SF Bay Area geocachers

4.2k · November 23, 2004

Oh man, I'm going to have to throw in some extra swag for the trade. They kind of put our Calif geocoins to shame. I want color on our next minting.

--Marky

Nah, just offer me your Moun10bike coin and we'll call it even! :lol:

Been sick for a week now - no fun. Have plans to drop a new cache with one of the WA coins as a FTF prize but am having trouble catching my breath after going to the kitchen from the bedroom.....

....and don't suppose the wife would appreciate it if the new cache was placed in our backyard so I guess it will have to wait.

Anybody go out for an interesting trip/hike this past w/e?

November 23, 2004

Sorry you're sick - hope you get out there quick, especially while the weather holds!

I had fun this w/e up at Santa Teresa County Park - went up to the summit of Coyote Peak, saw San Francisco through the binoculars again, always amazing from South San Jose! Got two caches and left a new one ("Doll House"), a minimalist wooden "doll house" based on the great collection of miniatures I won from Leggoes at the BADGES picnic. It looks a little different now than it did at the Little House of Horrors.

<<Hurray, Two Hawks got ftf!>>

...Sam

Edited November 23, 2004 by sammydee

November 23, 2004

Got two caches and left a new one ("Doll House"), a minimalist wooden "doll house" based on the great collection of miniatures I won from Leggoes at the BADGES picnic. It looks a little different now than it did at the Little House of Horrors.

I visited there this morning. There are now 4 caches accessable on an easy hike in from the Stiles entrance (might have to make it 5, there's a real good spot on the way in...). This is a real nice trail this time of year, & is a good start to the day if you go in the morning.

4.2k · November 23, 2004

Great, another park I hve to put on my to-do list now....I just got through printing maps of Almaden QuikSilver for a hopeful trip this holiday w/e.

WoW: Do you by chance have a calibrated map for Santa Teresa?

November 23, 2004

Boulter has one that I've used very successfully.

http://boulter.com/geocaching/maps/

...Sam

November 23, 2004

Boulter has one that I've used very successfully.

http://boulter.com/geocaching/maps/

...Sam

That's were I got mine...

4.2k · November 23, 2004

Duh! I downloaded that whole bunch but didn't install that one yet (hehe).

Thanks for the pointer back to where I should have started in the first place.

November 24, 2004

There are a couple of extras on the Sierra Azul side from the Woods Road parking lot and then of course you have to get WoW's Bigger Than Dave'sand Secret Trailhead: Sierra Azul :laughing: . So many parks!

Edited November 24, 2004 by geobrowns

November 24, 2004

Does anyone have suggestions on a park with a caching trail and a nice picnic area?

4.2k · November 24, 2004

Does anyone have suggestions on a park with a caching trail and a nice picnic area?

We can offer lots of good parks - what area are you looking in?

North Bay? South Bay? Santa Cruz?

Let us know and I'm sure you'll get more suggestions that you can handle .

November 24, 2004

We can offer lots of good parks - what area are you looking in?
North Bay? South Bay? Santa Cruz?

Let us know and I'm sure you'll get more suggestions that you can handle .

The South Bay or Santa Cruz. Thanks.

November 24, 2004

I think Quicksilver Park is fun, there is a picnic area at the start of the Wood's Rd. trail, and zillions of caches just past that. Hike in a mile and see lots of old mine relics.

Henry Cowell Park in Felton is also good. Picnic in Roaring Camp then hike the trails. Nice Redwood groves and San Lorenzo River. Very scenic.

Alum Rock has many good picnic spots and an explosion of caches. Many are easy walks along the valley floor, others are moderate to difficult hikes. This park is just fun to walk around in, so much history.

November 24, 2004

Ditto what WoW said of Alum Rock Park, it's a favorite but then I am partial .

With kids the ages which you have as noted in your profile, I think it woud be a great one to try as they have several playground areas, a Youth Science Institute, although I am not sure of it's open times, and many easy hikes and several higher terrain hikes as well. Kids always seem to have fun with the "yuk" smell facter at the sulpher springs scattered throughout one picnic area towards the back of the park. Deer seem to be everywhere and it seems they are almost always seen no matter what time of day you go. There is a trail map link on one of our caches pages, Horse Chestnut Trail

We took my kids and grandkids on the Quicksilver Park ones a few weeks ago, this is a good time of year as it is cooler now and the fall colors in the trees from the higher up views of the valley below is awesome.

Just watch for poison oak anywhere you go, I speak from experince!!

Edited November 24, 2004 by geobrowns

November 25, 2004

Greetings from Nurse Dave Land (the state formerly known as Oregon) where we're having Thanksgiving with the in-laws. Imagine my surprise when we got to Grants Pass and the dozen caches near our traditional hotel were all micros and virtuals! Plenty of ammo cans in the woods since then though.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

4.2k · November 25, 2004

I'll vote for Henry Cowell but that's because it's right in my own backyard .

I grew up near Alum Rock though and spent MANY days exploring and riding my bike through there as well (haven't been there in probably 20 years now) - have the scars to prove it.

Let us know where you end up going and what you thought.

Nazgul, sounds like Dave has some 'splainin' to do <_< .

1.4k · November 25, 2004

Greetings from Nurse Dave Land (the state formerly known as Oregon) where we're having Thanksgiving with the in-laws. Imagine my surprise when we got to Grants Pass and the dozen caches near our traditional hotel were all micros and virtuals! Plenty of ammo cans in the woods since then though.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ya, tough keeping those Californians from moving up there. <_<

We'll be up there on Friday, but not the same area.

November 25, 2004

Hahaha! Good thing we're not staying then. We're on the coast at Lincoln City now, but we'll be back in Grants Pass on Friday night. From one of the logs on I-5 that I saw on the way up, it looks like ChrissySkykingandBlaze were heading south the same day.

November 25, 2004

Thanks workerofwood, geobrowns, and Kealia for your suggestions! <_<

1.7k · November 26, 2004

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the Bay Area!!!

I stopped by the Sunnyvale Costco last night to pick up a Thanksgiving spiral ham (delicious) and while walking by the electronics, my eyes picked up on a display with the Magellan Explorist 200, selling for $129. I already knew this but the package actually says, "No PC needed!! and No Downloading needed!!". It's like that's a selling point. But that makes it kind of hard to load a bunch of waypoints all at once, doesn't it? It doesn't seem that it'd be a very good GPSr for geocaching, unless you like loading each waypoint by hand.

I'm sticking with my Meridian green.

5.7k · November 26, 2004

My next GPS will be the eXplorist 500 (Color display, maps, USB interface). Until then, I'll just stick with my Sportrak Color.

--Marky

2.6k · November 26, 2004

My next GPS will be the eXplorist 500...
--Marky

Perhaps you should write to Megellan to ask them about making an eXplorist 500 as they only appear to have 100, 200 and 300's.

Rather pricey was my Garmin 60cs, but what a great improventment over my old Megellan SporTrek Pro. The route map on the fly and the Geocaching Mode are major time savers... leaves more time to the hunt and enjoying the trip. :laughing:

November 26, 2004

I'll bite .... Geocaching mode? Really?

That sounds interesting, did they do a joint promotion with Groundspeak? /Lefty

November 26, 2004

I'll bite .... Geocaching mode? Really?

That sounds interesting, did they do a joint promotion with Groundspeak? /Lefty

Geocaching mode occurs when you select a waypoint that uses the geocache symbol. Basically, it gives you an option to enter "found" after you find it. I like it, it gives me a list at the end of the day without taking notes.

However, it doesn't really replace cachemate for me, so it is a "usefull gimic".

I got my 60CS the week it came out and have upgraded the software each time they have updated it. I'm on the fence about recommending it, I will be taking a close look at the Explorist 500 when it is released, I would really like to have that memory card.

4.2k · November 26, 2004

Ok, for those interested in a FTF and/or a new, unregistered Washington geocoin:

I just submitted a new cache a few minutes ago that has a WA coin for the FTF prize. Had to get out and hike off the turkey (like I'm sure many of you did).

Happy long weekend all -

EDIT: 45 minutes and approved already. Our local approvers rock.

Go get it.

P.S. Forgot the funniest part of today's journey:

As my hike started, I saw a littel black dog about 50 yards in front of my cruising down the trail. By the time I got within abotu 20 yards I realized that it was actaully a skunk :rolleyes: .

It just kept walking, dead-center, down the trail occasionally looking back to see what I was doing. Wouldn't get off the road and it was too narrow for me to try and get by....so I waited and kept walking.....slowly. A MILE LATER he finally went behind a tree and I sprinted past unscathed.

4 hours later on my way back to the car I could still smell where he had been - sheesh!

Didn't Pepe know I things to do?!?! :laughing: Cute little guys......

Edited November 26, 2004 by Kealia

November 27, 2004

Ok... what's the deal with the recent surge in Ultimate caches or can I guess???

5.7k · November 27, 2004

Ok... what's the deal with the recent surge in Ultimate caches or can I guess???

Just a little game within the game.

November 27, 2004

Ok... what's the deal with the recent surge in Ultimate caches or can I guess???

Recent intelligence indicates activity in the Miracle Mountain region.

November 27, 2004

Just several secrative but fun things going on bullit! Venona, which is way over my head but fun to read and battleships, which are easy to find but still over my head. The locations on the map are intersting, not sure if that has anything to do with it yet.

BTW, we are temporarily sidelined, seems we have somehow misplaced our Garmin from the car to the house since Sunday night after we got #300. Tore the house up, garbage, recycling, car, nada. We lay awake nights going over possible scenarios of the missing GPSr. Used our old yellow Etrex the other day to get the new M&J in Alum Rock, drove us nuts. Too broke right now to replace although we have been looking at the options in reading forums here for suggestions. It's hard to justify a new one when you get the feeling it just HAS to be here, somewhere. Grrrrr.

Ok, back to checking maps where Kealia has been.

4.8k · November 27, 2004

Ok, back to checking maps where Kealia has been.

By the grace of the watchlist god's, I saw the area that Kealia was in, but from the cache description it sounds like a GPS will be of little value on the hunt. This suspicion is confirmed by the nearby cache that I found a few months ago. Couldn't get a signal within about 1/2 a mile from the cache location :lol: .

Plan B: decided to cough up for the ExpertGPS and see if boulter had some calibrated maps for the park. Alas, no such luck. Sounds like a good project for the SV/SC crowd. Did download the cool map for Ft. Ord though

Plan C: Looks like the inclement weather will keep us inside for some tree trimming today

Curse you Kealia! I'll get one of those shot glasses yet :laughing:

November 27, 2004

Ok, back to checking maps where Kealia has been.

By the grace of the watchlist god's, I saw the area that Kealia was in, but from the cache description it sounds like a GPS will be of little value on the hunt. This suspicion is confirmed by the nearby cache that I found a few months ago. Couldn't get a signal within about 1/2 a mile from the cache location .

Maybe the "little black doggie" will lead you! :laughing:

4.2k · November 27, 2004

Hey Touchstone - maybe Santa will bring ya one .

Yes, GPS signal was extrenly tough but oddly enough I had great lock at the cache site (the new one).

I do have a calibrated map for Nisene marks - I'll send it to you now. Let me know if it works....(it does for me; just not sure what I need to send)

4.8k · November 27, 2004

Maybe the "little black doggie" will lead you!

LOL

Ya, we've got a few of those mongrels in our neighborhood. Most memorable cache was one we did in Ft. Ord by JASW called Lookout. Didn't understand the name until we got near the cache and saw the "little black dog" guarding the cache location :laughing: . An hour later we could still smell the guardian of the cache. Even scarrier than Sgt. Stitches evil bunnies (i.e. Holy Grail Cache)

Thanks for the upload Kealia. You should donate that one to the boulter library for the benefit of mankind. I'm up to an hour of download time :lol: . I feel like such a internet Neanderthal with my dial-up connection WiFi is looking better and better every day.

November 29, 2004

Hahaha! Good thing we're not staying then. We're on the coast at Lincoln City now, but we'll be back in Grants Pass on Friday night. From one of the logs on I-5 that I saw on the way up, it looks like ChrissySkykingandBlaze were heading south the same day.

Yup, we've also moved from California to Nurse Dave Land (formerly Oregon, from what I understand!!). We live outside Medford, which is about 25 minutes south of Grants Pass.

This area is fairly dead for Geocaching (at least between Medford and Ashland), but, surprisingly, the Grants Pass area is always hopping. We're planning a cache weekend up there sometime so we can nab 40 or 50 caches.

We're trying to place a bunch of caches between Medford and Ashland, particularly puzzle caches (which many of the locals shun). If we borrow one of your puzzle ideas from the Bay Area, we'll ask your permission first. Have some ideas for some new twists on puzzles too (i.e. our 1 Ringy Dingy cache in Ashland).

Anyway, since we're often back in the Bay Area, we always appreciate the pleothera of new caches available to us each time! Fresh meat!! Thanks!!

ChrissySkyking & Blaze (CS&

4.2k · November 30, 2004

Feedback wanted:

Been thinking about setting up a GeoCoin trading cache so I'm throwing the idea out for feedback.

The cache would be open for all to find, but the only trades allowed would be geocoins (for keeping, not moving on).

I know many people collect them but have a hard time tracking down some of them so this would give us the opportunity to do so.

I know many want coins, but do you think there are enough of us around that HAVE them to trade?

1.4k · December 1, 2004

I like the idea, but I can see it turning into a place where every time a coin other than a California one is placed there it is swapped for a California one and then it would take a long time for someone to swap it back to something else.

1.4k · December 1, 2004

Maybe we can expand the Geocoin trading cache to include signature items, so out-of-towners can sample the local goodies as well as bring some of their own...?

December 1, 2004

I'd worry about a geocoin cache getting raided, it might be too tempting for some if it were well-stocked. Also like ND said, you'd kind of expect anything from outside CA to be replaced with a CA coin. I only have one each of my non-CA coins and I have a small stockpile of CA coins.

I've actually been planning a cache with a sig item trading theme for a couple of weeks now. I've got a small bag of sig items I've started collecting for it, including on of those Kealia shot glasses I picked up. I'd just like to have a lot more stuff in it to get it started than what I have so far. I've also been scouting locations because I wanted it to be pretty easy to get to but not someplace where it's likely to get muggled.

4.2k · December 1, 2004

Agreed, good feedback.

I had thought about how to start it, but didn't think it through to realize that it probably would end up with all CA coins quickly....

5.7k · December 1, 2004

Agreed, good feedback.

I had thought about how to start it, but didn't think it through to realize that it probably would end up with all CA coins quickly....

I had thought about setting up an ebay-ish style swap meet, where you could post sig items, geocoins, etc that you were willing to trade and then people could post trade requests. I never seem to have enough time to do it though. We do get a fair amount of smashed penny trades via our smashed penny locationless cache (even from muggles sometimes!). I suppose you could use the Garage Sale forum to suggest trades.

--Marky

4.2k · December 1, 2004

I'm pretty set in my coins (have a few elusive ones that I need to track down) so I'm OK - was just thinking out loud during a break from trying to solve some puzzle caches yesterday.

Although I still need to get my hands on a Moun10Bike coin so make sure you keep yours close at hand :rolleyes: .

December 3, 2004

These are too good not to share. If someone else has already posted this link, forgive the duplication.

Top 10 indications you have a geocaching addiction

:blink:

December 3, 2004

What is with all of the Edgewood Park caches now being removed by the ranger? When did they require permission? Is this going to be true for all San Mateo County Parks now?

:blink:

5.7k · December 3, 2004

What is with all of the Edgewood Park caches now being removed by the ranger? When did they require permission? Is this going to be true for all San Mateo County Parks now?

No idea what is going on there. That park is rather strick about its land use and when I was there last, I had questioned some of the placements. They have a pretty strict "no off trail use" rule in that park. Hopefully, this won't affect other San Mateo County Parks.

I already thought that was a weird park, how they just shut it down for a while.

--Marky

1.4k · December 3, 2004

OK, I'm stummped by the battleship stuff too. I did a few of them today and was expecting to find a hit or miss on them or something. At this point it just seems like Joe Spaz hit our area or people are just using it as an excuse to put out urban assult type micros. Is there a secret or something?

December 3, 2004

Is there a secret or something?

Yes.

1.4k · December 3, 2004

Is there a secret or something?

Yes.

December 3, 2004

Is there a secret or something?

Yes.

So mean.

And hey, I had fun placing the UB: Crow's Nest cache. I thought that was a perfectly good hide. Not my fault if you pulled something getting it.

4.2k · December 4, 2004

I'm not even going to ask.....

Anyway, thinking about hitting a few caches in Almaden QS tomorrow - is the park dog-friendly?

EDIT: Answered my own question using this cool thing called the Internet.....

Edited December 4, 2004 by Kealia

December 4, 2004

Is there a secret or something?

Yes.

Sorry, "Yes" was everything I knew. :lol:

December 6, 2004

Congrats Team Alamo, on hitting the 6K. BTW, how did you get that 2K bump on me?

SF Bay Area geocachers

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