Central New Mexico Benchmarking

[+BuckBrooke]

Greetings, all. Wanted to introduce myself, as a relative newtimer. I have a few comments, and a few questions, so bear with me. I'm the Buck part of BuckBrooke. I'm a physics PhD student, studying astronomy at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque (ABQ).

 

I've had an Explorist 200 GPS unit for 3 months now. I've recently gotten the benchmarking bug, and now have reams of printed out datasheets with taped together printed/cut out mapquest maps for a section of benchmarks to go after. I don't have any equipment other than that, and my boots. Any thoughts on how to do this more efficiently, especially the map preparing/printing out? I would start downloading stuff from the NGS Datasheet site/other sites, if I had a good way to map and mark them. I don't have a laptop. I've read through the FAQ posts a fair bit.

 

I just dropped my Explorist while jumping across a roadside puddle *gasp, I know, rain in Albuquerque* and had it run over by a truck. Trying to see what I can recover. Warrantee probably doesn't cover it. Might have to purchase a new one, or try going without. Can you get them repaired? Any suggestions on what would be a good one to get right now? I saw a basic Etrex on Amazon for $88.

 

On my geocaching.com log, I'm at 49 finds, 4 destroyed (24 of 53 are FTF) and 86 not finds. From what I've read in the threads, this seems like a really low find rate (40%). My typical method is to print out 20 data sheets or so, create a map, and then spend about 4 hours on a weekend looking for them. I'm still looking for ones in/near ABQ, so the commute is quite close.

 

Admittedly ABQ has a high rate of development/expansion, the ones I've looked for are almost all on the side of roads (road expansion), in the medians of major streets/on bridges over the city interstate (construction), but I'm still not doing all that swell. Any suggestions? I am marking every one that I go after, even the ones that are scaled in the city and thus would be a headache to search for. A number of them are scaled, but I went by the street location, rather than GPS location. Do ya'll mark everyone you go after, even if you didn't find it?

 

This may be a lazy/USPS attitude, but I'm not sure I want to go back to hunt down all of the ones I couldn't find, to see if I can find them again. There are so many within a 20 minute drive of my house that it will be a long time before I use these up and need to really nail the ones I've missed.

 

Any other BMers in the ABQ area that might want to chat?

 

I probably have more comments/questions, and some of the above was probably hashed out well elsewhere, but this is somewhat of an introduction.

[+BuckBrooke]

Another comment. My oldest find so far is 1895 (the Colorado state capitol building in Denver, not a hard one, and not a FTF).

 

In searching through the geocaching.com NGS benchmark database, the oldest benchmark I've found in New Mexico is 1876 (a cairn on top of a mountain). While it's unlikely I'll find one younger than this in NM, any suggestions on how to find old ones in the database?

Edited January 6, 2005 by BuckBrooke

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

To findout what old marks are in your county follow the directions in this Link.

 

When it gets to the part about DSWIN and it talks about selecting the delimiter, use a comma instead of the vertical line, if you want to open it with (Gasp!) Microsoft Works Database.

You can then sort on the monument date to get the oldest in the county.

 

Hope this helps,

 

John

[ArtMan]

Hi Buck, and welcome to the club!

 

I've never been to Albuquerque, but from what I've read of the level of recent develoment there, 40 percent doesn't sound all that bad.

 

I've got one of the basic yellow etrex models. As far as accuracy is concerned, it should do you just fine. (Many veterans here will tell you that your GPS is really most useful for getting to the general area, rather than pinpointing the benchmark. Learn to rely on the descriptions, which are written - albeit often in something that only vaguely resembles English - with the expectation that the description will be sufficient to find the mark, without the need for a GPSr.) Of course, the etrex doesn't have built-in maps, if that is important to you. And it is about the cheapest unit on the market.

 

-ArtMan-

[holograph]

Admittedly ABQ has a high rate of development/expansion, the ones I've looked for are almost all on the side of roads (road expansion), in the medians of major streets/on bridges over the city interstate (construction),  but I'm still not doing all that swell.  Any suggestions?  I am marking every one that I go after, even the ones that are scaled in the city and thus would be a headache to search for.  A number of them are scaled, but I went by the street location, rather than GPS location.  Do ya'll mark everyone you go after, even if you didn't find it?

I downloaded all the stations in my surrounding counties, then added them as waypoints in MapSource, which is the companion PC software for my Garmin GPS.

 

I can then plan a campaign by seeing which ones lie along a route that I can efficiently visit. Once I've identified the ones I plan to go after, I print each NGS datasheet in a two-column landscape format, which usually results in one page per datasheet, with space for notes. I sort these in the order I plan to visit them and put them in a three ring binder. At the site, I transfer the page to a clipboard to carry with me.

 

Since I'm hunting in a rural area, I can usually visit maybe 5 to 10 locations in an afternoon, and I usually have to drive several miles between locations. My GPS serves as a route finder, which is a big help in my area so I don't need to print maps.

 

If a mark is previously "not found", I still usually do a reconnaisance of the location on foot. If I don't find it, I may decide it merits another visit if I think the mark should still be there (for instance on boulders in areas that don't appear to be disturbed). I may log a note instead of "not found", or I may not log anything. I have always logged my finds, but only log a not found if I'm pretty sure it is not there and I don't plan to come back later. I've only marked a couple as destroyed.

 

Sometimes I've only found 1 out of 10 if the area has been developed since the last recovery, which is often 60 years ago. Other times I've found maybe 6 out of 10. I usually try to include one that I'm pretty sure to find, just to keep from coming home empty-handed.

 

Once I get home, I change the icons in MapSource so that I can easily see where I've been, and where I may want to revisit. I also update a spreadsheet with the day's results.

 

edit: PS: I was born in Albuquerque, which gave me hardest place to spell on "place of birth" forms in school.

Edited January 6, 2005 by holograph

[+seventhings]

Buck -

 

A 40% find rate for a newbie in a rapidly-developing area does not sound bad to me, either (ArtMan, Black Dog Trackers and I work in northern Virginia where they widen the roads two or three times a day, it seems, yielding lots of frustration for benchmark hunters).

 

I'll echo what Art said about GPS units - a fairly basic model should be sufficient for benchmark hunting - lat/long, waypoints, GOTO and the compass are all I use on mine. The datasheets (both Geocaching and NGS version) are the most important tools and, quite frankly, I think a good map and a tape measure are more important than the GPS (but, then, I'm an old fashioned, analog kind of guy.) I also use a cheap metal detector. It's a good thing.

 

Like holograph, I plan my route of travel to hit as many marks as efficiently as possible, and order my datasheets in a binder. I generally (though not always) look for every benchmark in a given area, no matter how low the probability of find (also, generally but not always, staying off railroad rights-of-way and well clear of schools on school days). Once I start a search for a specific mark, I log it as either found, not found or destroyed. I use the NOTE function to log comments on marks that I intended to look for but couldn't because they were inaccessible (like too far on to residential private property, etc). I almost never go back to look for a mark that I could not find the first time.

 

I've been to NM many times - Pueblo Pottery and pre-historic Puebloan ruins and rock art are longstanding passions, but I haven't hunted any marks in ABQ. Found a few in Santa Fe and Chaco Canyon, though.

 

Welcome to the community. As you gain experience (yes, there is actually a discernable learning curve) and get out into the rural areas a bit more, your find rate should improve. Good hunting.

 

Will

[+Colorado Papa]

I'm a physics PhD student, studying astronomy at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque (ABQ).

Hey, Bucky, as a resident of New Mexco, you maybe interested in this string regarding a get-together in the spring.

[+BuckBrooke]

A a POR, Bucky is not my chosen short name. Buck is short for Buckner, and will do just fine. GEO*Trailblazer 1 is going to keep me informed as to progress on this meeting.

 

In going through the county download convert to Excel scheme as pointed out by ya'll above, *very interesting, thanks*, I've noticed how incomplete the Geocaching database is. I can understand the recent entries to the NGS database, like the CORS network of PIDs, but why are some obviously old benchmarks not included? Such as FO1325, a smokestack in ABQ. Its only history is 1946, when it was first observed.

Edited January 7, 2005 by BuckBrooke

[evenfall]

Buck,

 

Perhaps you were walking down more than one road in your mind than I am following...

 

Why is the geocaching database incomplete? Ok, I'll Bite, What would complete it for you? It is a __copy__(unmaintained) of the NGS Database but is not the actual one which is complete. The NGS feels it is quite complete as based on their needs...

 

I could go on but I want to see if you clarify more, and look at a few of the other recent posts from the past few days, there you will find references to the FAQ and some other posts which familiarization with to get up to speed.

 

The reason an old stack may have never been revisited can be many, and a good bit of finding out the details is part of the Mystique of benchmarks... This mystique is meant for you. It is but one of your burning questions to answer. Trust me, there will be others.

 

Rob

Edited January 7, 2005 by evenfall

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

In going through the county download convert to Excel scheme as pointed out by ya'll above, *very interesting, thanks*, I've noticed how incomplete the Geocaching database is.  I can understand the recent entries to the NGS database, like the CORS network of PIDs, but why are some obviously old benchmarks not included?  Such as FO1325, a smokestack in ABQ.  Its only history is 1946, when it was first observed.

 

I checked the original datasheet from the NGS and it had NO descriptive text available. It maybe, that when that datasheet was parsed for Geocaching.com, it was 'kicked out' for lack of the text. There is also the possibility that it was not in the yearly archive download that Geocaching used to set up the benchmark hunting database.

 

Just some speculations on my part.

 

John

[+DCDesertRats]

Hey Buck - I have a Garmin Legend that I got for Christmas - I love it! It's from Sportsman's Warehouse over near Costco off of Montgomery (or is it Montano at that point). I got it as a gift, but I think they're around $150.

 

I haven't tried it yet but I'm interested in benchmarks. I've been on some of the government database websites but I'm clueless on what I'm looking at. (I'm still really new at this!) There is a marker similar to some of the pictures that I seen, that is in the middle of my street. I'm going to check it out.

 

Anyhow - check out the Legend - it's cool.

 

Jim