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Ammo can in Montana

Tungsten

Ali recently made a trip to our local Solid Waste Drop-off Center to drop-off a few electronic items for recycling including our 1995 Panasonic television. We bought it the first year the Cleveland Indians went to the World Series and it never brought home a winner so it was time to move on. While gathering items, I had put aside my old Palm Tungsten to send to the recyclers. We've been caching for ten years this month. The electronic toys used in the game have changed so much. At one time a Palm was one of the few ways to go "paperless". It made such a difference using the Palm with my first Garmin Etrex. The Etrex had a black and white screen with no maps, loaded 500 caches and needed a special cord to load. Together, the Etrex and the Palm cost about $300. The Palm was never made for life on the trail. Over the years, I damaged or lost three or four of these expensive units. Fast forward to 2011 when I switched to a Magellan GC. For $150, I was able to cache with a color screen, very good maps and load 10,000 geocaches with all the page information. :-)

Palm Tungsten

Yellow Etrex

Magellan GC

One thing hasn't changed, I still enjoy finding benchmarks. :-)

Last GeoWoodstock IX Swag

It seems a long time since July 2011 and GeoWoodstock IX. After the Mega event closed, we purchased the last remaining swag to help close the books. We figured since we travel so much we could spread the items around in caches. The last pathtag went away recently somewhere in a cache in Washington, northeast of Spokane. We left the last trackable bear at Camels Prairie when we visited. It is most likely still there waiting at Idaho's oldest cache. You will need to do some physical work to get there, but the view is awesome (and it is a free unactivated trackable).

I think we left trackables and pathtags in twenty-two different states as we spread these around. Besides our three most visited states (OH-PA-NY), we also left items in a couple additional Great Lake states (MI and IN), New England (ME, NH, and VT), along my path to North Carolina (WV and VA), on our journey to GA (KY, TN, and SC), in the southwest (AZ and CA) and in the northwest (WA-MN-ID). We were lucky to have visited three Canadian Providences (Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia). We've also left NEOGEO pathtags at most of these locations.

We'll have to decide what we want to leave in caches next. I'm one of those cachers who still believe in trading and leaving stuff in caches. It makes the adventure more complete. Maybe it's time for our own pathtag to finally be made.

Although I think the design would look good in a trackable wooden coin too....

Fun with Travel Bugs

Maybe I've been reviewing too much lately...

The New World of Geocaching

Smart phones haven't changed the game for the better. I'm so old I can actually remember when people wrote "Thanks for the cache" in the log book at the end of the rest of their logs and wrote their own sentences for the on-line log. Now cache owners are spammed with pre-written logs as a thank you for all their efforts of placing a cache. I love this game. I hope I'm wrong, but today's fad quickly ends up left behind...

500 DNF's

There once was a find not made
Too bad, I had swag to trade
I gave a great sigh
I will log frowny guy
And will post that this cache needs aid.

While I didn't enter the Geocaching.com/Podcacher limerick contest, I though the above creation was appropriate for this post.

We recently hit the big 500 DNF milestone.

Actually, we don't really notice our total number of DNF's. I just checked out of curiosity and a little jealousy after seeing Dean F. receive the Geocacher of the Month Award. We will never be able to match the impressive stats of Dean F. ;-), but 500 is a bit of a milestone.

Since I'm a statistics geek, I had fun with a few items of interest (to me)

We officially started caching August 9, 2004.
We logged our first DNF 225 days later on March 25, 2005.

We've awarded 15 favorite votes to avenged DNF's.

We've actually avenged a number of our dnf's. The oldest DNF on a still-active cache which we've never avenged (although we tried many times) is Sparta Mall placed outside a small general store. We marked this as a DNF on May 27, 2006. Almost eight years is a long time for unfinished business. Maybe we need to stop and revisit this hide....

DNF's can be a good thing giving cause to return to an interesting place.

Baker's Rocks... DNF 9/10/05... Found 10/16/05

Not Maker Madness

People looking to make money off the sport of geocaching don't always have the best interests of geocaching in mind. There have been a number of fake hand grenade geocaches hidden recently, including one I accidentally published. These are a terrible idea. I can't imagine a place where a hide like this makes sense. If you find one while out caching, do the game a favor and let your local reviewer know.

Maker Madness - Log Cabin Hide

This now-archived hide at an Ohio State Park was placed by a staff member with the permission of the park. The hide used a hole which had once been used to pin logs together in the construction of the historic house. Please do not copy this hide through defacement.

Maker Madness - Railroad Spike

Note: This was not placed at a live railroad track!

Maker Madness - Waterproof Ammo Can

You had to go noodling for this ammo can which had been waterproofed and hidden below a ledge at water's edge.

Hidden ammo can

Revealed hidden on a ledge below the water.

Maker Madness - Cemetery Fence

Just a simple color-matched, fake bolt on the gate of a cemetery.

Maker Madness - Little Free Library Cache

The Maker Madness events were meant to be a forum for the best hiders to share their ideas on making a great hide. I wanted to use this blog during the Maker Madness window to highlight the best of the best. One issue with creative caches is the often stray outside the guidelines. That won't happen with those posted here. Enjoy the best we've seen.

Little Free Library cache...

The cupola on top of the library unit is an owner-added addition.

A hidden latch releases the roof of the cupola...

to reveal the geocache hiding location.

GeoTrail Fail in Marietta

We've been to Marietta, Ohio before and had a great time. In 2013, the city was running a geotrail with a trackable geocoin for those completing the trail. It sounded like the perfect way to spend a day in a town with happy memories. It wasn't. Marietta has no idea of how to treat tourists if you want to be successful at promoting tourism.

Throughout the day we struggled with lousy coordinates, missing caches, and just plain undesirable places to hunt caches. Some of the locations were interesting, but I really didn't want to hunt a cache in the bushes near boat ramps. Guess what fisherman do when it is too far to walk to the restroom? Why would a tourism bureau place a cache in that area? Better yet, why would they place a cache with lousy coordinates so geocaching tourists had to spend even more time hunting a cache in this fishing potty and trash dump? Oh yeah, the cache was missing.

Guess what returning boaters do in there where the cache would have been were it not missing?

So too, was the one at the library where it appeared some landscaper had removed all the bushes.

The cache by the historic Fearing House would have been an interesting find if the posted coordinates were at the rear of the house where the cache was supposed to be instead of the front of the house where this historical marker is. It didn't really matter since that cache was missing too.

The walk along the river was pleasant, but like so many other caches in the Marietta GeoTrail the cache was missing.

The one near the sewage pump house was there, but the coordinates were so bad, if you made the wrong guess of where the cache was, you got to hunt the cache while smelling raw sewage...YUCK. Does Marietta treat all their out-of-town guests this way, or do they see geocachers as a bunch of easy to please yahoos?

Don't take any deep breaths when near this sewage pumping station.

The worst slap of all was Marietta had given away all their coins; had no intentions of buying more; and didn't bother to tell anyone.

To me, a city treating geocaching tourists this way (lousy coordinates, undesirable locations, missing caches, broken and/or locked restrooms in their parks, deceit about the coins...) needs to step back and decide what their goal is from a GeoTrail. If it was to sucker geocachers into spending an evening and cash, they succeeded. We paid our hotel bill. We ate twice at their restaurants. In the end, I will cross the Ohio River and stay in West Virginia the next time we visit. I'm surprised the city was so clueless and treated geocachers so poorly. It was like they were mocking us while taking our dollars.

We ended our day on a happy note by caching our way south in West Virginia. We made some nice finds along the way and were sorry to see our caching time in West Virginia run out. My only regret was I convinced Ali to waste most of a day of our life in Marietta. I won't make that mistake again. To me it was made worse by the visitor's bureau not even contacting us when we complained about the GeoTrail. We've been lucky in life and have the dollars to make these trips and can get by when our money is so totally wasted as it was by the Marietta Convention and Visitor's Bureau. What we don't have is time. For taking time from my life that I don't have, I will never forgive the city of Marietta.

They could learn a huge lesson by talking to Marion, Ohio where we completed a geotrail and had a great time earning a geocoin or by talking to the Athens County Visitor Bureau where we went caching and had a great time and were aware before we visited that there were no coins remaining. Both towns blew away the weak effort of Marietta in terms of finding interesting locations for their hides, communicating with geocaching tourists, and making an effort to make us feel welcome. Marietta earned a solid F for its performance.

I try to use this blog to share our fun times with other geocachers. I would much rather have written a post about the great tourism time we had in Marietta. I hope this warns off future cachers and they take their hard-earned dollars elsewhere. (Hint: Athens would be a great alternative).

Parker Dam Event

It took five tries before we were actually able to attend, but we finally made it to the Fifth Annual Parker Dam Event. This annual event has always sounded like fun and our friends who attend each year always tell us they enjoy it. It's at the edge of a day trip for us, but we were in Pennsylvania and made this a priority.

The event is hosted by Redbat who owned the Legacy of Conservation GeoTrail and now has the CCC Legacy of Conservation GeoTrail. It was a super event. It was our type of event. We love hanging out with friends at a super park (think lower-key ASP Geobash). We were happy to see so many friends and be able to visit in a quiet setting. We were also finally able to see the legendary ammo can toss. We knew cachers stood at the beach and tossed ammo cans onto the beach. It was everything we expected. Everyone laughed and had fun. If we can make arrangements to be here, we will be sure to be back.

Redbat talks about the now ended Legacy of Conservation GeoTrail and the opening CCC GeoTrail.

The crowd gathers for the ammo can toss.

Geomen...

Geowomen...

and Geokids all participated.

The flags show a close competition.

The awards ceremony

Gwen was really happy there was a temporary cache placed just for geodogs. Phineas is Phinicky on the trail and won't eat treats.

It's a lot easier to have a great event when the weather is this wonderful and the location is super.

Legacy of Conservation GeoTrail

This trail seemed to take forever to complete. We started with a bunny find on the easiest cache in December 2010 and were never able to return to the hunt. The preparation for being one of the hosts for GeoWoodstock in Pennsylvania, my constant travel for work, and Ali returning to work all seemed to keep this trail from being found. There were a few caches in the series which we had already found. We revisited most of those in the first year or two. In spring of 2012, we had grand plans to find a number of caches during a trip to Williamsport, but some tough weather limited that trip.

In the end, we made a big push to finish the geotrail in May and June before it closed June 30th. We were lucky to enjoy two series of adventures with Eva while she was still with us. We finished the trail on June 21st.

We were really glad to have the opportunity to complete the trail. The caches were our kind of hides with a mix of tough hikes and tough climbs with a few surprises. About half the caches were like a highlight reel for many of the most beautiful places in Pennsylvania. The rest were often just plain wonderful walks in the woods. The pictures below are some of our memories of this amazing journey.

We had to look a couple times for the hide at Chapman State Park. This cache didn't gather many favorite votes, but we have a special fondness for Chapman. It was the Legacy of Conservation cache closest to our home and super place to go for a shorter hike. Depending on the day, you can see tundra swans passing through or an eagle hunting at the park. It is also home to Winterfest, one of our favorite geocaching events and one we have had the pleasure of hosting multiple times.

Smokey played a role in this geocaching trail. We enjoyed spotting this one with topo map pants at S.B. Elliot State Park.

Our Spring 2012 trip brought us to this quiet stream at a new (for us) state park.

This stream was in the land of the first Pennsylvania State Forest purchase.

Hyner View State Park has a great view, a benchmark for finding, and a scary looking hang gliding platform. The weather was tough on this cold, damp, spring day, but we enjoyed another visit to yet another Pennsylvania State Park.

Any reason to visit Cook Forest State Park is a good reason. We made our journey here on a blue-sky day.

Spring along the Clarion River in Clear Creek State Park

One of my happiest memories is an afternoon Ali and I spent at Kinzua Bridge when the bridge was still intact. We walked across the bridge with its awesome view and dropped though the valley on the trail across the stream and back. The happiness of that memory is so vivid that it hurts for me to return to this park. Seeing the dead remains of this magnificent piece is so painful I would rather not return. We came here and made the journey to the Legacy of Conservation cache and onto the remainder of the bridge on a cold, windy morning. I would be okay if this were my final visit.

We enjoyed Dobby's Home so much we visited it twice. :-) Both trips were memorable hikes in Elk State Forest. We enjoyed a return to pick up a card for the geotrail.

Some pictures will never capture an area. The cache called Coke and Hollywood was located at the largest coke oven banks I've ever seen. There were three banks of large numbers of big coke ovens. I've been to the ovens in Leetonia, Ohio and those are a large complex, but the number of ovens and the size of the ovens pales compares to the one's at this cache. A picture can't capture the sheer size of the operation.

I was born and raised in Ohio, but have grown to embrace Pennsylvania as my true home. I am happiest (except maybe when in California or Virginia) when exploring and hiking the trails here. Huge rocks are a part of the landscape that has become a part of me. Umbrella Rock and the trail leading to it is a super place to visit. This was our second visit to the area.

We missed the best time to take a walk along Kettle Creek where river otters were re-introduced to the state. We missed a spring visit which we could tell from a walk along the trail had been filled with an abundance of wildflowers. There were huge red trillium leaves along the one side of the old road and a large variety of other spring flowers. Our visit was close enough to spring that we could still see the large numbers of wildflowers which had bloomed. We also spotted the rather large bear paw print in the fresh mud.

Finding a Legacy of Conservation cache while visiting Leonard Harrison State Park was just icing on the cake. We've visited this beautiful place many times over the years. Being able to make a long hike here on a perfect day was an anticipated treat. The falls on the trail from Pine Creek to the state park at the top are not to be missed. We were thrilled to return, and the cache was fun.

Sand Run Falls was a new place for us to see. The hike was fun and challenging, but the falls were the star of the show. They were tall and running fast. We took photos at the bottom and made our way to the top of this powerful falls before hunting the cache.

Raven's Horn was a super hike to a great overlook in Tiadaghton State Forest. It was a no frills climb to the overlook with a nice return loop. We were doubly treated here since the rattlesnake was out for a perfect afternoon. There were so many posts about the rattlesnake it would have been a let down to miss it. I never go out of my way to find poisonous snakes or bears when on the trail, but knowing this snake was at least somewhat used to human traffic made me hopeful of an opportunity to take some (telephoto) images.

The trail for the cache Painter Cleft was a super hike, but a tough walk on a narrow trail in an area once known for mountain lions. The journey had a wonderful waterfall on the way and followed a beautiful stream. It's not hard to squint and see one of the creatures deep in this wooded area.

One of our last finds on this journey was a cache owned by George1 and used by the Legacy of Conservation for the trail. It was a series of falls Sproul State Forest. Like so many George1 caches that we found as side journeys on this GeoTrail, this was a wonderful locattion. George understood the real purpose of geocaching.

The Legacy of Conservation used a different method for cachers to prove they had visited a cache. Rather that an ink stamp which can dry out or be taken from the cache or a punch which also seem to always get lost in geotrail caches, this geotrail had a series of customed designed cards with people and subjects related to Pennsylvania conservation. They were baseball card-sized and really well thought out. They were a fun part of the geotrail.

The coin for completing the series was one of the best looking coins I have seen. Coins for most geotrails appear to be designed for the lowest cost point and with the easiest possible method. In general, many new geocoins seem to fit that description, but these were really well done. It is not trackable, but it is a prized memory of our fun.

At the end of the trail, this became our favorite geotrail. The Allegheny GeoTrail and the Seaway GeoTrail both have special memories for us, but the locations we visited on this trail were lifetime memories. I think our positive memory of this trail was enhanced because it was only thirty caches long. The lower number of caches meant a greater percentage of special places to visit. Once we actually found time to hunt the trail, the number of caches on the trail gave us the opportunity to seek other nearby caches which interested us, or as in the case of Pine Creek Gorge, hike into the park rather than park at the upper lot and find a relatively quick multi. We look forward to Redbat's CCC Legacy of Conservation GeoTrail and hope to complete it before the final month. ;-)