May Be Missing

[+saguaroastro]

Went BMing this weekend with a freind. There were a couple of BM's that we couldn't find and suspect are no longer there. While we DNF's, how do we change the status on the BM page to the question mark icon to show it may be missing? Or is this something only the controing agency can do?

 

Rick

Team SaguaroAstro

[+BuckBrooke]

When you look at an unlogged benchmark in a list on Geocaching, say in a radial search around another mark, some are listed with question marks. I believe this is a onetime artifact that was created when the NGS database was loaded into Geocaching in 2001. The ones I've run across that are listed with a "?" had/have a DNF as their last entry when Geocaching loaded it.

 

There is no way for users to create a "?" marked log. DNF should be sufficient.

[+PFF]

To supplement BuckBrooke's excellent answer, let me share that the question mark does not always mean the mark is lost. I have encountered multiple instances where there has been a subsequent recovery. Some of the entries with question marks are worth searching for.

 

On the other hand, if the recovery team reports that they found the monument in pieces, a few feet from where it should be located, and they removed the disk.......you MIGHT have a destroyed mark. (With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy.)

 

-Paul-

[+Old Bill]

Some of the entries with question marks are worth searching for.

 

-Paul-

Hee-hee You need to come out to Arizona and look for this. Bring your chainsaw and heavy gloves. If it's there, yer gonna loose some blood finding it!

 

Seriously though, I believe that SaguaroAstro has it right. The PID linked to above is the one he is referring to. IMHO, it warrants a question mark to at least let people know it is going to be a challenge. A real challenge.

 

Now, the other one SaguaroAstro is referring to may very well be findable, as it's in some not so dense scrub. A better search of the area is not out of the question, and while a witness post wasn't easily visible, we didn't cover a lot of ground looking for it due to fading daylight. We may yet get back up there and search again.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

In a Geocaching site's listing of survey marks, there are 2 columns with similar meanings: Icon on the extreme left side, and Found near the right side.

 

The Icon column is filled with an icon having a type and classificaition.

If a geocaching person (one of us) has logged the PID, then there's a Type 2 icon in the Icon column, otherwise, there's a type 1 icon.

 

Type 1: NGS database coding

Class 1: Destroyed (the cracked apart disk),

Class 2: Not Found (a question mark)

Class 3: Found (a disk with a triangle in it)

 

Type 2: Geocaching log coding

Class 1: Destroyed (the cracked apart disk)

Class 2: Not Found (sad-face)

Class 3: Found (exclamation mark)

Class 4: Note posted (notepad icon)

 

The Found column is non-blank only when a PID is logged on the Geocaching site.

The icons are the same as Type 2 above.

 

Type 1 icons are not changed from one to another class by logs on Geocaching - they are simply replaced by Type 2 icons. Therefore, geocacher logs don't ever get seen as a question-mark icon.

 

This could change if the Geocaching site ever updates their database with new NGS data, which now includes GEOCAC logs, but that's another story.

 

Note that Type 1, Class 1 icon (Destroyed) is actually independent of the wording of the 'to-reach' description of the PID. That description might say "destroyed" but the icon will be Class 2 anyway. In other cases both the descripton says "destroyed" and the PID is coded by the NGS as destroyed also.

 

Note that Type 1, Class 2 exists in a listing even if the NGS database has a subsequent Found report. This is usually considered to be some sort of bug. Whether the bug was on the Geocaching parsing side or is on the NGS coding side, I don't know.

 

Any PID with a Type 1 icon is a candidate for a geocaching-benchmark-hunter FTF!

[+PFF]

Old Bill wrote:

 

Hee-hee  You need to come out to Arizona and look for this. Bring your chainsaw and heavy gloves. If it's there, yer gonna loose some blood finding it!

 

Don't make us send the Power Squadron out there to assist you! Gird up your loins, get in there, and find it!

 

Seriously, I'll accept your assessment of the situation. Your Arizona hunts are much more of a challenge than I encounter in North Carolina. Meanwhile, may I contribute two additional pieces of information for your "someday" file?

 

(1) An aerial photo from 1992 shows a clear road going to the summit and continuing past the mark. That will give you an idea of the age of the underbrush. It also raises the question of whether a successful approach could be made from the opposite direction.

 

(2) If you go, set your GPS receiver to these coordinates, which I calculated from a topo map:

N34 34.218 (or) N34 34 13.08

W112 04.494 (or) W112 04 29.64

 

You will notice that the Latitude is close to the published coordinates, but the Longitude is significantly different.

 

Best regards,

Paul

[+Old Bill]

 

(1) An aerial photo from 1992 shows a clear road going to the summit and continuing past the mark. That will give you an idea of the age of the underbrush. It also raises the question of whether a successful approach could be made from the opposite direction.

The road is drivable all the way. It is the old "Cherry Road" that leads to the town of, well, Cherry. It's been there for some time. Many of the descriptions earlier in the 1900's mention this road. We probably parked within 30 feet of the location. The "go-to" description appears to be "follow-able", but there are a lot of variables that could have changed between then and now. The biggest challenge is indeed the vegetation. It is thick, coarse, and plenty of stickers! Approaching off-road from the south would not be very likely because of this. The other thing that sticks in my mind is the "20 feet south of a cattle guard. That puts it right on/near the edge of a roadway cutout IF the cattle guard is indeed in the original place. This cut out may have been pushed back further from the road, as the shoulder there is obviously man made. This would have eliminated the mark.

 

At any rate, this one is not going to be really high up on my list. There's plenty of other ones nearby that I want to explore first.

 

Thanks for the advise!

Edited July 13, 2005 by Old Bill

[+BuckBrooke]

OldBill,

Wait for the fall/winter/early spring for this one? As others have noted the vegetation might be much less of a problem after it dies down.

 

Buckner

[+PFF]

I looked at your find at ET0135 to see how similar it might be in terms of scaled vs. actual coordinates. Here's what I got on ET0135:

 

LATITUDE INDICATION

N34 32.550 Published coordinate

N34 32.565 GPS Reading at site

N34 32.568 Estimate from topo map

 

LONGITUDE INDICATION

W112 04.800 Published coordinate

W112 04.825 GPS reading at site

W112 04.830 Estimate from topo map

 

It appears that the difference between the published coordinates and the map symbol is very similar for the two benchmarks. Therefore, you can apply the same correction factor (i.e., the published coordinates plot eastward and slightly south of actual). This will tell you whether the cattle guard and C/L of road remain valid references.

 

Since the estimate from topo map agrees quite closely with your GPS reading for ET0135, I believe you can use the figures I sent earlier to get right on top of the missing benchmark's location.

 

After all, if you're using a chain saw, let's not clear the entire mountaintop! If the mark is there, it will be very close to the coordinates I furnished. Naturally, we want a full report if you go back!

 

-Paul-