Our very satisfying day!

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

We had a very satisfying day today! We found some special marks and showed a friend (a surveyor) our favorite hobby.

 

We picked up our friend and headed out towards the 'Winter Road' by way of 89 north out of Page to Houserock Valley Road. We went up and up onto what is known as Buckskin Mountain or the North Kaibab National forest. We wanted to see if we could first find PINON GQ0264 and followed our topo map program to where the Copper Nails in washers in blazes were supposed to be.

 

We got out and started looking at the tree we first saw close to the given coordinates. It is definitely not a Pinon Tree.....

 

Also, the trunk has twisted so much that instead of being on the North side of the tree, the blaze with the Nail and Washer with USGS BM stamped on it was found on the South side of the trunk! Now that was fun to see!

 

 

 

We also found one of the RMs..almost eaten by the tree....nice....

 

Then onto the next old 1933 mark - this time a tablet and RMs NORTH ROAD GQ1273.

 

This one was a hike and then the mark was found by our friend after moving several large rocks close to an old bilby tower. Then finding both RMs disks but the copper nails in blazes were nowhere to be seen.

 

 

So, what have you found lately?

 

Shirley~

 

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[xyzee]

About the time that Shirley was getting those good finds, and neat pictures, I was getting the L/L for where BM 7813 used to live. I found it about 35 or 40 years ago, when it was listed on the older 7.5 maps, but it isn't shown on the Warner Lake, Utah Provisional Edition 1985, the latest that I have. When the road was made wider, in about 1981, it was destroyed. My attempts to get an archived datasheet from the NGS site have failed, due to my error, or IE saying that it can't load the page, or nothing found. BM 7813, near N 38 32 52 W 109 17 32, needs to be reset, as it is (was) the only one in the nearby area.

[Bill93]

I found one Saturday that was a bit harder than usual. It is triangulation station MG0905 (GC (MG0905 NGS).

 

It was 131 feet and 708 feet from its Reference Marks, and 16 inches under the surface. I figured I'd never tape 708 feet accurately enough in foot-high grass, so hauled out the instrument to measure distance from reflectors. At first I couldn't find RM1 and was starting to think of ways to bring in azimuth so I could do it from just RM2, but fortunately the metal detector finally came up with RM1.

 

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

I found one Saturday that was a bit harder than usual. It is triangulation station MG0905 (GC (MG0905 NGS).

 

It was 131 feet and 708 feet from its Reference Marks, and 16 inches under the surface. I figured I'd never tape 708 feet accurately enough in foot-high grass, so hauled out the instrument to measure distance from reflectors. At first I couldn't find RM1 and was starting to think of ways to bring in azimuth so I could do it from just RM2, but fortunately the metal detector finally came up with RM1.

 

Awesome! But, that was a heck of a lot of work for just one station.....

 

I bet that made your day when you dug down and saw it. By the way, did you have permission to dig?

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

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[+LSUFan]

 

This one was a hike and then the mark was found by our friend after moving several large rocks close to an old bilby tower.

Shirley~

 

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Shirley, that was a great find. You didn't happen to take any pics of the old Bilby Tower, did you?

Edited July 30, 2013 by LSUFan

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

This one was a hike and then the mark was found by our friend after moving several large rocks close to an old bilby tower.

Shirley~

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Shirley, that was a great find. You didn't happen to take any pics of the old Bilby Tower, did you?

This mark is NORTH ROAD.

It is mainly just a pile of wood now with a few still nailed together. We just knew what it had been since we had seen others that were still intact at other marks we have found.

 

 

In the next picture you can see the remains behind the mark.

If you want to see pictures of some of those remains of the ones that are more intact, I will find some after I get home from work and post them.....

 

Just let me know if you are interested.

 

Shirley~

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Edited July 30, 2013 by 2oldfarts (the rockhounders)

[Bill93]

The remains of old towers are an amazing find.

 

But I wouldn't call them Bilby towers. The name goes NOT with the purpose, but with a particular design. Jasper Bilby designed the steel double tower (inner and outer tripod) you see in some of the NGS pictures.

 

Here's a thread on a Bilby tower.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Bill93

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

The remains of old towers are an amazing find.

 

But I wouldn't call them Bilby towers. The name goes NOT with the purpose, but with a particular design. Jasper Bilby designed the steel double tower (inner and outer tripod) you see in some of the NGS pictures.

 

Here's a thread on a Bilby tower.

OK Bill. It was a wooden stand of some kind - but much larger than the one from this thread.

 

 

It is still fun to find these bits of history........

 

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[+LSUFan]

It is still fun to find these bits of history........

 

Absolutely. I personally like any/all historical items.

 

I kind of have a keen interest with the Bilby Towers, and you never know if someone may stumble across something like one in their travels. One of the few remaining was located down here in my neck of the woods, but as Bill pointed out last year, it was being relocated to Bilby's hometown.

 

This will be my last comment on the subject here as I don't want to totally hijack Shirleys post.

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=263602&st=0&p=5046678&hl=bilby&fromsearch=1entry5046678

 

Youtube video of it's removal:

 

 

I figured someone would have snapped/submitted some pics of the station mark (AU2876) and reference marks while they were taking down the tower......but I guess they had other priorities.

Edited July 31, 2013 by LSUFan

[+NorthWes]

I agree - history is one of the reasons I like benchmark hunting. I've only found two station structures over the years - both here in Alaska.

 

UW7731 QUARTZ - a 1964 mark placed during reconstruction work in the wake of the 1964 Alaska Good Friday Earthquake. Kenai Lake, covering over 13,000 acres, tipped about three feet downward at its western outlet into the Kenai River during the earthquake. This station (located along the highway on the north side of the lake) was part of an effort to tie in structure and geography across southcentral Alaska in the quake's aftermath, so any future damage could be better measured (some marks near Anchorage moved horizontally more than 3 feet in the '64 shaker!). Anyhow, I took a Saturday afternoon to drive down from Anchorage and search for this mark, which appeared undisturbed since its placement. I was excited to see the structure around the mark - something I'd only seen once before at UV4379 BRIDGE - another 1964 benchmark near Palmer AK.

 

UV4379 BRIDGE (above) was placed in part to be a critical measurement point for the new highway construction across the Knik River and Palmer Hay Flats. The mark was in an area which had subsided during the 1964 quake enough that the 'hay flats' were inundated and turned into tidal wetlands. It sits atop a rock dome right alongside the Knik River with a commanding view of the entire valley where two glacial rivers spill into upper Cook Inlet. When I popped up on top of the dome (after struggling through cliffs and devils club) and saw the structure I was elated.

 

Is it relatively common to find the old tower structures like this in the lower 48?

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

 

Is it relatively common to find the old tower structures like this in the lower 48?

 

I don't know about others, but we have only found 3 or 4 of the wooden towers in the almost 1400 recoveries we have done. We are always excited to find such things.

 

John

[kayakbird]

All,

 

This is my favorite of a couple dozen or so instrument stands that I have seen at triangulation stations. One of my earliest MORC's (Missouri River Commission)finds when I was actually on a Wild & Scenic Missouri River kayak camping trip to verify that the BM X's on the USGS Quad maps were in fact NONPID MORC benchmarks set in 1885. 17 of the 32 looked for on that four day trip were found.

 

1949 INSTRUMENT STAND AT 1885 MORC CITADEL

 

 

Pieces of old lumber and guy wire remnants are good clues that you are in the correct location. This one was also hiked to on that 2009 trip but we did not have a probe or digging tools.

 

2010 VISIT TO 1885 MORC LaBARGE

 

 

And to circle back to the 'Very Satisfying Day' original theme of this thread:

 

NONPID MORC BM 26 (no USGS BM X

 

 

A short kayak trip and shorter hike up what must have been a difficult wagon road in 1891. Took a second and third look at the ledge ledge area before I got a glint of sun off the leaded bolt. kayakbird

Edited August 18, 2013 by kayakbird

[+LSUFan]

I am envious. The only thing I find over the marks down here is dirt........or mud.

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

What makes today a very satisfying day? We survived it.

 

We decided to try and find 2 caves that are shown on the topo map with the little chicken feet arrows. We thought today would be a good day since it was a clear bright sunny day and little chance of rain. We have been getting rained out for the last several weeks due to where these caves are located.

 

I had also been looking to see if there were any benchmarks that we might try for in the general area of the caves. We would be driving past TRENCH and it looked like an easy walk from the road. It is only about 2/10 of a mile from where we parked. I took a quick glance at the datasheet and saw that it was set in bedrock and the RMs were in concrete, so it should be a quick easy find. I walked over to where the GPSr zeroed out and spotted RM2 right away. I searched for the station mark, but had no luck. So I headed back to the truck and we headed for the road that would take us to where the caves are indicated on the map. When we turned on this road it was a bit rough and muddy, but passable, so we headed for the caves. We didn't even get a half mile and were forced to change our plans. There in front of us the road had turned into a lake! Since we were out there solo we decided it would be best to wait until thing dried out and then try again.

 

Back the way we came and when we got to where we had parked for TRENCH the previous try we parked and re-read the datasheet and saw that it was buried 6 1/2 inches below ground in bedrock! So we got the metal detector and probe and headed back over to where TRENCH should be. After a short while we did find the station disk buried as indicated, but had problems getting it cleaned for pictures.

 

Back to the truck and head back to the highway. Less than 10 miles later we are stopped by a flat tire. BFGs 10 ply are quite heavy to be loading and unloading from the back of the pick-up.

 

I decided I was getting too old for this much work, so we headed home with only 1 benchmark find and zero cave finds.

 

Maybe next weekend will be better.

 

 

John

[CallawayMT]

 

Is it relatively common to find the old tower structures like this in the lower 48?

 

I don't know about others, but we have only found 3 or 4 of the wooden towers in the almost 1400 recoveries we have done. We are always excited to find such things.

 

John

Here is the tallest standing tower that I have seen, probably 25-30 feet tall:Ambrose

 

 

Kurt

[kayakbird]

All,

 

RX1016'A 36 FT. WOODEN TOWER WAS BUILT TO CLEAR ALL STATIONS THROUGH LODGE

RX1016'POLE PINE TIMBER. A ROCK PILE IS COLLECTED ON TOP OF THE STATION

RX1016'MARK.

 

I guess that the 36 ft would be the instrument height (HI). Wish that they had listed "ALL STATIONS" in a box score. Already had that county pinned on GE so checked the surrounding triangulation stations but did not find any that used AMBROSE as a reference object.

 

Did run across some interesting anomalies:

 

RX0990 DESIGNATION - SLIDEROCK LOOKOUT was an intersection station in 1934 and upgraded to a Tri Station when the USGS placed a 'USGS ALUMINUM TABLET' under the tower.

 

RY1031 DESIGNATION - ANTRIM LO had a (now gone)1937 'U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, FOREST SERVICE, BRASS TABLET' but it was not occupied in 1957 - 'RY1031'THE CENTER OF THE TOWER WAS INTERSECTED.'

 

RY1027 DESIGNATION - SAINT JO ET has an old undated 'USGS ALUMINUM BM TABLET' that was used for the 1964 monumentation.

 

Almost as much fun as actually getting there! kayakbird

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

We had another of those great days benchmark hunting.

 

I haven't logged all the marks we tried for just yet, but I am working on them getting the pictures ready.

 

We got our second ever "Traverse Station disk" SUB DISK. We found the station mark and RM2, but did not get to look for RM1 yet.

 

We also found a mark that others did not find T 488. It is an easy find if you have access to a metal detector.

 

The last great find for today was C 104. What made this such a great find is not the search, but the location where it is to be found combined with who set the mark! It was set by the USFS - Department of Agriculture's Forest Service, In a big empty 'pasture' with NO TREES anywhere close by it!

 

Individually, there are just another good find, but together they make for an exceptional day of benchmarking.

 

John

[kayakbird]

Darn! Should have been hunting brass instead of birds when I came off that very old segment of Route 66 on the 9th. Did have a great breakfast burrito at Westside Lilo's before heading to Pinon. MEL