Stupid Goofs!

[+Colorado Papa]

I'll be one of the firsts to start a topic of dumb observations. Add yours to this string.

 

While passing through Utah with eight and ten year old grandchildren, thought I'd take them to the Golden Spike Pomontory, Utah National Monument where the east-west railroads originally met. Since none of the BMs had been located in the area, thought it would be a great place to find some real oldies. The first one I had on my list was MS0088. I got real excited without reading the full description when I found this at the base of the witness post:

Boy, was I disappointed (and red faced) when I went to log the find!

Obviously, I logged it as a Not Found.

[Z15]

Years ago we were on a recon mission for control South along US45. One of the first BM's we went looking for we could not find. I even had one of the interns dig for it as we thought it could be buried. We spent about 2 hrs looking for it, all the features in the description seemed to fit the area but it was gone, so we thought.

 

We gave up and decided to head to the nearest town to find a motel (were going to be there for while). We doubled back to the T intersection we started from and headed West along US45 to toward the nearest town. About 1 mile down the road, my partner said, hey! theres a witness post back there by that drive. So I turned around and went back to see. As I looked at the disk I noticed it was the one were just spent 2 hrs looking for. I had misread the direction from this T junction and was looking about 1 mile in the wrong direction. Thats before we had hand held GPS or laptops with NGS data-sheets on them. Took some time the live that down.

 

Not really a goof but;

There was another one I was involved with but was our PS who was in charged of the search. He had just got a GPSr and wanted to go and try to find this remote Tri-station. So we drive to the area, and head out on foot about 1/2 mile up this hill. He was leading the way and I was following behind caring 3 orange witness posts and the driver. After some hard climbing we reached an area he claimed. its around here somewhere. So I dropped the posts there and we spread out trying to find the blazed trees in the description. The area was full of rocks and we searched for the better part of the PM. It was getting close the 6 so we were about to head back. So I go looking for the witness posts and driver. I grabbed the up and tried to get them comfortable to carry and I lost grip on the driver and it hit the ground. As I bent down to pick it up, i noticed what appeared to be a square rock, so I took the driver and scraped off the heavy moss. It was one of the RM's. We had walked right up to the locatation but doubted the GPS and roamed out in a circle as much as several hundred feet when it was right there. Next day everyone on the crew wanted a GPSr.

 

QM0581 STATION RECOVERY (1995)

QM0581

QM0581'RECOVERY NOTE BY MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 1995 (BRT)

QM0581'NOTE-STATION RECOVERED WITH THE AIDE OF A GARMIN GPS45 RECEIVER. IT

QM0581'WAS REPORTED BY A TIMBER CRUSIER THAT THEY PLAN TO CUT THIS AREA IN

QM0581'THE FUTURE. THE STAION IS LOCATED IN QUAD 450881. ABOUT 16.1 KM (10.00

QM0581'MI) NORTH-NORTHEAST OF IRON MOUNTAIN, MICHIGAN, ABOUT 12.9 KM (8.00

QM0581'MI) NORTHEAST OF FLORENCE, WICONSIN, NEAR THE SOUTH END OF THE HIGHEST

QM0581'TIMBERED RIDGE IN THE VICINITY. IN THE SOUTHWAST 1/4 OF SECTION 7,

QM0581'T-41-N, R-30-W, SAGOLA TOWNSHIP. PROPERTY OWNER-KEWEENAW LAND

QM0581'ASSOCIATION LTD, 117 WEST GENESSE STREET, IRON RIVER, MICHIGAN 49935,

QM0581'PHONE (906) 265-4400 TO REACH FROM THE NORTH JUNCTION OF US HIGHWAYS

QM0581'2/141 AND STATE HIGHWAY M-95 AT THE NORTH SIDE OF IRON MOUNTAIN FOLLOW

QM0581'STATE HIGHWAY M-95 NORTH FOR 7.9 KM (4.90 MI) TO A PAVED ROAD LEFT

QM0581'(SWANSON ROAD) , TURN LEFT (WEST) FOR 1.87 KM (1.15 MI) TO A 3 WAY

QM0581'INTERSECTION, TURN LEFT CROSSING RAILROAD TRACK TO ANOTHER 3 WAY

QM0581'INTERSECTION (BASS LAKE RD-CO RD 607) , TURN RIGHT (NORTH) ON COUNTY

QM0581'ROAD 607 FOR 1.87 KM (1.15 MI) TO A ROAD LEFT (PEAVY FALLS RD) , TURN

QM0581'LEFT (WEST) FOR 1.89 KM (1.15 MI) TO THE END OF PAVEMENT, CONTINUE

QM0581'ALONG GRAVEL ROAD (UNDER CONSTRUCTION 1995) FOR 2.3 KM (1.40 MI) TO A

QM0581'SMALL CLEARING ON THE LEFT AND THE RIGHT. THIS IS THE END OF TRUCK

QM0581'TRAVEL. FROM HERE PACK OR ATV NORTHEASTERLY THRU TIMBER 0.4 KM (0.25

QM0581'MI) MORE OR LESS TO THE TOP OF THE HILL AND A DIM LOGGING ROAD.

QM0581'FOLLOW DIM ROAD NORTHEAST APPROX. 90 M (295.3 FT) MORE OR LESS TO THE

QM0581'STATION STATION 0.0 M (0.0 FT) EAST OF A CARSONITE WITNESS POST ON THE

QM0581'RIGHT SIDE OF A DIM LOGGING ROAD. NO OTHER PROMINENT REFERENCE MARKS

QM0581'EXIST EXCEPT FOR RM 1 AND RM 2 WHICH WERE RECOVERED IN GOOD CONDITION

QM0581'AND WITNESSED BY CARSONITE WITNESS POSTS

Edited August 2, 2004 by elcamino

[Neos2]

Definitely a newbie goof.

Recently I was doing some geocaching waaaay out in the boonies. We were looking for a geocache on a ridge, and had gotten a bit off track using a MapQuest map. We stopped along some railroad tracks to orient ourselves and figure out which way to go to get to the geocache. We were about a half a mile below the cache at that point. We eventually found the geocache.

Today I looked at the log and out of curiousity sake I looked at the "nearby benchmarks"--Turns out we had probably been parked within a few feet of the benchmark when we stopped to reorient ourselves. It has not been checked since 1934.

Moral of the story---Always look up the nearby benchmarks when geocaching.

[mloser]

Moral of the story---Always look up the nearby benchmarks when geocaching.

Moral of the story-QUIT GEOCACHING!

 

Had to have a poke at ya there.

[Neos2]

Moral of the story-QUIT GEOCACHING!

 

But, hey we found the cache! FTF, and it was no walk in the park either.

Quit caching? We just got into it, and I was starting to think that my husband didn't like it much--and then he 'made' me buy my very own GPSr today. (so he didn't have to share his toy). He said yesterday that he thinks he really wants to benchmark hunt more than he wants to geocache, but I like both. Any excuse to wander out and about.

[mloser]

Neos,

I was just kidding witcha. Although I don't have any desire to geocache, there are obviously a lot of you who do, and I was referred to this site by a local geocacher.

I can see why people enjoy geocaching, but my current obsession is with benchmarks. You enjoy yours... I'll enjoy mine.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

A statistic I haven't seen before:

In the U.S.:

 

736,425 benchmarks

81,640 geocaches

 

ratio: 9 to 1

 

There's plenty more to look for in the benchmark side!

 

Stupid Goof - early on in my benchmark hunting, I was looking for a scaled mark mounted vertically on a store. The GPS pointed to a location in the middle of a 4-lane highway. I went to the nearest store and spent a long time staring at the wall, walking back and forth, incredulous that the mark wasn't there. People surely thought I was suffering from some alcohol-induced daze or worse. It turned out that the proper store was actually rather distant and on the other side of the highway. The goofy part was that the PID's description named the store and it's still the same store. All I had to do was go there first and ignore the GPS!

[+embra]

I stopped and looked for JV1992 several times because it was on my way to and from work. The site seemed to be a space between a railroad track and a farmer's field.First time, I paced it off but couldn't find it. Came back with a metal detector. Still no luck. Checked for it in early spring when the foliage was down...nada. I was convinced it was gone...until I spotted my friend Ghosthunter's log mentioning an easy find.

 

With new hope I went back. Still nothing. Then, I glanced on the other side of the tracks. There, in a neat corner of the mowed lawn of the neighboring house lay the quarry, plain as day.

 

Someday, I'm gonna get this east-west thing straight...

[+JeremyA]

I have two pretty bad newbie goofs - but they were a year ago so I'm not quite so embarrassed any more.

 

When I first discovered the benchmarking section of the geocaching site I decided to give it a go, so I picked a disk that was close by and set off to look for it. Not knowing anything about triangulation stations and reference/azimuth marks, the disk that I chose was one called FRONT RM 2. I found this very easily and went home pleased with myself (it was very close to my apartment). So I decided to have another go, I looked at the website and was amazed to find a station called FRONT. So I set off to find this one - now, not only was it on the same wall as FRONT RM 2, not only was it only about 10 feet away from FRONT RM 2, it was also marked with a bright orange witness post, which I would have to have walked past to get to RM2. How I missed it one my first visit I will never know but I was so embarrassed that I made sure that my photos in the logs don't show the close proximity of the two marks.

 

As if that wasn't enough to send me running to the opticians, two weeks later I went looking for FF0341 which is designated F 261. I looked for ages, I was looking at the sidewalk and at the various walls around about but I couldn't find it. So I decided to take a few pictures of the area and log a 'not found' along with the pictures. It was only whilst preparing the pictures for my log that I noticed the orange paint on the wall with letters nearly a foot high saying 'F 261'! The disk was behind the wall - I hadn't looked there because there was a large drop which I had assumed was shear, but in fact there is a ledge which has the disk on it.

 

At that point I should have decided that maybe this hobby wasn't for me. But after that poor start I think that I have got a lot better now.

 

JeremyA

Edited August 9, 2004 by JeremyA

[+happycycler]

JC1171 was one of my earlier finds. It is a scaled mark and I was still religiously following my GPS at the time. I had not started trying to read the descriptions yet and had not leared about the inaccuracy of many scaled locations. On this one, I leaned my bicycle against the flood wall and followed my GPS around for a while. I expanded my search area and looked again. After I had given up and returned to the bicycle -- I noticed a vertically mounted benchmark about 3 feet from my handlebars. Needless to report it was the mark that I had been searching for.

[mloser]

Not a goof, but in my rush to find a station (I was actually driving on a cart path of a golf course, which was, luckily, closed for the winter, but was a bit nervous about doing it), I jumped out of the car to look for HOST and went to where my GPSr said to go. The mark wasn't there so I headed back to the car. There beside the car door, where I had to practically trip over it, was RM1. I paced off for the other marks and found them easily.

This sort of thing should teach me to slow down a bit, but it really hasn't. I still bust right out of the car heading to where I THINK the mark is before I stop and think and often leads to a bit of backtracking and thinking when it isn't where I thought.

 

Matt

[+GEO*Trailblazer 1]

I am a GOOF.

I do not have enough space or time to put down all my blunders,woop's,cain't do that's and all them other things.

I have learned a great deal from the people here as well as in the field.

I appreciate your hard work and enthusiasm as I thought at first I was the only one interested in the historic value and preservation of these little brass disketts,chisled squares,copper rods,and various other monuments.

 

We have all grown together and have made significant strides in the course of history,wether we(you) know it or not.

I am proud to be a member of this group here and have never seen anything like it to date.

We all have the (pretty much)same ideals regardless our seperateness,and have been drawn together in one place to have a one of a kind (place of our own) to speak,where we all speak the same type lingo..............................................

...........BENCHMARKS(MORE)...AND GEOCACHING(FUN)