la montaña te llama

I would need to work to bring my caching success in Monterrey to 50%.  I am able to hunt a find on a couple trips a year, but the chances of a cache still being there is slim.  Still the opportunity to hike the trails and visit the mountains is the real reason for getting out.

Usually by Thursday, the sky over Monterrey is heavy with smog.  This week there was no rain to clear out the skies, but they were unusually clear giving a great view of the city on the rise from parking.  Maybe the area is seeing an industrial downturn from the upcoming recession which has lowered production and given clearer skies.  I was out for an evening hike with my local engineer and happy for the perfect weather.

It was an evening for dragonflies.

We were talking about how many stars can be seen from some of the mountainous areas to the southern part of the state.  He had mentioned a couple local parks had observatories including the one we were visiting.  I had noticed there was a cache on the path we were following.  We eventually reached the cache coordinates and the observatory!  It was not open for the evening, but made for a great coincidence.

We searched for the cache and came away without a find, but the journey was worth the evening spent.  Maybe we can look again during a future hike.

Translated: The mountain calls you

Missed FTF's

I was in Monterrey for business and spent Sunday afternoon hiking with my engineer. He wanted to show me the waterfalls at the end of a trail near the far end of Estanzuela Park. It sounded like the perfect way to spend the afternoon. I had loaded my gps on the hope that I might be near a cache or two while in the area. The hike back was an interesting venture. Besides a high climb, the park has placed brick walkways on the inclines. We saw a number of other visitors fall and even a few injuries. We also saw coati, but my memory card decided to eat ~40 images from the journey. :(

We stopped on the way to see the sights.

The Falls were really scenic.

Even more interesting was the gps. It showed this unfound cache was about 700 feet from the falls. This unfound cache was about 1000 feet from upstream from the falls. Could it be two unfound caches waiting almost four years were within our grasp? I must admit, this was really exciting.

We crossed the stream and made our way towards the nearest of the unfound hides. We were back in the stream and within 300 feet of the hide when the trail whistle blew. Oh no, we were being called of the trail because of the time of day. Because of the injury risks and the presence of black bears, the area we were in closed a few hours before the rest of the park. We hung our head and made our way back.

Overall, this was an extremely strenuous journey. The area closed for entries very early so we were pushing hard all the way to the restricted area. The 700 feet from the trail to the cache appears to be mostly in the fast moving stream. Having been so close, I eagerly await the return challenge first-to-find or not.

First Find in Mexico

I will be in Mexico about five times this year. This was my first visit and really had me thinking about the chance to add another country to our found map. With all the violence there, I was a bit hesitant about the thought of geocaching. This cache was almost on top of the hotel and begged for a find. The cache has a strange history of logs. The page description says it is a nano. It hadn't been found since November 2011. Before that, it hadn't been logged as found since October 2010 with a string of dnf's. There's a note from October by another cacher who claimed to have left a micro in place of the nano last October. I looked three different times and had all but given up when I finally spotted something odd. It was a nano at just about ground zero. I am assuming it was the original hide safe and sound in a nice hiding spot. The hunt was interesting. One attempt was thwarted by a truck with Federales and a mounted machine gun parked less than 200 feet away. I held off on a second attempt when I realized there was a meeting taking place with two cars about fifty feet from the hide location.

There aren't many caches in the Apodaca area, but with four more trips this year, I am tempted to hunt for the nearby travel bug hotel.