Geo-art: Putting Kat on the Map

Kat on the Map

Today I had a window of opportunity to cache in the morning, and a veteran local cacher had asked earlier this week to go on a cache quest this weekend.  So, the stars aligned and we were able to get out for what would be, for me, a new one-day record for geocaches found.  What was even more exciting was that we were going to do some geo-art.

SDPD even logged this one

I teamed up with Unknown_2_You (U2U for short) at about 6:30 am, and we drove down to an area near Otay Mesa.  Mexico was clearly visible, as we were only a few miles from the border.  I hadn't cached this far south of San Diego, so there were hundreds of unfound caches down here, but since U2U is closing in on 12,000 finds, we focused on what he still needed to do. There was a smattering of new caches in the area, but the big kahuna was a cache series known as 'See Kat on the Map' (an example is here) that was placed by Kat-Attack. There are about 40 caches in this series, mainly hidden in a residential community.  Neighborhood hides are my least favorite because you never know if the neighbor with the shotgun knows about the cache.  In fact, one of the caches we found today had been signed by the SDPD (they even left a 'the SDPD was here' sticker by the hide site), so somebody must have reported some suspicious activity.  However, it turned out that most of these were fine, but the real attraction to this series for me was the geo-art.  When you look at the series on the map, it spells out the word 'KAT'. The screen shot above shows this reasonably well.  Although this is a pretty cool example of geo-art, some of these can be very elaborate. The two series below are a couple of my favorites, but you can see others at this blog. It's hard enough placing a few caches along a trail and getting it right, I can't imagine how complicated these series are to make.  Truly Geo-art!

A jet in Idaho (Picture courtesy of
The Geocaching Librarian)

One of the first examples of geo-art:
Alien Head in Nevada (GC253ZN)

One of the best examples I've seen of this type. I
looked at it several times before realizing.

I love when the log is as tricky to find as the cache!

U2U and I did this series in segments, parking on a side street and walking to 5-6 caches before moving to the next spot.  We probably did several miles of walking on this beautiful Saturday morning.  One of the things I really liked about this series was the variety of hide types.  Many times, an experienced geocacher can walk up to an urban cache and spot it instantly.  There are a number of common types of hides in the city, and it takes a lot of creativity to think up clever ways to hide things along streets.  I found many surprises in this series.  Hide sites in tiny cracks, magnetic pouches containing logs, the standard magnetic bison container, cammo'd spice containers, peanut butter jars, and Eppendorf tubes. Although I have been caching for several years, I learned several new tricks today.  I posted pictures of the coolest cammo/caches, but they are not necessarily from the Kat series (and, hopefully, no spoilers here). It was great to have a veteran geocacher like U2U along, because he was able to figure out a couple of toughies that I feared were going to be DNFs.  Speaking of those dreaded DNFs, we did have a couple that we could not find.  One where a bunch of homeowner muggles were standing right next to the bush we needed to search, and one that appeared to be missing. But between the Kat caches and some other ones in the area, we found about 40... a new 1-day record for me.  We did miss some of the Kat caches in the 'K' segment, so we wound up spelling something that looks more like 'Cat' than 'Kat', but it still looks cool on the map. I can't imagine how long it must have taken to plan this picture, set all the interesting geocaches, create all the cache pages at GC, and then maintain them. A big "Thank You" to Kat-Attack for this fantastic new series!

Caching on Catalina: Part 1

TCT marker near Two Harbors

In early August, my family took an epic, back country hiking trip along the Trans-Catalina Trail.  The TCT is a relatively new trail that stretches across almost the entire length of Catalina Island (located about 25 miles off the coast of Los Angeles).  It was a fantastic hike, and a good multi-day adventure for our family.  Although we are not novice backpackers, (we have done some segments of the Pacific Crest Trail and we have done several grueling treks across Anza Borrego desert to Red Top), this was a long hike by our standards.  There was a very recent blog post by SoCal Hiker (here) that provides a lot of information on how to do the TCT. Information on the Catalina Island Conservancy (TCT, camping, and boating information) can be found here.

Hiking along the ridge towards Little Harbor

Little Harbor: Our camp site was on the left edge of this picture

We took the ferry from San Pedro, and after a stop at Avalon (where most people got off) the ferry took us to Two Harbors.  Our plan was to hike from Two Harbors back to Avalon and catch the return ferry there.  We picked up our permits and purchased firewood in Two Harbors, and then stopped at the general store for a few last minute items.  Our hike began around mile 26 (if you want to follow along, here is a pdf map of the trail) and not too far out of Two Harbors was a cache known as 'With Child' (link).  Unfortunately, we would have had to backtrack a bit to get to the cache, so although I was only a couple of hundred feet from GZ, we had to let it go.  We passed two more caches on the first segment, as they were again located on trails that were out of the way for us. Finally, we worked our way down the ridgeline to the place we had been longing for all day.  My family will say it was the campground, but for me it was my first cache of the trip.  We dropped our gear off at Campsite 9, and my family wanted to relax awhile before setting up camp.  I wandered off to get the cache 'Out on a limb' (link). First published by Doxyluvr in September 2011, this cache had only been found 12 times before I came along.  A typical San Diego cache would get 12 logs in the first few days after it published, so this one is kinda lonely.  I had to walk through another campsite to get to GZ, so I was glad those people were not there yet. After a brief spin around the object at GZ, I made the find.

A couple of trackables at camp

After setting up camp, taking some travel bug pics, and eating dinner, we explored the harbor.  We followed the beach to its northern end to look for a cache called 'Marley's cache' (link).  I was barefoot at the time and when I got to GZ, I realized I would have to go back to camp for shoes.  There were a lot of coordinate issues with this one when it first published, and I wasn't sure how far off the beach I was going to have to tread. Cactus thorns and long hikes do not mix well. Fortunately, the cache was a quick find, even though it was very well-cammo'd and the coords were off a bit. I was 6th to find since Sept 2011 (Doxyluvr hid this one, too).

A wonderful evening at camp

The last cache near the camp was 'SOS Rock' (link) and with a 3-star difficulty and terrain rating, I was a little hesitant to go after it.  The approach from Marley's cache looked difficult and previous logs suggested it may be quite treacherous (the owner, BMKSS, even put a 'dangerous cliffs' icon on the description).  I was tired and could not afford an unnecessary injury, so I let that one go. Besides, it gives me an excuse to come back to this wonderful little campground!  By dusk, I was the only one awake, so I took a glass of wine back to the beach. I can post pictures, but it really doesn't capture the peaceful nature of this spot. Particularly at heavy dusk, when the purples come out in the sky and the who-whish of the waves is the only stimulus.  This is why I like to geocache in these crazy places, to see things that few people ever get a chance to enjoy.

A FTF and a 4X Saturday

A sucky picture of city lights near GZ.  The moon is to the left.

A couple of new caches popped up on a Friday night, and with some free time on my hands, I decided to go after one of them. Since I reveal the cache container in this post, I will not provide a link to the cache.  It's better if you experience it yourself.  The cache was in a well known part of Mission Trails Regional Park, so I knew right away where I had to park and that the hike to the hide site would be safe to do at night.  I love hiking MTRP at night.  It's a little bit scary because it is very dark and there are TONS of coyote and who knows what else out there.  This one was less than a half mile from the trail head and even with a dying flashlight, I was able to make it to GZ without incident.  However, GZ was not exactly what I expected.  No bush, no boulder formation, no sign, no obvious hide site.  I tried re-zeroing but it was leading me to places I knew were no good for cache hides.  This hide was from an experienced geocacher, surely he would not just throw a container in a patch of weeds and call it a cache site.  The cache type was not chosen, so I wondered if it was a fake rock or some other type of trickery.  With limited light, it was hard to distinguish real from fake.  Maybe the coordinates were off.  Way off.  It had happened before on FTF hunts.  A GZ off by 30' is a LOT of ground to search at night.  And I didn't have all night.

Very, very sneaky...

Yes, there was an element of panic now.  I had come all the way out here, I was not about to leave empty handed.  Deep breaths, deep breaths. Was there any other information in the description that might help.  Anything at all.  Wait... what was that?  Ahhh.... bingo!  That was the feeling that I craved on these FTF hunts.  One of the better cache containers I have seen in awhile, and hidden in such a natural state. Very satisfying.  I love these kinds of hides!!

Mission Bay: Enchanted Isle in the foreground and
Sea World in the distance (the sky tower)

Saturday was a day for Munzee.  With normal 'green' munzees worth 4X the normal points (20 points for a cap or deploy), it was time to crank up the score.  Thankfully, Jayterho had recently deployed a bunch of new munzees along the bayfront in Mission Bay, so I had a great place to go cap green munzees.  I capped about 10 or so in the morning, during a walk with my wife and geopets, but we had to leave because of another obligation.  So I came back in the afternoon to finish them off.  Capped a few nearby Motel munzees and was able to get a room in both, which means I get residual points when other people cap them even though I didn't deploy the munzee. I followed the sidewalk from Tecolote Shores park, past the Hilton, and ended near Mission Bay park.  As I was finishing, I ran into ThunderousVoice, one of the local legends in both geocaching and munzee.  He's been laid up for a few weeks, but hobbled out for the same series I was doing.  We chatted for a bit and when I reached the end of Jayterho's trail, I was at the parking lot where ThunderousVoice had parked, so I deployed three new ones for him to cap after he got back to the car.  He was first to cap on all three! I ended up scoring over 600 points and moved up to Level 57.  Our clan earned the first weapon and made good progress towards the Mace (most of us are over 500 points now).  If you remember my last Clan post (here), I did pretty well with strategy #1 and #2.  More importantly, I got to spend several hours in a beautiful part of San Diego!

Travel Bugs in Space

Event souvenir from geocaching.com

Last night, I attended the ‘Geocaching rockets into space (again)’ event in San Diego (link).  This was a special event, as we were gathered to watch a Travel Bug launch into space!  Well, it was an astronaut who was launched and he happened to be carrying a TB with him, but still… it is only the second time that geocaching has been brought to the ISS, so we were all stoked.  Attendees who logged this event also earned a special souvenir for their geocaching profile (shown on left).  You can read some of the background on the story (here). The cache on the Space Station is listed here. If you want to follow the travel bug, here is the page.

Courtyard crowd

The event was held at Acoustic Ales Brewing Experiment, which is located off Hancock Rd near the airport.  Turnout was great! I don’t have the official attendance figures, but early estimates are in the 60-70 range, which is pretty good for a weeknight event.  Particularly since there were two similar events in the greater San Diego area.  The beer here was very good. I had a sample of one of the cask beers (the name was long and had Chinook in it, so it must be good, right?) and also tried the Mosh Pit.  It was a little tamer than a real mosh pit, but was tasty. Thanks to ClanCampbellChandler for springing for my beer, I’ll buy the first round at the next event!

No TBs made it to space here

Some of us attempted to launch our own TBs into space using stomp rockets, which was a lot of fun.  Prizes were awarded for highest launch etc, but we all hoped that the real Russian rocket would fly higher (and straighter!) than our feeble efforts.  After the courtyard was littered with the debris of a thousand failed launches, it was time to eat.  Fish tacos out front (yummy), sandwiches and cupcakes inside.  The cupcakes were A-mazing!!!  Thanks to brilynn.d for bringing them and for braving the crowds to grab the last one for me! I made time to chat with Loookin4u about a possible new quest for the Red Top caches.  I’ll have some blogs about my previous adventures at Red Top soon.  Deniel3 needed some help with a puzzle cache involving DNA, so I gave him a little shove in the right direction.  LLOT and I talked about his sailing adventures.  CCC (who is also JP92071), brilynn.d, and I also talked about Munzee.  Had to keep these discussions very hushed, lest we get thrown out of the geo-party!  It was great to have so many folks I knew there last night!

Flagman in his space suit

Just after the launch

Eventually, Flagman (our wonderful host!) called the geo-crowd to order and made a few announcements.  We were hoping he was going to volunteer to go up on the next ISS mission (I mean, he’s got the snappy space suit, what else do you need?) but he was just offering up a few more prizes.  Then, with the bar silent, the volume on the TVs was raised to hear the final countdown (cue the Europe song).  It was a bit surreal.  The bar, deafening only moments earlier, was completely silent (the non geocaching patrons were surely wondering what was going on).  Moments later, there was a thunderous roar as the Soyuz rocket lifted smoothly off the launch pad.  As they approached space, a capsule shot showed them reading some kind of manual, leaving some to remark that it was a little early to be checking the hint on the ISS cache. 

Suspicious mob spotted near airport

With the TB safely on its way to the ISS, many people started heading for the exits.  We weren’t done for the night, though.  Bar hopping?  No way… about 15-20 of us went off in search of a nearby cache (GC4QMH3).  We had to walk several blocks and cross over the train tracks to get to an isolated area near the airport.  I’m sure it is cool here during the day (and probably very busy!) but aside from a few FedEx trucks and some homeless muggles, we were the only ones out last night.  Osteado made the find and Trixxster signed us all in.  Fun times, but I think the locals were really wondering what this pack of folks was doing out so late on a Wednesday night!! Just a bunch of crazy San Diego geocachers.  Unfortunately, in my excitement to seek this cache, it turned out I didn’t sign the event log… apparently the one in the bathroom was only a replacement! 

Not the event log!

Geo-searching in Primm, NV

Roller Coaster on Primm Blvd.

The playa at Ivanpah

On the way home from Geocoinfest, I stopped in Primm, NV.  Primm is the little town on the border of California and Nevada.  It is also home to a number of geocaches, a couple Earthcaches, and some munzees, including an elusive Campfire Munzee. I had stopped in Primm on the way to Vegas and grabbed a few caches, but Wayward Nation's Campfire Munzee was in a location that I was not comfortable going to in the dark (and that's really saying something!).  Turns out it wasn't so bad, but a solo night hike into unfamiliar desert terrain can turn into one of those "Geocacher goes missing in desert" stories.  So, daytime was much safer and a lot cooler as well since I could actually see stuff.  The Earthcache was at Ivanpah Dry Lake (here's the link) and, as most ECs are, it was very interesting.  Ivanpah is located in the Mojave desert and, obviously, is a dry lake bed or 'playa'.  For those of you who have been to Burning Man, that festival is held on a similar playa.  Ivanpah is a very dry, flat area, and the concentrated salts in the dirt limit plant growth.  These conditions and the prevailing winds make it a very popular place for land sailing.  In 2009, the world land sailing speed record was set here (126 mph).  Unfortunately, because of the government shutdown, the area was closed and I didn't get to see anybody sailing. I did get the required information for the Earthcache (again, forcing me to observe things I might not have otherwise noticed), and I finally did capture the elusive Campfire Munzee!!  

     I grabbed the nearby cache 'Just over the Fence' (link), which sits on the CA/NV border.  A nice Ammo Can that has seen a lot of use over the years.  Well-guarded by some rusty barbed wire marking the border, but nothing too dangerous.  I also dropped one of my own Travel Bugs in the Sloan Exit Travel Bug Rest Stop (link), which was a few miles before Primm, in a little town called Sloan. If you want to follow this CA-themed travel bug as starts its travels, visit the TB's page here.

Exit sign
(photo by Christopher Mann McKay)

Zzyzx Rd. Earthcache

Late afternoon on Zzyzx Rd. in the Mojave Desert

   Crossing the border back into California, I drove a few miles down I-15 to an empty little exit labeled Zzyzx Road (don't ask me how to pronounce it!).  I saw this on the map when planning this trip and, fortunately, there is another Earthcache here, so I had an excuse to stop and check this area out. The Earthcache was named 'Zzyzx: The Oldest Rocks in the World' (here's the link) and I have to say, this was one of the hardest ECs I have ever done.  The logging requirements involved seven questions, most relating to the geology of the area.  I was very interested to learn about the age of the rocks in the area (which were different depending on which way you looked) and how those rocks came to be in the various locations.  The oldest rocks here were pre-Cambrian gniess that were formed over 1.5 billion years ago!!  The area was just gorgeous, especially in the soft light of a late October afternoon.  After I obtained what I hoped was the right information for this cache, I continued my drive towards home.  Along the way, I noticed similar rock formations along the road and found myself trying to identify them.

Munzee Clan Battle #8 begins!

After two days of scrambling to get the required ten players, our clan began battle last night.  This is the eighth clan battle that Munzee has done, and the third for which I have participated. My clan, the Mixed Doh Nutz, is an offshoot of the original Mixed Nutz clan started by Vanderarban.  Vanderarban recruited me to her clan in September, which was the first time that clan weapons were available.  It's an intense but fun 28 days of group Munzee.  The goal is to score as many points as possible as a group and compete against other clans around the world (about 250 different clans now).  We had munziers from all over the country, Canada, and Europe on the Mixed Nutz clan.  The weapons, which are merely special munzees that you win by hitting certain point totals, were a great new feature as they are only available via clan warfare, have special functions, and give you a unique icon when capped. To get these, every member of the clan has to hit 500 points (Mace munzee), 1000 points (Longsword munzee), or 2500 points (The Chuck).  The Chuck is a cache of 5 Maces and 5 Longswords.  We qualified for the Chuck on the last day as two people scrambled to get the final points.  It was quite exciting rooting for a stranger in Canada to find enough munzees to finally push us over the edge.

For the last two months, I have been with the Dohs.  It's a more relaxed group and that works for me because scoring 2500 points in a month is tough in San Diego.  I did it in September, but I had to drive to LA so I could go capping in a Mystery Garden.  Even with the string of virtuals I hit along Las Vegas boulevard (see post here), I could only manage about a thousand points last month.  As a clan, we only qualified for the first weapon, so it's not easy getting the Chuck. This month, I have my own personal strategy for capping at least a thousand points:

1. Cap a couple new Hotel munzees.  Hotels are another new type of munzee where the first few people to cap get a 'room' in the hotel and can score points as future people cap the hotel.  These bonus residual points are a great way to boost score without having to rely solely on finding munzees.

2. Take advantage of November 9th.  Munzee occasionally has special days where the point values of each munzee you deploy or cap is higher than normal.  Sometimes double, sometimes triple.  On the 9th, all regular munzees (special types are excluded) are worth 4X!  Given that there are a LOT more regular munzees in San Diego than the special types, this will be a great way for me to crank up the points locally.

3. Deploy, deploy, deploy.  I have deployed a significant number of the munzees in San Diego, but I will be looking for more opportunities to grow the map.  When I started back in January, there were only a couple of active players in the area.  Now there are at least ten active players, as well people that travel to San Diego, so I'm starting to see more capping on my munzees.  I have a bunch of regular munzees to put out there and a number of specials, including some weapons, a Hotel munzee, and a Quiz munzee.

We'll see how it all goes, but I'm hoping our clan can at least pick up the Mace again.  We can't compete with the top clans (scoring hundreds of thousands of points), but it's a lot of fun to meet new people and try to attain these small goals. In the Spring, there were no clans, no weapons, no Hotels, no Quizzes... the game has really come a long way in the last few months.  It's been a lot of fun to watch that, too.