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2003 Texas State Geocaching Extravaganza


Web-ling

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The 2003 Texas State Geocaching Extravaganza will be held March 29-30 at Sid Richardson Scout Ranch, about 70 miles NW of Fort Worth. This 2-day event is open to anyone - Texan or not. Some of the highlights will include:

  • Timed multi-caches, with awards by age divisions.
  • Night-time cache hunt event (a murder mystery!)
  • Many caches, of varying degrees of difficulty.
  • If there is interest, a Geocaching "field day" event, with classes on various topics.

 

The event is being held in conjunction with an orienteering meet. This would be a great opportunity to learn some map-and-compass skills, as well as an opportunity to help introduce several hundred orienteers to our great sport!

 

Hope to see y'all there!

 

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quote:
Originally posted by Hiemdahl:

Is there anything I can do to help?


There are many things that we will need help with, including teaching GPS classes to orienteers, helping with the start/finish areas for the timed multi-caches and orienteering courses, helping with the night event, and placing and picking up caches and orienteering markers the weekends before and after the event. Contact either Wretsub or me (web-ling) know that you'd like to help, what you'd like to do, and when you're available, and we'll put you to work.

 

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Several items have been updated on the cache page. We've already got at least one geocacher from outside of Texas planning to attend. I've got several instructors lined up to teach the "Geocaching 101" course to the hundreds of orienteers that will also be in the area. The "Murder Mystery" night-caching event is taking shape.

 

Hope we can get a lot of cachers. It should be a true Extravaganza.

 

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icon_frown.gif Unfortunately, due to low registration numbers, we will NOT be able to offer the Garmin RINO 120 to the first finder of the BONUS CACHE icon_frown.gif

 

Instead, we will have a large-scale Hot Wheel collectible and 3 very nice Barbie collectibles as prizes for the first finder. Not a RINO 120, but still, VERY nice prizes.

 

We're still taking registrations...

 

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Sorry about this folks, but I just can't resist cross-posting because I had such a great time and want y'all to know about it so that more can plan to attend next year!

 

WOW!! All you folks who didn't or couldn't make do not know what you missed! This was one huge ranch with a variety of terrain and wildlife and the lake surrounding the peninsula and islands that were part of it. This is rugged, rock & boulder strewn, cactus riddled mixed woodland and plains terrain. Roads and dirt trails wind about the ranch, but they may not go where you need to go! There are active cattle and oil/gas wells on the property as well.

 

First, the camping locations were great. There were grassy, relatively clear patches surrounding picnic pavilions and with extra picnic tables scattered throughout the larger ones. Some fire rings existed throughout these areas or you could build one if there was none close to where you pitched your tent. Restrooms generally weren't too far, and there were showers if you could take the wind blowing under the stall walls! Of course there were other options like dormitory bunks and a few cabins onsite or staying off ranch. Meals were provided for those who wished to partake, but since we are on a restricted diet we didn't get to sample the food.

 

Next were the events: Clinics on several topics, individual geocaches to find, orienteering courses (including the GPS-O Hybrid and GPS-Only courses), and a night competition course (by GPS/Map or Map-Only) were all offered in addition to the option of simply enjoying the location by hiking, biking, or fishing. Brokenwing and I led clinics for a couple of hours (with Moosiegirl's comments punctuating) on "Geocaching 101" to explain the concept of geocaching to those there were interested but not sure what all is involved. That was actually more fun than I would have thought and garnered an invitation to come speak to another organization about Geocaching. A little later in the day the first of the caches were released for search and we found a couple of those before it started getting close to our event times. Brokenwing ran an Orange Orienteering course and I ran (I use that word loosely, you know) the GPS-Only course (which is supposed to be kinda like a Brown O course). I'll let Brokenwing describe the Orienteering to y'all.

 

The GPS-Only course is a type of 10 point or so time rated multi-cache + letterbox sort of thing, done cross-country. You run 2 separate courses, 1 each day, for a cumulative time score. Imagine a place kind of like the Fort Worth Nature center where you are allowed, and indeed even expected at times, to be off-trail. The terrain was somewhat comparable I think, though there were more elevation changing features at the Sid Richardson Ranch. You go to the start line and time starts when you are handed your clue sheet. The sheet has 12 entries. The first line is simply the coords for the start line for reference. The second line has coords and a 1-3 word clue. Lines 3-11 have only these 1-3 word clues. The last line is simply an instruction to follow the flagged path to the finish line. You head off for the first coords and once there are searching for an unspecified method of providing the next set of coords. Some of the 10 such waypoints also contain a unique punch device with which you must mark the cooresponding numbered box on your scorecard. Missing a punch disqualifies you. Missing a waypoint means no way to go on and disqualifies you. All times must be under 3 hours and, of course, faster to be competitive. A Brown O course, similar to this one, is described as 3-5 kilometers and a hard difficulty. Remember that you are often cross-country, having to guess the best approach, and searching for micros when you arrive. The fastest times were turned in by BruceS (Missouri cacher with over 2300 finds to date) and Tresure-Finder (from Oklahoma, I think) who ran it in just over an HOUR **EACH** day!! I came in a distant third, with a time of 213 minutes total, and others came in well behind me by about 30 minutes or more. There were a few disqualified as well. I wish there had been more competitors, but I was pleased to place! Oh, one thing I forgot to mention... the orienteering classes are divided by not only the difficulty, but also gender and various age groups. The GPS-Only are GPS/Hybrid (with map) classes, however, are not split up. NO gender nor age divisions. I believe that I was the only female competitor to complete the event in a GPS type class, and I placed! Come on out next year ladies, and show the guys how it's done!

 

Saturday night there was a Night Course offered with classes for GPS users and for Map/Orienteer users. Folks had to team up with at least 3 to a team. Brokenwing and I were lucky enough to have BruceS signup with us and we quickly got under way. This was such a blast! It was a Clue style murder mystery played out not by rolling dice to move to rooms on a gameboard but by finding 10 different waypoints and searching for cache boxes that listed a few clues each. We were handed a sheet describing the crime and 10 waypoints with a topo map covering the greater hide area. Teams were fanning out into the full dark searching across this rugged, rock strewn, cactus riddled woodland and plains terrain with flashlights and a 90-minute time limit. The idea was to not only find all the clues to solve the mystery, but to mark your sheet with a punch unique to each cache box, and do it faster than any other team searching by your method. Get all 10 punches (not all 10 required to solve the mystery, BTW) and get bonus points. I'd guess that the real distance traveled to complete all the waypoints in the loop we used was something over 2 miles. Uphill and down, clambering over boulders in dry creekbeds, dodging cactus spines, tree branches and other competitors. Our team solved the mystery, found all 10 waypoints/caches, and returned to the hall in 56 minutes to claim first prize in the GPS division! What a rush! And the prizes were great! If you're a collector, they would be a great addition or could be held for their value to increase. If not, their value is high enough that you could sell them for enough money to go buy a prize of your own choosing. Thanks, Web-ling, for the terrific theme and execution and prize donations, and thanks BruceS for the comradery and teamwork... you are terrific!

 

Finally, there were the geocaches. We didn't get to very many of these, unfortunately. They were released in groups because some were within the same area as the competition courses and there was a desire to keep from creating a tangle with additional folks in the area. We tried hunting some of the first 5 released, but there were too many folks hunting for it to be enough of a challenge and then we had to go to our event starts. After the other 15 were released, we found that with three competition event runs each, we old fat folks were too tired to go bagging a bunch of caches too! However, others made the cache finding more of a focus or were in better shape and found many or even all of them. For those folks, finding the 10 caches which just happened to contain clues led to a 21st bonus cache with a high value prize for the first finders! It was very intense, with the last cache finally found by an Oklahoma team just 30 minutes before the end of the event! Great job folks!

 

I hope that there will be a better turnout among cachers next year. Plan early!! The event is scheduled for next year also on the last weekend in March, March 26-28, 2004. Reserve this date for a terrific time, and get in shape if you want to have competitive success as well as fun, 'cause BruceS is out there! Rich (web-ling)-- A thousand thanks, this was a GREAT event you worked geocachers into!

 

http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

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