlier and even after logging out and back in and deleting all my temp files and cookies,my signature stays the same.Does anyone know what I can do to fix this? Thanks.

test

It is a wetpaint web page with ads from google...are those considered commercial ads?Here is the address for it if someone could take a look and tell me if this site would be ok.Thanks. http://outdoorexcitement.wetpaint.com/

Is it possible and within the site guidlines to place a link to your homepage/website so that it appears on your forum posts.Thanks.

Here is a picture of one located at the top of "Spokane Butte" It is about 15 miles east of Helena,Montana This benchmark is located on the same mountain about 100 feet or so from the tower.This is the view from where they are both located

I hike and cache all year long.Even in snowy conditions,you can usually find caches that can still be found.There is still quite a bit of snow on the ground here,but my wife and I found 5 caches yesterday.

These small mountain lakes are all within a mile of each other. It's about 6 and a half miles back to the farthest one (Grace Lake) I took my fishing pole with me and was rewarded with cutthroat trout galore in Grace Lake.They are located in the Big Belt Mountains, about 25 miles east of Helena,Montana. 1st one you come to...couldn't find any name for this one. 2nd one you come to...Hidden Lake 3rd one you come to...Grace Lake

I carry all of my stuff in a fanny pack,along with a few items for emergencies( I like the caches that require several miles round trip hiking in the mountains)like a flashlight ,fire starter,etc...

My parents had one of their caches where someone didn't have anything to sign the log,so they dipped their thumb in the mud and left a thumbprint on the log.When they logged their find on geocaching.com,they mentioned in their log what they had to do.