Best Of The Des Moines Area?

[+BuckyD]

Hi Great Plains cachers!

 

I've got a weekend trip planned at the end of the month to do some day-hiking/photography/caching in the Des Moines area. Any recommended caches within an hour's drive? I'm also willing to pick up any TBs at the aforementioned caches that want a ride to the greater San Francisco area...

[+Des Moines Cacher]

You will have a great time geocaching in the Des Moines area. No need to drive for an hour. Just do a search on the 50312 zipcode. Des Moines has lots of wooded areas and hiking trails within the city. Then travel north 5 miles to the Saylorville Reservoir area for even more. You could easily collect 30 finds in the woods and parks within the metro area. Have a great time!!

[+carleenp]

Des Moines is a nice city. You might also see what is in Ames, which is a nice college town all that far away. I'm in Nebraska, so I can't recommend specific caches though.

[+BuckyD]

Thanks for the input. I've got a PQ set to run that takes the closest 50 caches within 75 miles of ~ Merle Hay Mall (I'll be staying in Clive). I think I'm getting the Saylorville area with those specs. Anybody have any particularly favorite caches in Ames or the Saylorville Lake area? I noticed a lot congregated by the river, roughly around the zoo/waterworks area. I also noticed some over near Drake U., but I know that can be a pretty rough area to go walking around in... I've only got 2 caching days, so I'll probably concentrate on two areas and would love to narrow it down to some nice walks with rewarding cache experiences (good hides, well-maintained containers, etc.).

[+smillersmiller]

When The Coasties visited Des Moines about a year ago, a thread was started to get favorite caches.

Favorite DSM caches

 

I'd say that Waterworks and Saylorville Lake are two great areas for caching.

[+smillersmiller]

Oh, one more thing - Saylorville Lake is definitely within 50 miles of Merle Hay Mall.

[+Des Moines Cacher]

I also noticed some over near Drake U., but I know that can be a pretty rough area to go walking around in...

The caches you are noticing near Drake University are in various city parks, and a couple are multipart caches which are quite fun. I have done all the caches near Drake, and all are safe. Common sense when walking in the woods in the middle of a city is always a good idea though!

[+BuckyD]

I guess Ames might be dangerous now, too Just saw a blurb about the ISU riots tonight. Ahhhh, the places we go to cache!

 

Seriously, though, thanks for the input on Drake. I'll make sure that I go when my fiance doesn't have to work. He can be pretty imposing-looking if you don't know him...

[+AmesCacher]

If you decide to brave the post riot Ames..

Brookside cache

Prairie cache

Alex's Half Dollar Cache

 

yeah 2 of them are mine but...

[+Des Moines Cacher]

Here is my suggestion for a weekend of caching in the Des Moines. Start with all the caches in Waterworks Park. There are a bunch of them, plus you can play a round of frisbee golf if you want to. Bring your bike along if you want to move around the trails a little faster. After Waterworks Park, go across Fleur and do the ones near Grays Lake. Take a walk around the lake while you are there. Move on down to Ft. Des Moines on the south side of Des Moines next. Grab the one there, then go on over to Easter Lake and the parks nearby. That should take care of at least one day for you. The next day check out the caches along the north side of town, north of Drake University along the Des Moines River. Might as well keep on going north to Saylorville Reservoir and pick up the abundance of caches there. This should take care of day two, and you have barely left Des Moines!!

I haven't been to Ames, but there are a ton of caches in that town, and lots of them are puzzle caches. I hope to spend a day caching in Ames this spring!

Have a great trip to Central Iowa!!

[+Melrose Plant]

I'm probably too late on this (as usual), but I have not run into a truly bad cache in Des Moines. There were a couple of questionable ones outside of Des Moines, but I believe all have either been archived or fixed up.

 

As for the "Drake" caches, which are actually in Beaverdale, northwest of Drake, I promise you don't have to go through any "bad" parts of town to do them. All of the Beaverdale caches are mine. Speaking of bad parts of town, my brother-in-law, who is from Southern California and now lives in Des Moines, claims, "There are no bad parts of town in Des Moines. I will sleep on the sidewalk in what you think is the worst part of town. Food for thought.

 

All of the caches along the Des Moines River, except for "Wakonsa Bridge" will require some hiking and moderate to serious bushwhacking. About half of these are mine.

 

I have liked all the Saylorville caches, and they're reasonable close together. "Jewel Box Cache" on the west side of the lake is very challenging terrain compared to the rest. It is not mine, by the way.

 

I wouldn't bother with Ames if you're going to be here for only two days. There are some great caches up there, no doubting that, but you'll waste almost two extra hours per day driving there.

 

I hope this message isn't too late to do any good, but oh well if it is. Have fun!

 

On edit: Oh yeah. I forgot about all the Water Works park caches along the Raccoon River, which others here have mentioned. I did about half of these at night, so I can't tell you a lot about the scenery, but I can tell you that having a bike will speed things up considerably in this area. The caches are not that close together, and you can't drive from one to the next.

Edited April 30, 2004 by Balboagirl

[+BuckyD]

Thanks for all the input -- and even if it is late (I just got back to CA last night), I'll be back in Des Moines at the end of June! One of our caching days was ruined by rain (last Friday), so we only got an easy one at WaterWorks park (Water Works South) before it started down. I agree that a bike would be a far superior way to see the park and get to the caches there in an afternoon! It might also scare off the menacing geese...

 

On Saturday the weather cleared up and we hit a couple of caches on the west bank of the Des Moines river off of the Sycamore Trail, then went out for ice cream (my companion isn't all that interested in Geocaching, so we took our time getting around) in Polk City. From there, we were able to do 4 caches on the eastern side of Saylorville lake.

 

I like that the caches in Des Moines are all part of larger nature walks. That is not necessarily the case in the San Francisco Bay area, where a clever hide or theme is often times the highlighted aspect of a cache. It did seem like the caches I went to mostly utilized the same type of hide, but it could be the fact that I did lower terrain caches because of my geocaching partner (he wasn't all that keen on going off trail and potentially tangling with Poison Ivy). I look forward to trying out the "Drake" area caches, and maybe even getting up to Ames, on a return trip!

 

PS Are travel bugs not a big thing in the midwest? The majority of the caches there seem to be big enough to handle them, but I didn't run across any. Brought 2 of 'em on this trip, I'll collect some more during my caching here for next month.

 

Thanks to the Iowa geocachers for a nice weekend (okay, well Saturday) of caching!!

[+welch]

PS Are travel bugs not a big thing in the midwest? The majority of the caches there seem to be big enough to handle them, but I didn't run across any. Brought 2 of 'em on this trip, I'll collect some more during my caching here for next month.

 

Not having been to californina I can't really compare, but if I found ~10 caches in San Fran would I likely find a traveler?

[+BuckyD]

Not having been to californina I can't really compare, but if I found ~10 caches in San Fran would I likely find a traveler?

 

Micro hides, no.

Ammo box/medium tupperware caches, yes -- probably 3 or 4 in a visit to 10 regular-sized caches, depending on the area.

 

Check out the geocache maps from zip 94101 and zoom out 3 - 4 times (to cover the general SF area, pan SE 1-2x to see San Jose/Santa Cruz which are more mountainous areas). You'll see a LOT of virtuals, particularly in the touristy areas, and most of the non-park city caches are of the film canister/breath strips container/altoids tin variety. You'll also get a sense of the TB density.

 

My home area actually extends from SF down this peninsula to Monterey. The caching in this corridor has a really wide variety of hides and containers, reflecting the wide variety of cachers in the area (the self-titled "Power Cachers", the #2-4 ranked cachers on Keen People, call this area home).

 

My post was meant to reflect the difference in cache culture and my surprise that the type of cache placements in Des Moines didn't lead to a bigger TB emphasis. No right or wrong here, in fact I don't necessarily want to stop my life all day on a Saturday to run around to 45 caches in a power caching session -- I'd rather take a long walk around Saylorville Lake and grab 2 or 3.