Your Best/Favorite Benchmarking pictures.

[TillaMurphs]

Some pictures of benchmarking in Scotland:

Wow. Those are some beautiful pictures.

[+Mega Scooter]

This view was taken while hunting the obligatory Crown Point Benchmark simply known as “BM”.

 

 

MS

[+TheBeanTeam]

 

Daisies and Wild Iris while hiking up to QE2316.

Edited August 3, 2009 by TheBeanTeam

[+_dxd_]

Mega Scooter, thanks for posting that photo. I was there a few years ago, but of course the day I was there, you couldn't really even see the bottom of the Gorge right below due to foggy hazy conditions. that was before I learned about geocaching or benchmarks, too. I need to go back.

[+Harry Dolphin]

 

View southwest from Mount Tammany Trail, Worthington State Forest, Delaware Water Gap, NJ. You see that parking area in Pennsylania, across the river? KV2875 is supposed to be there. But I couldn't find it. (Well, that was a differerent trip...) Most of the trees on Arrow Island were destroyed in a bad ice floe about ten years ago. Looks like only three survived.

[TillaMurphs]

Daisies and Wild Iris while hiking up to QE2316.

 

Wow. BeanTeam - beautiful pictures - especially the iris.

 

Mega Scooter, thanks for posting that photo. I was there a few years ago, but of course the day I was there, you couldn't really even see the bottom of the Gorge right below due to foggy hazy conditions. that was before I learned about geocaching or benchmarks, too. I need to go back.

Dixiedawn,

 

If you ever come back up here, let us know. We would be glad to say hi and/or show you around and/or find a mark.

 

--The TillaMurphs

[southpawaz]

From a couple weeks back, here's the hiker's first view of DT0714 ESCUDILLA LOOKOUT TOWER upon leaving the forest around it:

 

 

And in a different vein, yesterday I was out for a ride along Historic Route 66 in the area of Seligman, AZ, where I discovered that one part of the history has been revived with the placement of a number of sets of Burma Shave jingles on modern style highway signs as seen in the background of this shot of FR0237 PENE.

 

 

PENE's Burma Shave jingle is:

Just This Once

And Just For Fun

We'll Let You Finish

What We've Begun

????? ?????

[+billwallace]

A few from last week up on the Cuesta Ridge in San Luis Obispo county, Ca:

 

Morro's of San Luis Obispo, Ca

Taken from a fork-in-the-road between FV1477 and FV1479. Part of Cerro San Luis is in the left edge of the first pic - not labeled because it's not all there. The second pic is looking just NW from the first set. These peaks are a series of 'plugs' left over from ancient volcano's.

 

 

 

Didn't know dead manzanita could look so cool.

My daughter playin' with the camera on the road between FV1477 and FV1479.

[+2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

Wow! Everyones pictures are fantastic!!

 

I have a couple from a week or so ago while on the go to get D 52.

 

The first is one that I have no clue what type of wild flower it is...anyone know what it is??

 

 

This I know is a thistle.

 

 

Now a Bee on a wild flower.

 

 

Thanks everyone!

 

Shirley~

 

Oh, I almost forgot this past Sunday when we were searching for some marks that have been bugging us. Along Highway 89 on our way home.

 

[AZcachemeister]

Excellent photo of the TV! (Turkey Vulture)

 

The 'Bee' is actually a Bee Fly, Bombyliidae sp.

 

The red flower looks suspiciously like a 'paintbrush' specimen...hard to tell.

[+Klemmer]

Visited the Buffalo NY area, where I grew up. Lots of relatives there yet. Just as I found OG1166 on the wingwall of a bridge over Ellicott Creek, I saw this guy down in the creek. Grabbed this quick shot, then as I tried to slowly line up the mark and the snapping turtle, he dove. Darn! He was good sized, about 24 inches nose to tip of tail. Also note he seems to have a chunk of shell missing. Ouch!

 

Just 20 feet or so away, got a good shot of this Great Blue Heron:

 

And another 20 feet or so away, found these Canadian Geese:

 

Quite the wildlife benchmark!

[TillaMurphs]

This is where we spent a week while we were benchmarking and exploring in the southwestern Oregon backcountry.

We used the still-fully-functional Osbourne Fire Finder to pinpoint OA0935 and OA0936 .

 

 

 

 

We had a 360 degree view with windows all the way around and you could see for miles in every direction. Very isolated. At night, there was not a single light to be seen anywhere in the 360 degree multi-mile view (except for one night when we thought saw the light of a ship out on the ocean).

 

There happens to be a geocache at the base of the tower: Quail Prairie Lookout

[+TheBeanTeam]

This is where we spent a week while we were benchmarking and exploring in the southwestern Oregon backcountry.

 

Gotta Love Oregon.

Here is my favorite shot from this last weekend at Cape Mears

 

Edited August 26, 2009 by TheBeanTeam

[+PFF]

 

109-year-old South Meridian on the grounds of the Burke County Court House in Morganton, North Carolina. (North Meridian is FA0996.)

[foxtrot_xray]

Guys, you all have killer pictures. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to more.

[+Ernmark]

..there's always HV4442

[+2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

..there's always HV4442

 

If someone in the distant future should find this picture and not know anything else about us....He would probably think that this obelisk was built for the worship of the sun and all of the people surrounding it were the worshipers.

 

Fantastic picture!

[+PFF]

An autumn day along Mt. Hebron Church Road in Nash County, NC. (AI5222 is recessed in the shoulder of the road.)

 

Edited November 7, 2009 by PFF

[+Ladybug Kids]

Most recent favorite on Bodenberg Butte near Palmer, Alaska:

UV4346 & Colony View (a two-fer)

The mark is between my feet and Pioneer Peak is in the back, left. (photo by skifast)

 

...and the cacher jumped over the mark... (photo of skifast by Ladybug Kids)

Edited November 8, 2009 by Ladybug Kids

[+2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

PFF - Fantastic fall picture, thank you.

 

Ladybug Kids, Thank you for sharing! That guy jumped up while on that small peak??? Eeek!!

 

From today while driving home from our little trip.

 

Boing, Boing, Boing.

 

 

While off to one side - Mama watches.

 

Keep clicking and posting.

 

Shirley~

[+Klemmer]

While out Benchmark Hunting with Wintertime the day after Thanksgiving, we spotted this HUGE flock of Wild Turkeys. I have hunted them back east (saw a couple, never shot one). This just blew me away!

 

Wide area View. We carefully counted 35 birds (plus or minus a couple - they didn't stand still for us!):

 

Medium Range View:

 

Close Up View (10X Optical, 8MP Canon, cropped & resolution cut for GC website). I believe these are young males (?). Spotted one or two old Toms, but didn't get a good picture of one:

[+Klemmer]

Here's a few more picture from up on Pleasanton Ridge (just a few miles Southwest of the I680 / I580 intersection) taken a while after finding HS3913:

 

Nice old gnarly live oak branch

 

This is looking across I680 at the hills to the Southeast of Pleasanton / Livermore:

[+Ernmark]

I ran across one of my favorites:

Mason-Dixon West Line Stone #111 on the PA/MD border which sports a RM for station MYERS

[+billwallace]

Started the year out right. Minus tide and no wind made an easy day going for FV1580 - Whaler Island and FV1581 - Whalers Island 2. Sure like those chiseled marks. Here are a few pix.

 

View from the breakwater

 

View from Whaler Island

 

Creatures

 

 

 

Sunset - Whalers Island is the little lump just left of the point

[+2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

Wow! What fantastic pictures and a wonderful time you must have had!

 

I also love the old chiseled marks. They make the day just that much better.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Shirley~

[+edexter]

Halifax Hanson Corner 1 MY4202 edexter

[+2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

Halifax Hanson Corner 1 MY4202 edexter

This makes me cold just looking at it. But, it is beautiful as are your other pictures of that mark! Nothing like getting out in a snow storm to hunt benchmarks.

 

I looked at some of your other corner marks. Very interesting!

 

Thank you for sharing.

 

Shirley~

[poor_PDOP]

Loved the pic of Survey Mark of Mason-Dixon Line.

Mason-Dixon = history of surveying in the USA.

I thought I'd add my 2 bobs worth.

Here a pic of Little Dick Trig and Fire Tower.

(Taken quite a few years ago.)

Bruthen, Victoria. Australia

[+2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

Great pictures everyone! And even one from Australia. Thank you.

 

Today we went out to a place that has some fantastic scenery (almost like Moonscapes) to try for a few marks that we had missed. This Picture has a Balanced Rock showing. The small red arrow points to it. I think most people back east have never seen the likes of a balanced rock, I know we never had till we moved here.

PID HN0564 C 144

 

This is so you can get a feel for how big things are out here. Now, for the Zoomed in shot.

 

 

 

Keep posting - I love to look at all of your pictures.

 

Shirley~

[+Harry Dolphin]

 

Too cold to do any serious benchmarking. KV5340 Great Beds Lighthouse from Waterfront Park in South Amboy, NJ. Views to Staten Island, and Coney Island. Myself, I was wondering how the ILO let a cargo vessel sail on a Sunday, and whether any of my cargo is on it.

[foxtrot_xray]

Myself, I was wondering how the ILO let a cargo vessel sail on a Sunday, and whether any of my cargo is on it.

Is that something they don't do, usually?

[+Harry Dolphin]

Myself, I was wondering how the ILO let a cargo vessel sail on a Sunday, and whether any of my cargo is on it.

Is that something they don't do, usually?

 

The piers are closed on weekends. If you leave the Port of New York on a Friday, you should be much further out to sea by Sunday. The ship appears to be heading out to sea. But I don't see any containers, and I don't know of any container lines painted red, so it might not be a container vessel.

[+billwallace]

My wife and I went out picking chanterelles this morning and I talked her into a couple of benchmarks . I didn't think to get any pix of the funghi.

 

Here are some flowers we saw on the way to CLARK. Never seen wild pansies before:

 

 

[+Klemmer]

Hi Bill:

In addition to the very nice Wild Pansies , I think you've also got a Wild Hyacinth (aka "Blue Dick"). At least we call them Wild Hyacinth out here (maybe because of the real name....). This is one for sure, from last spring. Looks the same?

 

 

Hurry up Spring!

[+billwallace]

........ , I think you've also got a Wild Hyacinth (aka Blue Dick"). ........

 

Hurry up Spring!

Yep those were all over the place. With all the rain we've had recently everything is GREEN!! Almost like spring.

[poor_PDOP]

Well we have moved from Trigs to flowers, well heres my two bobs worth.

Here is a georeferenced photo from my Garmin Oregon 550 while chasing down a geocache.

The flower is from a Eucalypt. One of many in the park that are flowing in the hot weather this time of year.

[+DazeDnFamily]

Heya all. Here's a pic from our 1st, and only BM so far, DF0393. We were out caching, and the cache description mentioned the BM nearby. Part of my job is map making, but I'd never actually seen a BM disk. So, I figured it was a good time to start.

 

The disk is mounted on the Taliaferro County, Georgia courthouse in Crawfordville, GA. Please excuse the ridiculous arrow. Photobucket doesn't have very good drawing tools.....

 

 

And here's the disk:

 

 

This isn't a scenic as a lot of the pics here, but Crawfordville is a quaint little southern town, and several movies (Sweet Home Alabama with Reese Witherspoon most recently) have been filmed there.

 

Later!

[poor_PDOP]

Hello DazDnFamily

I'm also in the "geospatial industry"

Interesting place for a Survey Mark and an interesting Survey Mark to boot, i.e. lots of information on the plaque and the fine is greater too.

What I don't understand is how do you level from it, i.e. there is no nipple.

The building looks very Gothic, you could almost think it was somewhere in Russia or Germany.

[+DazeDnFamily]

Heya. Honestly, I have no clue as to surveying techniques. Other than basic land navigation (4 1/2 years Marine Corps infantry), I'm useless in the field GIS wise. After my time in the grunts, I "got smart" and moved into intelligence, specifically, Imagery Analysis. From there, I learned the buttonology of ArcGIS and Erdas Imagine, and some of the basics of cartography (projections, datums, and that sort of stuff). Most of my map making experience wasn't making navigation worthy maps. I was using the power of GIS to manage imagery collection and data acquisition, and visualize information in intelligence reporting. In my current job, I've digitized over 30k features into our database, but my products are all image based now.

 

So, while I have made a few maps, I am VERY hesitant to call myself a GIS analyst or a Cartographer. I honestly know enough to be dangerous.

 

Honestly, without doing some homework, I wouldn't know what most of that info is. I just thought it was sweet that I actually got to see a BM disk.

 

Thanks for the reply!

 

Later!

[+billwallace]

Out for a day on the coast. It was supposed to be clear with light winds but the coast was just under the edge of the cloud cover most of the day - cold (50's!!! ) and windy. There is an Elephant Seal rookery on the coast north of San Simeon, Ca but they don't just confine themselves to one area, they're all over the beaches. Stopped on the way to FV1000 and took a couple of pix.

 

 

[+2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

 

What I don't understand is how do you level from it, i.e. there is no nipple.

 

You would use a knife or chisel edge in the horizontal cut and measure from that point. Perhaps one of the surveyors has a picture showing the knife in use.

 

John

 

 

edit to add picture in question.

Edited February 10, 2010 by 2oldfarts (the rockhounders)

[TillaMurphs]

What I don't understand is how do you level from it, i.e. there is no nipple.

You would use a knife or chisel edge in the horizontal cut and measure from that point. Perhaps one of the surveyors has a picture showing the knife in use.

 

This thread shows one way: Vertically Placed Disk Question

[poor_PDOP]

What I don't understand is how do you level from it, i.e. there is no nipple.

You would use a knife or chisel edge in the horizontal cut and measure from that point. Perhaps one of the surveyors has a picture showing the knife in use.

 

This thread shows one way: Vertically Placed Disk Question

 

I get it now. It is a vertically mounted plaque. Seems to be a laborious way to start/close a level flight, however I can understand the reason for the vertical mounting, i.e. longevity.

[southpawaz]

Near DV1375 L 477, here's the first Desert Lupine I've seen in bloom this season:

 

[MtnHermit]

What is this? Appears to be a pipe cap on rebar or pipe, solidly affixed to Terra ferma. On BLM land in Utah.

 

[+2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

It is just one of many survey marks out there. If you checked the coordinates and came up with nothing, it is not in the GC data base. Sorry...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We saw some beautiful flowers along Lanfair road in CA. this past weekend.

 

Joshua Tree flowers.

FS0806 Z 732

 

One of the fish hook barrel cactus in all its glory.

X 5 FS0795

 

Then on Sunday we drove the Buck and Doe road, there John took a shot of some delicate purple flowers.

ROAD FR0986

 

Shirley~

[+2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

Here is a nice view shot with a Joshua Tree and a mark right next to it, along Lanfair Road.

FS0812 V 732

 

 

I know we took more view shots, but I am too tired now to look through all of our finds.....

 

Shirley~

[+Harry Dolphin]

We were in Bayonne, New Jersey today, for a cache at the 9/11 Tears of Grief Monument.

Also observed the Robbins Reef Light (with the Very Narrow Bridge in the background.)

[+2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

We made a quick trip to Mesquite this weekend. We recovered 4 pids (not logged yet) and did several caches, one of which took us to a small cemetery where we noticed something that I thought you might like to see.

 

At benchmark near-by John got this fantastic picture.

 

Then at the other pids we took these pictures.

 

 

And this was taken at the Casa Blanca where we spent the night.

 

A very nice Anniversary weekend present from my husband of 41 years.

 

Shirley~

[kayakbird]

Yesterday a short hike to SR0580 produced a FOY sighting of my favorite Montana wild flower.

 

 

Two side by sides plants with four blossoms each is a bit unusual. It is very fragrant - I laid down in the grass with the wood ticks to make sure. kayakbird