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Great EarthCaches


genegene

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These are some of my favorite Earthcaches:

 

Tufa Towers

 

That one is simply spectacular and shouldn't be missed if anyone is traveling in that area.

 

Split Mountain Gorge

 

You need high-clearance or 4WD to get to this amazing canyon wall.

 

A Home of "Dragons" Earthcache

 

Dizzying Display Earthcache

 

The last two are located in the spectacular Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in southwestern Colorado.

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These are some of my favorite Earthcaches:

 

Tufa Towers

 

That one is simply spectacular and shouldn't be missed if anyone is traveling in that area.

Tufa Towers is a great one! So is the nearby Travertine Earthcache. It is archived but the hot springs are still there, so it's worth stopping by! ;)

I got permission from the previous owners to revive the Travertine Hot Springs and another one at Mono Lake.

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I got permission from the previous owners to revive the Travertine Hot Springs and another one at Mono Lake.

 

Question about that... (not relating to a recent sore subject) I want to revive a couple that have been archived for over a year now. Did you get permission for purely etiquette reasons? It doesn't seem necessary...

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I got permission from the previous owners to revive the Travertine Hot Springs and another one at Mono Lake.

 

Question about that... (not relating to a recent sore subject) I want to revive a couple that have been archived for over a year now. Did you get permission for purely etiquette reasons? It doesn't seem necessary...

I was actually hoping they would update the requirements and revive them on their own, so I could list them as a find. But since they didn't, I set them up as they are good locations. Since they are archived and the previous ownerns didn't want to update the logging requirements, that frees the location up.

 

I also have suprised some traditional caches by listing EarthCaches near them and ruffled a few feathers. Everything got smoothed out though. That may have been the reason for the requirement to check with traditional cache owners when an EarthCache is placed close to their.

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I have to agree with Haffy. My all time favourite, so far, has been the Acadia National Park Earthcache Program (GC11M7T), in Maine. TerryDad2 has a great one by there as well called The Ovens - 2 if by land, 5 if by sea (GCZ5JA). flyingmoose has some fabulous earthcaches along the Potomac River in Maryland and in Virginia, one being Great Falls Earthcache (GCZDA0). Another fascinating earthcache, by cirrus142, is the Chesapeake Bay Bolide (GCZNQT). Keep these great earthcaches coming!

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Lime City GCZBXZ Huntington IN USA

What I find most interesting here is not so much the “geology”, but the creative land use. Perhaps this may be due to a few “Planning” courses I had taken in college or my environmental background. It’s a great example of land reuse.

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There are three that have been my favorite:

 

GC13END Soda Lake in California because the research station is beautiful. I wanted to stay there, just think of the location and go into a zenn state and feel relaxed.

 

GCZ9C7 Petrified Dunes in Snow Canyon in Utah. Talk about the moki marbles a lot with my main caching partner. Even found something like them in Minnesota.

 

GC1054V Get Down & Dirty in Indiana because you have to make mud and play in the dirt. Another earthcache that I like discussing because of the lessons learned about soil and dirt.

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Chesapeake Bay Bolide (GCZNQT) by cirrus142 was absolutely creepy.

Standing on a boardwalk in the late afternoon sunshine, my wife and I

looked over our shoulders at the town and then at each other and said

simultaneously 'What if it happened again? Now?' It was an eye-opener.

 

Our favorites during that trip out east (in addition to the chilling Bolide)

were the now-archived pair at Harpers Ferry (Phyllite of Stairs, and 'A

River Runs Through It') as well as the fabulous Shifting Sands earthcache

by K4OTN at Cape Hatteras National Seashore (a long walk hand in hand

on a sunny warm beach with my best friend of 30+ years... sigh...

we didn't want to leave! Thanks for that one, K4OTN...)

 

2feb8868-911b-4720-bee2-13b56a7ca5d9.jpg

A very happy Mrs NW at 'Shifting Sands' earthcache :rolleyes:

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I've only found 3 so far, but that last one has had me digging for weeks for an answer now. At the Hickory Run Boulder Field earthcache I managed to scrape my shin. Not much more than a scratch and I have a remarkable ability to recover without scars usually, but this tiny scratch turned into a major scar for some reason. I'm wondering just what it was about that area that could cause it to happen and if it has any relation to why there's absolutely no growth of any kind in the middle of this boulder field. Now I'm wondering if ph levels are involved as well. All kinds of questions to be researched :laughing:

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I've only found 3 so far, but that last one has had me digging for weeks for an answer now. At the Hickory Run Boulder Field earthcache I managed to scrape my shin. Not much more than a scratch and I have a remarkable ability to recover without scars usually, but this tiny scratch turned into a major scar for some reason. I'm wondering just what it was about that area that could cause it to happen and if it has any relation to why there's absolutely no growth of any kind in the middle of this boulder field. Now I'm wondering if ph levels are involved as well. All kinds of questions to be researched :laughing:

 

It was the rat poop on the rocks. You do realize the boulder field is infested with giant nocturanal parasitic rats, right? :(

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I've only found 3 so far, but that last one has had me digging for weeks for an answer now. At the Hickory Run Boulder Field earthcache I managed to scrape my shin. Not much more than a scratch and I have a remarkable ability to recover without scars usually, but this tiny scratch turned into a major scar for some reason. I'm wondering just what it was about that area that could cause it to happen and if it has any relation to why there's absolutely no growth of any kind in the middle of this boulder field. Now I'm wondering if ph levels are involved as well. All kinds of questions to be researched :)

 

It was the rat poop on the rocks. You do realize the boulder field is infested with giant nocturanal parasitic rats, right? :laughing:

 

:( I did notice an oddly large number of hunting spiders, but that's about all.

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These are some of my favorite Earthcaches:

 

Tufa Towers

 

That one is simply spectacular and shouldn't be missed if anyone is traveling in that area.

Tufa Towers is a great one! So is the nearby Travertine Earthcache. It is archived but the hot springs are still there, so it's worth stopping by! :laughing:

Travertine near bridgeport, Calif is back Waaaaaaaayyyy cool cache

I'm sorry. It's not cool. It is a HOT cache! :rolleyes:

Be sure to bring a high temperature thermometer for the logging requirement.

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"Travertine EarthCache" has been archived because it does not meet the EarthCache guidelines. As far as I can see, it still has not been updated to provide an educational logging requirement. This is sad as it really could be made easily into a wonderful active EarthCache.

 

What surprises me more is that an archived EarthCache is listed in this thread...especially when it was archived because it failed to meet the guidelines.

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"Travertine EarthCache" has been archived because it does not meet the EarthCache guidelines. As far as I can see, it still has not been updated to provide an educational logging requirement. This is sad as it really could be made easily into a wonderful active EarthCache.

 

What surprises me more is that an archived EarthCache is listed in this thread...especially when it was archived because it failed to meet the guidelines.

Here is the revived earthcache that meets the requirement.

 

Visit Travertine Hot Springs

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...f7-b626d5d1168c

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Some of the ones I have loved are:

 

The Great Thistle Landslide (GCZCPB) - This highlights a massive landslide in the early 1980s that dams up a river and wipes out a small town.

 

St. Francis Dam Failure, Saugus California (GC11HZH) - You see what happens when a huge dam bursts and the geology that caused it.

 

Devil's Punchbowl (GCPFPW) - The unique geology here is spectacular and so is the wildlife.

 

Kramer Borate Deposit Earthcache (GCQ5FV) - You get to see a massive open pit borate mine.

 

Virgin River Gorge Earthcache (GC10YWK) - I own this earthcache and this is my favorite one. It takes you along a desert river through the bottom of a gorge in northwestern Arizona. With vertical walls of hundreds of feet high.

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My favourite has to be a now archived EC by the name of Dunas de Maspalomas Earthcache (Gran Canaria) in the Canaries (Gran Canaria) not because of the great geology or the feature itself but rather because of the curious incident while en route to ground zero.

 

We were stationed on the beach near the Faro de Maspalomas (those who have been there will know what I mean) and it was 1.2 km to GZ. I decided to walk the distance while the rest of the family enjoyed the beach. On the way I was so concentrated on the little arrow of the GPSr that when at certain point I looked up I was in the middle of a nudist beach.

Needless to say that someone "wandering" through naked men and women holding a camera and a GPSr raised many an eyebrow and made a certain someone blush.

:):anicute::D:lol::):D:laughing:

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I agree with what other posters have said about Tufa Towers. It is a remarkable place that I never would have discovered had not there been an earthcache there.

 

There have only been a few earthcaches that have left me scratching my head about the location. But I also enjoyed:

 

Avalanche on Wall Street: A hike into the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon that was as close to a religious experience as I have gotten in recent years.

 

Talus Cave - Pinnacles NM: Part of a series of great earthcaches, a remarkable hike through the Pinnacles in California.

 

Cheddar Gorge: A beautiful area in England, with steep Limestone cliffs rising through the Gorge.

 

La Ventana Arch - El Malpais National Monument: I love arches and this one was beautiful and within easy reach.

 

3 Rivers Petroglyph Site: Petroglyphs are probably more of an attraction here than geology, but in terms of WOW this was an amazing spot.

 

Diablo Canyon Columns: Balsatic coumns rise up in this New Mexican canyon.

 

I could go on. Jacoby Dunes in North Carolina. The Yosemite caches by TerryDad2 that we did last weekend were certainly special, in part because I know how much work he put in to get them approved by NPS officials. His Zion caches were amazing.

 

Anybody who reads this list will know that I tend to favor the caches with the visual factors. By the time I finished some high school science classes, I realized that I never would be a scientist. So I struggle to understand some of the geology, learning at various caches, agonizing at some others. But at their best, earthcaches help me to focus in on specific things, to pay attention to details I would have otherwise missed, to appreciate and understand a little more about the earth.

Edited by Erickson
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