A day of Highs

[andylphoto]

Friday was a good day in most respects, though disappointing in one. I spent the day with my dad, and we visited three of the top ten highest stations in Michigan. Also not on the list, we visited Mt. Arvon, Michigan's highest point.

 

I have had these three on my radar screen for a couple years--ARVON, RL1514 keeps getting incorrectly logged by people who visit Mt. Arvon. (I have previously posted a couple of times on this particular logging problem, most recently here.

 

I already spent too long posting detailed logs and photos, so I will let them tell the story. We started out Friday morning and went straight for

ARVON (highest station #7) and

ARVON LOOKOUT TOWER 1956 (highest station #8.)

 

After hiking a mile up the hill to those two, we returned to the truck, headed east, forded a river, and climbed

Mt. Arvon

 

We did more climbing recovering ARVON than here, actually. Roads have been improved, and you can drive to within a half mile or so of the summit. If this USGS mark were in the NGS database, it would be the highest mark in Michigan, of course. Since it's not, we went about a mile south and recovered the highest station in the NGS database in Michigan:

 

HIGAN (highest station #1.)

 

The only goal I had for the day (other than spending time with my dad and having fun) was to visit those four marks, so in that respect we were successful. The only disappointment...the ARVON surface mark had been destroyed. We measured from reference points & located the sheared-off concrete monument where it was supposed to be. HIGAN has to be called poor as it is leaning slightly, but the station is there.

 

I also found out while posting logs on these stations that the site limits logs to 4000 characters, and logs you out if you spend too much time typing and editing a log.

[68-eldo]

Andyphoto,

 

A great report and it looks like you had a good time too.

 

I have a tip for editing, I do all my writing and editing in MSword, then copy and paste into the reply window. That way I don’t lose a lot of work when the window times out.

 

That won’t help the 4000 word limit though.

[+Harry Dolphin]

I especially like the cacher who logged the wrong disk as a Lookout Tower!

 

If you use the Remember Me cookie, you shouldn't get logged out. Having gotten logged out writing a long description, I will no longer write more than a sentence or two.

[+pgrig]

As a long-winded type, I often get logged out while writing my reports (it's funny how the process often prompts you to find/correct errors in your notes). I have just been logging in again and using my browser's "Back" arrow to get back to the screen that has (and still holds) the text I was working on composing.

[+PFF]

I agree with 68-eldo. Using WORD gives you a good spell checker, and it is easy to cut and paste into geocaching.com. Also, it gives you a chance to look over your comments prior to posting.

 

Before adopting this system, I created a note to explain why I did not recover a mark on an overpass. There was no room to walk between the road and the guardrail. I wrote, "A pedestrian is sandwiched between the guardrail and the road." I'm surprised nobody has posted a question about whether I attempted to assist the unfortunate sandwiched pedestrian.

 

I organize my marks by putting the Not Found entries first, followed by Poor, and then Good. Not Found have the PID in red. Poor is in purple. Good is black. For me, this reduces errors in selecting the correct status from the drop down box. (HINT: This technique also helps with NGS submissions.)

 

Speaking of NGS, I always compose those entries in WORD and them review them a day later. Only then will I upload. NGS is not a place to be typing "live". Once you hit SUBMIT, it's there for all the world to see.

 

-Paul-

[andylphoto]

Excellent suggestions! I guess I've never had the thing time out, because normally I don't give as detailed a report as I did on these. For the most part, the logs I post are simply updates to reference objects, which I note on the data sheet in the field, and include in my log. It's extremely rare that I will include in a log an entirely new description or to reach like with these.

 

What I have also done in the past is post my geocaching log, then go back and work off those logs to post my NGS logs. If I catch an error on that round, I can go back in and edit the GC log.