ALS Virtual Ice munzees

The ALS Virtual Ice icon

Anybody miss the ice bucket challenge videos yet? I confess I grew tired of those pretty quickly, but there is no denying that the viral campaign was hugely successful at raising money and awareness for ALS. Munzee had a successful campaign supporting Ronald McDonald House with the RMH Virtuals, and so they ran a similar campaign for ALS this month. Virtual Ice cubes appeared in the Munzee store in early September and for a few bucks you could buy four of them (with a significant donation to ALS). A player earned 32 points for the deploy and each cap split 32 points between the capper and deployer, so they were high point value munzees. Being a virtual, they could be placed anywhere in the world, and between these two factors, they became very popular. They were also included as prizes for the lower levels in the clan war this month, so there was also ample opportunity to win them.

Thousands of ALS Ice Cubes near McKinney, TX

I bought eight of them early on (and wond three in the clan war) and placed a couple in San Diego. The rest I sprinkled around the world at proven virtual hot spots... Cologne, Hamburg, London, and in a little town in Texas called McKinney. McKinney, of course, is the site of the big Octoberfest Munzee Bash, which is happening today. With hundreds of munzers coming together for beer and capping, these virtuals were almost guaranteed a ton of caps. I deployed early in the month, so my virtual ice is located pretty close to the site of the party. Clearly, others had the same idea, and soon it became the largest virtual ice field in the world!

As September comes to an end, it is clear the placements have paid off. Three of my ALS Virtual Ice munzees are in my top ten deployment list (one has 86 caps). I've scored almost 15,000 cap on points, have jumped 15 levels (to level 96 and counting), and cracked the top 2000 in the world (currently at 1892). I can't imagine what the cappers in McKinney are scoring! It's been a lot of fun watching the points roll in and there is no question that the ALS Ice have contributed greatly to individual scoring. I have to give major kudos to all of those at the Munzee Bash who capped my munzees!! I wish I could have been there!!! As the Virtual Ice melts away and the munzees disappear at the end of the month, I think it is safe to say that the ALS campaign was one of the most successful munzees yet!

Munzee Virtual Gardens

First official Munzee virtual garden in McKinney, TX

Over the past six months, there has been an explosion in the number of virtual gardens around the world. With the addition of the virtual mystery munzee and a rainbow of colors that can be applied to virtuals, some incredibly impressive works of geoart have been created. Just a few days ago, Munzee deployed the first "official" munzee garden using the new emerald virtual. This geoart is located just outside McKinney, TX and is not far from the new Munzee Marketplace. I was incredibly fortunate to get one of these (they sold out in less than an hour) and am very proud to have contributed to this historical garden (you can see my munzee in the letter n).

Flags in Copenhagen, Denmark

I'm not sure when the first munzee geoart was made, but the first one I contributed to was the flag project in Copenhagen. I travel to Copenhagen on occasion for business (and I'll eventually have a post about some of my geo-adventures there), so when this came up I felt compelled to help build the American flag. You can see from the picture that the American flag has about 60 spots for munzees, and required (obviously) red, white, and blue ones. When this started being built a few months ago, I had some regular virtual munzees, which are white, so I deployed one there. It appears as the grey munzee in the center white stripe of the flag.

Rubik's Cube in Budapest, Hungary

I have also deployed virtuals in a Rubik's Cube in Hungary, an American flag in TN, and in a few unfinished projects. There are also virtual fields that are more ad hoc in nature. These huge congregations of virtuals are placed haphazardly anywhere the user can find a space. These often become colorful explosions of virtuals, special munzees and regular greenies. If you want to try your hand at creating some munzee geoart, here is a good tool by Hinklenator (virtual grid generator)

US flag and partial TN flag near Franklin, TN

Here in San Diego, we recently had our first ad hoc virtual field appear, deployed in large part by H2OKLAN and Habu. You can see from the picture below that I have already captured about half of the munzees in this area (mainly mystery virtuals) and have deployed a bunch myself. This area of Fiesta Island is special to me because when I first started playing Munzee two years ago, there were very few munzees down here. I love the area and it is near SeaWorld, so I thought it might be a good place to start growing the map. For months, I would swing by here when I had time and deploy a few munzees. People would come cap them and deploy some more and then I would return to cap the new ones and so on. Eventually, the area exploded and is now the highest concentration of munzees in the greater San Diego area. It's great for me as well because I don't have to travel to LA as often to score points for the clan wars. I can't compete with the power players, who have come to dominate the area, but this is a great example of a situation where a few players (jayterho, patnanz, JOK, habu, and razztazzzz were also early deployers in the area) can have a big impact on growing the map.

San Diego's first major virtual cluster on Fiesta Island

Nirvana Avenue

An appropriate street name combo

A few weeks ago, I had to drive one of my kids down to the Sleeptrain Amphitheater for a concert (Slightly Stoopid). The venue is in Chula Vista, a few miles from the border, and so it is an area chock full of caches I have not found yet. I had some time to kill waiting for the concert to end, and I passed Nirvana Avenue. As a fan of many of these great alternative bands of the late 80's and early 90's, I felt obliged to see if there was a cache on this road. Not only were there several caches, but they paid homage to this great band. So, naturally, I had to stop.

The road itself was lined with office buildings and, oddly enough, junked car lots. It was a strange area, especially at night, and was very quiet. Too quiet, actually. The first stop was a cache named Dave Grohl by user ÂŃÔŃ¥MÔÜŠ (GC46ENW). It looked like your standard magnetic hide on one of those big green electrical boxes. Those green boxes are affectionately known as 'boogers' out here, and it took me awhile when I was first caching in SoCal to understand these hints (the cache is on a booger?). Anyhow, I checked a couple of places and then noticed a security guard in the neighboring parking lot. He hadn't spotted me, so I went back the car and waited until he had passed. Returning to my search, I checked out a few other areas before the guard returned. He had spotted me this time, and I figured it was time to move on. I've had run-ins with security before and they are usually pretty cool about caches, but I don't like pushing my luck. So, I left good ol' Dave unfound.

Next up was Krist Novoselic (GC46EP4). This hide was more or less what I was expecting before. Magnetic Altoids tin hidden in a likely spot. However, I ran into a security guard at this hide too -- an eight-legged one!! The cache was right in the middle of a huge black widow's web. Black Widow's are a serious hazard while night caching, but after the DNF at Dave's hide, I wasn't about to DNF Krist! I found a stick and attempted to remove the cache, but the magnet was too strong. I now had a cache that was further away and a very angry spider. Undaunted, I tried using the stick with a little more oompf and BAZINGA! The cache went flying into the darkness!  After a brief search, I had logged Krist and returned the cache to the area of the angry spider.

Then it was time for the big kahuna... Kurt Cobain (GC46EP9). According to the GPSr, I parked right on top of poor ol' Kurt, so I knew it was close. Searched a few likely spots with my cell phone flashlight and was getting worried that this was going to be another dreaded DNF. Finally had an 'aha' moment (more like a D'oh moment) and the cache was mine. Hidden in plain sight... I think Kurt would have liked that hide.

A pre-4th of July Cache/Munzee quest

On Thursday, I had a rare day off from work in which I had a large chunk of time for my geo-addictions. I was primarily interested in hitting some Munzees, as I was recruited by an Australian Clan to join them this month. The clan wars for July have three levels: Baby Chuck, Chuck, and Super-Chuck. The requirements for the Super-Chuck, although do-able, are beyond what I can commit to in an average month. However, the number of Munzees in San Diego have grown rapidly in the last six months, and so I do have the ability to get the Chuck without having to make too many trips to LA (where the Munzee density is very high). Anyhow, there were a group of Munzees in Temecula that I wanted to get in order to make a jump start on the month's requirements. I was also hoping to hit some geocaches in the area. So, I sent a text to Unknown_2_You, one of the few people in San Diego that are active in both Geo-games, and asked if he was up for a quest.

Lake Harveston

   The first stop was a group of munzees at Harveston Lake in Temecula. There were a number of mysteries here, as well as some virtual caches and a couple of motels. My experience with Munzee so far has not taken me to many extraordinary places (mainly parking lots) but this was a really beautiful lake. We parked on one end and followed the trail of munzees the whole way around. It was early morning, so the weather was still cool and there were a LOT of people out enjoying the area. Unfortunately, U2U and I had numerous technical problems. My phone kept re-booting (about every other munzee) and each reboot took 3-5 minutes to get back to the map. Not cool. The phone was lucky it didn't wind up in the lake!! U2U had problems with the sun. It was hard to see what he was scanning and so it took numerous tries to finally get a scan. These issues, coupled with our leisurely pace, made the round trip take much longer than I had planned. On the bright side, I did win a Blast Cap (as part of Munzee's third birthday celebration) and I also leveled up to Level 63, so it was worth it. I also got a First-to-Cap on one of the virtuals (U2U got the others as it seemed every time we got near one, my phone wigged out).

Mission San Luis Rey

     My phone battery was shot after all the scanning and re-booting, so we decided to move on to geocaching. In our haste, I forgot to use one of my Blast Caps to get the large group of regular munzees nearby. There is a rumor of a 3X point weekend this month... perhaps I'll come back then. We headed back to 76 and crossed over towards Oceanside and hit a few caches and then had lunch at In-N-Out. During lunch, we eyed a group of caches near an old Mission and decided we would work our way there. This turned out to be a fantastic choice, as the Mission was very cool! Mission San Luis Rey is a beautiful building, along with the remains of what was once the original Mission. The two caches here took us to some cool spots with great views of the Mission. It was the third cache in this group and was my favorite of the day (as well as cache #1700 for me... woot!). I have a soft spot for cemetery hides, and this one was at a cool pioneer cemetery across the street from the Mission. Reading about who was buried here and the history behind the cemetery was really cool, and the place itself was spooky enough in the daytime, I can't imagine what it must be like at night! I recently capped a quiz munzee in El Campo Santo in Old Town at around midnight. Yeah, you want creepy, go cap that one when the spirits are restless.

The cemetery across the street from the Mission

  U2U and I ended up with about 400 points on Munzee and about a dozen caches. The adventure took us to the lake and the Mission, but also to an abandoned drive-in movie theater and part of the SLURRT (the San Luis Rey River Trail). We DNF'd a couple of caches, chatted with a couple of homeless muggles, and got lost roaming around shopping center parking lots. All in all, it was a fantastic day off!

Geocaching leads you to the most amazing things...

The basin at sunset with the State House in the background

Another month and yet another trip for work.  This time, I was in downtown Providence, RI for a peptide drug development conference.  I was excited about this trip not only for the great science, but also because I would find my first cache in Rhode Island. Woot!! As it turned out, I had very little time for caching, so my choices were limited to the ones around the hotel. There were several nanos down by the Waterfront, so on my last night I ventured out to find them. The first one was Providence Nano Series #12: Waterplace Park by Aerial (GC2RG5C), a tough to find but very well-placed nano near a well-populated basin. As you can see from the picture above, it is a gorgeous place to see the river, shopping, and the State House. In the basin were a bunch of baskets of firewood, which I thought was strange (you can see them in the picture).

Closer view of the State House in Providence

Beginning of the Waterfire event!

Fire in the basin during Waterfire

I was able to get a closer view of the State House with another cache in this series, #11 Station Park (GC2RG42). This was another well-placed cache that took me awhile to find. I then got a call from the family back home in San Diego, who were dealing with serious wild fires, so by the time I was ready for the next hide, it was almost dark. A number of people were amassing near the basin, and music was being piped into the area, so I decided to return. What I saw was a true treat, and something I would have missed if it were not for geocaching. Waterfire! I started chatting with the guy standing next to me about what was going on, and apparently his son is a volunteer for this event, which happens a number of times each summer. A group of people with torches walk silently through the crowd to the dock, where skiffs filled with people dressed in black (and a lot of wood) pass by and take the torches out to light the wood in the river. Between the ceremony, the music, and the fire, it was a really, really cool event. I'm so lucky to have caught this as I had no idea this was going to happen this night.  Apparently, this was the first one of the year, and had been rescheduled based on the weather and the tides through the river. I wound up hanging out down at the basin for over an hour, watching the boats tend to the fires, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells, and enjoying the company of a few hundred locals.

Near H. P. Lovecraft's grave

My last geocache in Rhode Island was also pretty special. As I was looking for caches near the hotel, I saw a virtual cache called H.P. Lovecraft by Julia (GC9497). I'm a huge fan of cemetery hides, and a fan of Lovecraft, so when I saw what this cache was all about, I had to find it. I drove out to this one on my way back to Logan airport. GZ is in Swan Point cemetery, and is located near Lovecraft's grave. I had no idea that he was buried here and so I took an extra 45 minutes getting lost in the south side of Pawtucket looking for this place. What I found was one of the most beautiful cemeteries I have ever seen. A truly peaceful place, with interesting markers, blooming trees, and a true sense of reverence. It took me a bit to zero in on where his grave was, and apparently the cemetery folks monitor people who venture into this area. By the time I parked and walked over to where his tombstone was, I saw the security people coming my way. I got the info I needed to log the virtual cache, but was reminded by the security people that no pictures were allowed. Fortunately, I took one before I got to GZ, so this gives you an idea of what the general area looks like. I never would have seen his grave if it were not for this cache, so I got two memorable experiences on this trip.

Conference and caching: Ventura, California

On the way to Ventura

It's been a couple months since my last post. Work has been super busy and I have been preparing for two talks I had to give in Copenhagen. Yes, there was some good geocaching there, but first was a trip to Ventura, California for the Gordon Research Conference on the Chemistry and Biology of Peptides.  Great conference, but

Artwork near the Ventura Rocks cache

after sitting around in a conference room for two days, I needed to get out. I have cached in Ventura before, in fact, some of my favorite caches are there. One area that had been on my to-do list was Grant Park. The first stop was a cache called Ventura Rocks (link), a cache by MaxGold with a 4.5 star terrain rating. Reading the description and past logs made it sound like a doable 4.5 stars, so I decided to check it out on the way to the park. GZ brought me to a nice neighborhood adjacent to a deep canyon. there was a convenient trailhead right next to parking so I followed the arrow down the steep trail to the bottom, then up a pile of rocks. With good hiking boots (I brought my trusty Ahnus!), it wasn't too bad, although maneuvering around the rock pile was tricky at times.

View from the top of Grant Park

The next stop was the top of the hill in Grant Park. I had planned to use the trailhead here as a starting point for my hike across the ridge, but the trail was closed at the gun range, so I had to backtrack. The view from up here was well worth it, even with the hazy conditions. There were a number of interesting characters in the parking lot at the top. A few urban campers were hanging around, as well as some obvious tourists in small campers. There were also a couple of cars blaring some kind of club music. I swear the bass was so loud it was interfering with my GPS! A construction worker was eating a late lunch in his truck, and a 40-something guy wearing dark shades looked like he was plotting a way to kill us all.

Yes, I'm going to hike to the top of this ridge!

Steeper than it looks...

 I was able to find an alternative trailhead the the ridge on the map and drove there. I parked in a slightly sketch neighborhood that was filled with the smells of spicy beef and marijuana. I followed the trail parallel to the ridgeline and looked for a way up. The place was peppered with signs banning any kind of activity (off-roading, hiking, dogs, etc) but also had signs marking the trail. It was a confusing maze over the flats until I finally found the trail heading up. The ascent was very steep. According to my GPSr, it was a little over 1000' of elevation change in just under 1.5 miles. Once on top of the ridge, the caches were fun to find and the views were phenomenal! The sun was on its way into the sea, and it lit up the ocean like it was filled with gold. I stopped at My Kind of Trail: Bushed Yet? by InsideVC (link) to enjoy the view. It was cache number 1600 for me and I had brought a couple of beverages along to celebrate this minor milestone. It turned out to be a truly relaxing moment, decompressing from the hike up to the cache and soaking in the gorgeous view. I grabbed about ten caches from the trailhead up to the fence that ended the ridge trail, most with (well-deserved) 3.5 terrain stars.

Late afternoon in Ventura

The Last Internationale at Hemingway's in Hollywood

After the hike, I rested for a bit, grabbed some dinner and went to the evening session of talks. I was pretty tired, but I had one more activity planned. I had managed to get on the guest list for a very small show at Hemingway's in Hollywood. The Last Internationale was tuning up for a tour with Weezer and put on a great show. After the long hike and the long drive back to Hollywood, I was pretty wiped, but it was a great day of science, geocaching, and rock-n-roll!

Munzee Olympics

      Now that the Olympic games in Sochi are underway, Munzee has come up with a new game for us to get into the Olympic spirit. The Munzee Olympics are an interesting new twist to the traditional clan wars (which are also going on... see below). The basic idea is that you pledge your allegiance to a country and then enter into up to five events. As munzees are captured, they count towards your individual event goals and rankings. Should your country rank in the top three at the end of the day, your country gets points which count towards the overall country rankings. I play Munzee for Ireland and as a country we are doing about as well as the Irish figure skating team (Ireland has a figure skating team??). In other words, we aren't going to be bringing home any gold for the Motherland!

A more detailed description of the game can be found on the Munzee blog (here), but the various events are as follows:

Freestyle: Overall points for all activity during the Munzee Olympics

Greenies: # of Greenies capped

Academic: # of Quiz and Quiz virtuals capped

Social: # of Socials capped
Badge: # of Badges earned during the Munzee Olympics (includes ALL badges)
Visitor: # of Motels capped (sum of Motels and Motel Rooms)
Virtual Olympian: # of Virtuals and Mystery Virtuals capped (sum of both)
Ice: # of Diamonds capped
Grow the Map: # of Greenies deployed (may not be converted during Olympics)
Unicorn: # of Business caps
Level Up: # of Levels gained
Triathlon: # of times you cap a complete cycle of 1 green, 1 virtual, 1 mystery

Webbed: # of Virts and Mystery Virtuals deployed (sum of both)
Perfect 100: # of days with exactly 100 points
    Go For the Gold: # of premium caps (goldies)

I signed up for the events in red. I won't be competitive in any of these (stupid day job!) but the Olympics aren't about winning the medals, it's about the spirit of competition. Right? RIGHT!

   In addition to the innovative Olympic game Munzee is running this month, a more traditional Clan War is also active. The clan I've been a member of recently has not been very active, and several players were not really contributing at all.  So, I decided to leave the Mixed DohNutz clan and go to the free agent market (aka the Munzee Clan FB group). With only about two days between Clan wars to get on a clan, it becomes a crazy place! Clans are scrambling to get the required ten members to compete, and individual players are trying to get placed on a Clan that will give them the best chance of success to win the special Clan Weapon munzees. After a few FB posts, I wound up on the short list of several clans and it was an anxious evening waiting to see how the final rosters would shake out. With only a couple hours until the deadline, I got a request from a clan in Wisconsin, so I am a member of the Wisconsin Munzee clan. We have already secured the first weapon and are closing in on the Mace Munzee. So in the spirit of the Sochi games... Go Ireland! Go Wisconsin!    

Caching in Beeler Canyon

Trail head

This weekend's caching adventure did not take me too far from home. I had a couple of hours free on Saturday morning, so I drove over to Beeler Canyon to get some caches that were further out on the trails than where we typically go with our geopets. Beeler Canyon is between Scripps Ranch and Poway, and is below the community of Stonebridge. It's a strange area, with old houses and farms next to huge mansions and a Vulcan mining operation. The main road out to the trail head services the few houses along Beeler Canyon, but also serves as an evacuation route for Stonebridge in case of fire. Anyhow, I drove all the way to the end, where there is a trail head for miles and miles of hiking/biking/caching trails. Here (link) is a convenient cache to help you find it!

Troll was still asleep here

View from 'Scatological Warfare'

The goal for Saturday was to hike a mile or so into the trail (past caches I had done on previous dog walks) and do a loop of 'Beeler' caches. The first couple were fairly standard geopiles, but then I missed my turn and had to bushwhack to a cache called "Scatological Warfare" (here's the link). This cache was placed by Narfinsan back in 2011. In those days, there weren't many caches in this neck of the woods, and then shortly after that, the whole area was closed off for two years so the Sunrise Powerlink power lines could be installed. When that "No Trespassing" sign came down, it opened the flood gates! Narfinsan had recruited a new player, 3rd&Long, and together they started dropping caches like crazy here! Many of them had "Beeler" in the cache title, and they fancied themselves The Beeler Boys. Sounded like a bunch of flim-flam to me. Too much sizzle and not enough steak, as it were. However, Scat turned out to be a nice spot for a cache and as I came back down the hill to circle back around, I happened upon a lovely string of caches. Not all by the Boys, but many were and they were really fun!

Most memorable was a new cache called 'Beeler Braggadocio' (link) hidden by Voldemark just a few weeks ago. Here is part of my log for this one:

"This one was guarded by a giant wildebeest, who snorted at my approach. He protected a very nice geopile but from my years of experience caching in the wilds of central and south america, I knew that the beast would not be so bold as to show the true location. I played along, sparring gently with him in a half-hearted effort to search his geopile. Meanwhile, I took quick glances around and was certain I had spotted the hide site. I feigned a great injury and collapsed at the site, sweeping the cache under my body."

Here's another one by FlagMan (who, shockingly, was not FTF on this one!):

"Ever since I was a young boy,
I've sought those precious logs.
From ammos down to nanos
I must have found them all.
But I ain't seen nothing like him
On any power trail...
That deaf dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean cache game!"

And one by Beeler Boy narfinsan:

"Too late we realized that our decades of imbibing at Karl Strauss had given us a scent all-too-readily apparent to beer-guzzling Freems from the planet Zork, even thousands of light years distant. Voldemark was first to detect them, quickly bringing his gattling gun to bear. While he was pumping the Freems full of depleted uranium exploding rounds, 3rd wheeled around and started hosing them down with deadly dihydrous oxide from the camel pack he was wearing."

Old farmlands: RIP nano, muahahaha... 

I'm sure you get the idea. Much like the Liar's Cache near UTC, the log is almost as important as the find. In this case, the find was actually quite fun too. Without giving too much away, GZ was littered with geopiles and the first question on my mind was "How the hell do they have time to make all these geopiles?", I mean, it was "I wonder if the cache is really hidden in a geopile or if they are all fake and it is really a nano in a bush?" Followed closely thereafter by "If it IS a nano in a bush, and I find the damn thing, I'm flinging it as hard as I can throw into that abandoned field." It turned out that the hide was brilliant and no nanos were harmed during the search. This time...

Beeler Grove looking towards Mt Woodson

The final hide of the morning was 'Beeler Grove' (link) placed by 3rd&Long in February 2013. This was another one of those hides where you see something, figure it must be there, don't look well enough, then spend ten minutes walking around in circles. I'm sure you know what I mean! It was another in a string of unusual hide sites on the back side of this loop, and they were all most appreciated. Finally found the cache and was able to spend a few minutes in a lovely part of the trail. I don't know why all the vegetation and trees are located here, but it was a great place to spend a few minutes and rest. Kudos to the Beeler Boys and the others who have hidden such great caches so close to home!

Caching in Palm Springs: Wheeler Dealers and English Tom

I spent last week in Palm Springs attending a protein science conference. The meeting was very good and I had a lot of talks to hear, people to meet, and swag to grab from vendors. This left me little time for geocaching, but I managed to squeeze it in! I had scoped out the area for interesting caches, and asked some folks here in San Diego if they had some favorites. This became my to-do list. Some were on there because they were unusual hides, some were vintage, and some required some hiking. In this final post, I will share a couple of my favorites from this trip. Note: there are a couple of minor spoiler pics below.

Before I left for Palm Springs, I posted in our San Diego geocaching Facebook page to see if others had been to the area and what their favorite caches were. One thing became clear: I had to do some caches hidden by Wheeler Dealers!! Although they are not as active anymore, WD placed hundreds of interesting caches in the SoCal area . I'm also a sucker for a really creative hide, so I put some of these on my To-Do list, particularly since many of their caches are no longer maintained and are becoming archived. The first one I tried was down the street from my hotel, a cache named 'That First Step is a Doozie" (link). I arrived at GZ and saw many common spots for caches. I searched them all quite thoroughly and remained puzzled. I thought about the old Sherlock Holmes quote: "Once you eliminate the obvious spots for the geocache, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the hide site. Unless it's muggled." Well, maybe that wasn't quite what Holmes said, but still, that's where I was with this cache. Thinking WAY outside the box, I started looking in some other spots and lo-and-behold, I found something! I won't give this one away with a picture, because that a-ha moment was so, so satisfying. Definitely a fun hide!

This was an evil hide...

Incredibly well camo'd

I did some other WD hides, which were also good, but there were also some excellent WD-inspired hides. I won't list the GC numbers, since I have spoiler pics, but this will give you an idea of what you are up against with these. One was a hole in the ground, covered by a rock that looked like the hundred or so other rocks in the area. Again, I looked in all of the nearby spots that are common geocache hides, before finally thinking a little differently. You really have to be confident that the damn cache is there somewhere, because otherwise you will drive yourself crazy!

There was an urban cache in the area that was also worth noting. It had been recently replaced (I was the first finder after replacement) but the set up looked very interesting. I parked next to GZ and began my search. It was a very high muggle area, with people walking by me constantly, but still a reasonable area to be searching. There really were only a few places the cache could be and after exhausting all of them... yes, we were back at the improbable again. I then noticed something that needed to be investigated and when I had a break in the muggle traffic, I touched it. Could the hide really be that bold? Yes indeed! I've seen things similar to this type of hide in San Diego, but not this well executed. The cache looked like it belonged where it was hidden, and let me correct that... it wasn't really hidden at all. It was absolutely right in plain sight. Me and the thousands of muggles passing by looked right at it. Repeatedly. Finding a cache like that is such a rush, and the creative effort to set these hides up is really inspiring. Hopefully, I can find a couple of spots to set up something this clever, because it sure beats an Altoids tin in a lamp post skirt!

Log dating back to 2001

Dawn over Palm Springs

On my final morning in Palm Springs, I woke up before dawn to climb the Museum Trail up to one of the oldest caches in the area. The hike was short but steep, and a great way to wake up! The reward was an absolutely wonderful view of Palm Springs and the nearby wind farms. The sun rose as I was about half way up, and watching sunlight flood the area was very humbling. The target of the hike was 'English Tom over Palm Springs' placed by sdompier back in May, 2001 (link). A local cacher named Florian appears to be taking care of the cache, so a tip of the hat to that user as well for keeping this one alive for so long. GZ puts you in the rocks near the picnic tables, with booming views in three directions. It took a few minutes to zero in on exactly where in the rocks I was supposed to look, but once I found the right area, the cache was a quick find. I was stunned to see the original logbook in the cache!!! If you imagine the harsh conditions this cache endures every summer, the occasional heavy rains, the muggles who steal or CITO caches, it is truly amazing that the log has survived over 12 years. It is a geocaching relic! How many logs from the early days still exist in the wild? I don't know, but reading through that old log was a real treat.

Tom's plaque

The next stop was the companion cache to this classic, a puzzle cache named 'Holly Tom' placed by user Holly and Shelly in May, 2001 (link). This cache was placed by a user who had looked for the English Tom cache but didn't find it, and instead hid a new one. I like to try and solve the puzzles ahead of time, if possible, but this one appeared to be some kind of field puzzle. Near GZ, I found the answer to another question I had... who was Tom? Tom was a guy from England who loved the mountains in the area, so when he died in 1995, his family had a plaque placed here in his honor. It turned out that there wasn't much to this puzzle and the cache was a quick find. As I turned to leave, I'm pretty certain that I heard Tom telling me to join him for a few minutes as he doesn't have many visitors. So I did. Those 15 minutes were the most peaceful moments I had on this hectic trip. Stop and enjoy the views, people, that's why they place caches here!! Visiting with Tom was a great way to end my trip to Palm Springs!

Caching in Palm Springs: Geoart

I spent last week in Palm Springs attending a protein science conference. The meeting was very good and I had a lot of talks to hear, people to meet, and swag to grab from vendors. This left me little time for geocaching, but I managed to squeeze it in! I had scoped out the area for interesting caches, and asked some folks here in San Diego if they had some favorites. This became my to-do list. Some were on there because they were unusual hides, some were vintage, and some required some hiking. In the next few posts, I will share some of my favorites from this trip.

Beautiful moonrise

Easter Egg geoart

Last November, I did the Putting Kat on the Map series (here's the link), which was one of San Diego's first examples of geoart. I noticed that there was some nice geoart series in Palm Springs, so these became high on the to-do list. The problem with these power trails is that they can take a fair amount of time, and between meetings, breakout sessions, poster sessions, and receptions, it was hard to find a large chunk of time for power trails. I decided to try a smaller trail first, the Easter Egg Hunt series placed in March 2010 by olsenr. I skipped the second half of one of the afternoon sessions and had a couple of hours before dark. As is often the case, I stopped for a couple of other caches first (one was a Wheeler Dealer cache, more on those in a future post) so by the time I got out to Desert Hot Springs, it was getting pretty late. I had two choices: go for it and get it done before nightfall, or go back to the hotel and be a weenie. The nearly full moon was rising over the mountains, so I figured I might get a little extra light from that if I didn't quite make it. Besides, I'm no weenie. I did do some quick math and decided the best way to finish was to move quickly. Yup, I was going to run around the power trail. I was wearing hiking boots, but I had run in them before and I knew my trusty Ahnu boots were fine. So, I started at Is it Butter (link) and ran counterclockwise around the egg. Fortunately, the hides were pretty straightforward, and once I knew what to look for, many of them were instant finds. The entire loop (a dozen caches) was almost two miles and I got it done (in fading twilight) in just under 45 minutes. Great fun, and a good tune up for the next geoart series: Heartburn!

Heart-stopping views of a wind farm against the mountains

Later in the week, I had a morning free, so I decided that was when I was going to go for the heart. The Heartburn series was placed in January, 2009 by KNOCK and consists of 22 caches, each a food item that causes heartburn. I started with Pickles (link) and again worked counterclockwise around the heart. I was less pressured by time with this series, but still tried to move quickly since I was using my cell phone as a GPSr and it is notoriously bad with battery usage. Again, the hides were easy to find and almost all of them were the same type, so one just follows the arrow and signs the log. Not much thought at each cache, but that's okay. We are doing this in the name of art!! Many of the caches had clues in them (letters and numbers), which were part of a series of bonus Heartburn mystery caches. These have been archived now because some of the clues have been lost over the years and it is hard to solve the puzzle. I wrote these down anyhow, and tried to guess what the missing numbers were, based on the numbers I had, previous logs in the puzzle caches, and some logic. I got somewhat reasonable numbers for a couple of them but I wasn't confident in the numbers, or in the odds of the caches still being there. Near the bottom of the heart (Chocolate Chip Cookies and Got Milk), I ran into a huge debris field of trash. Unfortunately, trash scattered through the desert was a common theme during my caching in Palm Springs, but it was especially bad here. Glass, mattresses, TVs, car parts, construction waste, unidentified electronics, paint cans, carpeting, clothes... you name it, it was probably out here. I had to pay pretty close attention to where I was walking so as not to step on a nail or something.

Heart Shaped geoart in the desert

Anyhow, the whole group involved about a three mile hike through the desert and between the rising morning sun and the howling winds, I left the area thirsty and wind-burned. I brought a liter of water and it was gone by about cache 15. As I returned to the car, I was happy to have added a heart to my Easter egg. Two nice examples of geoart in the desert that do much more than just boost the smiley totals! A big thanks to KNOCK and olsenr for setting them up, and to the various cachers since then who have helped to maintain them.

Caching in Palm Springs: Wrecks in the Desert

Welcome to Palm Springs

I spent last week in Palm Springs attending a protein science conference. The meeting was very good and I had a lot of talks to hear, people to meet, and swag to grab from vendors. This left me little time for geocaching, but I managed to squeeze it in! I had scoped out the area for interesting caches, and asked some folks here in San Diego if they had some favorites. This became my to-do list. Some were on there because they were unusual hides, some were vintage, and some required some hiking. In the next few posts, I will share some of my favorites from this trip.

Sand dunes near Sweetboy's Sandbox cache

There was an Earthcache near the junction of Highway 111 and I-10 that I wanted to get, so I set out during an extended lunch break to grab that cache.  As I was looking at other nearby caches, I noticed that several of them had not been found in a couple of years. In fact, they only had a couple of finds since they were first hidden in 2009. One of them (Shades 2: Sweetboy's Sandbox by SHot70 link), looked like it was in an interesting location and doable as part of my trek to the EC. I have a real soft spot for lonely caches, so this became my first stop on the way to the EC. I drove out of Palm Springs and turned off of Highway 111 onto Tipton Road, parking near the train tracks. Behind me were steep mountains and in front of me was a large wind farm. Other than that, there was a whole lotta nothing out here. I hiked parallel to the train tracks and then crossed underneath the 111 in a dry creek bed. After that was about half a mile of sand. Up the dunes, down the dunes, around the dunes but finally I came to an old lake bed (well, more of a pond really) and saw my likely target for GZ. The question was, which one? Just across the dry pond were the skeletal remains of several vehicles. In the lake bed itself were scattered car parts, beer bottles, and deteriorating tires. It looked like this had really been a great party area at one time!

The cache is in there... somewhere

GZ led me to the remains of an old van (Chevy, maybe?) and I began my search. I've done car hides before, so I looked in the usual spots but was coming up empty. I resorted to the hint (don't judge me, people!) but misinterpreted the clue and focused on one part of the car for about 15 min. I was talking to myself out there (the desert does things to you, you know), trying to work through another way to think about the hint. Fortunately, myself had another idea and I returned to a spot I had already searched, but searched it much more aggressively. Bingo! A very well-hidden mint tin, attached with a magnet. The tin was filled with sand, but I was thrilled to be the 4th to find, particularly since the last person to sign the log found it on January 29, 2012, almost exactly two years ago! This was a little surprising since it wasn't too hard to get out to this cool area, and the search itself was also pretty fun. An interesting hike, a tough search, a perfect hint, and a fun find. This was definitely one of my favorites on this trip!

Adopting orphan geocaches

I did my good caching deed yesterday. I adopted three geocaches that needed good homes. Team Adelos, a long time Southern California geocacher, decided to put his caches up for adoption. Many of them were far from my house, but a few were close enough that I decided to take them. I don't adopt just any cache... I mean, why adopt a LPC in a mall parking lot? But one of them was on Black Mountain (Heart Pumper link) and two were on Iron Mountain (puzzle caches GCWGE0 and GCWGE1), so they were nearby and in interesting areas.

Cachers like Team Adelos make it really easy to adopt, because they find new owners before their caches are in dire straights. There are definitely two schools of thought about adoption, however. I have met cachers who believe that when a cache needs maintenance and the owner is AWOL, the cache should be archived to open up the spot for new caches. For many caches, I agree with this. I have certainly requested a few DNF-riddled caches be put down simply because I was tired of seeing the cache pop up on my map. I suppose I could have replaced the cache, but that has its own set of challenges. Sometimes, cache owners get pretty upset when their cache is replaced without permission, and on the rare occasion that I do this for a neglected cache, I usually have tried to contact the owner about adoption anyhow. Another problem with replacing the cache is that if you change containers (say, from an ammo can to a pill bottle) or hide type (hanging vs. geopile), you can't make the necessary changes on the cache page.

That said, the one type of cache I really have a soft spot for is an oldie. There is something unique and special about a cache with a really low GC number, and I will go out of my way to adopt these whenever possible. Again, some will say that if the cache has been replaced over the years, or the hide site has changed, then you really aren't finding that classic cache. This may be true, but I still like finding them, so I presume others do too. When I am traveling to a new area, the first thing I look for are caches with low GC numbers or high favorite point totals. Not just for Challenge grids, but because cachers have been coming to that spot for over a decade to sign a scrap of paper. To me, that is cool.

Besides, low GC number caches are a dying breed and it is really exciting for me to get them. About a year and a half ago, I adopted GC140 (San Diego Ocean View/Double Peak Summit, link). It was the second cache hidden in San Diego county (in January, 2001). Back in the day, it was a significant hike to get to GZ, but now you can drive right up to the peak! Even though it is much easier to get to and the cache container has been replaced many times over the years, it doesn't take anything away from the fantastic view from here! Plus, it is GC140! It's still a little piece of GC history. So, I'm happy with my new 2006-era caches. One day, they will be antiques as well... just like GC140.

Night Caching in SoCal: Bears vs. Zombies

One of the very first caches my family ever tried was a night cache in North Carolina called 'Lost in the Dark', by rldill (link). It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately, we DNF'd it because we still really didn't know what we were doing at that point. Since that time, I have come to find that night caches are really pretty rare. Recently, I had the great fortune to do TWO night caches.

The first one was near Big Bear Lake. We had spent the night for a day or two of skiing, but the conditions were too warm and one of my daughters was sick, so we decided to leave early. As I often do, I had a list of caches that I wanted to get on this trip and one of them was the night cache 'A Night Smiley for Big Bear' by Mama Bear and 2 Cubs (link). I talked my wife into coming with me, although she's not a big cacher, but I really wanted a spotter since I would be hiking at night in an unfamiliar place (safety first, people!). GZ puts you at a trailhead near one of the ski resorts and the idea is to use a flashlight to follow a series of fire tacks.

Although it was warm, there was still snow on the trails, and the path was very icy. In the darkness, the drop offs on the right hand side of the trail seemed much more dangerous than they probably were. The trail ventured uphill and downhill, and every slip on the ice was like we were going to fall off Everest! We missed the final marker, so we went quite awhile without seeing anything before turning back and regrouping. Then we heard something in the bushes. That was about it for my wife, and since she had the flashlight, I had to plead with her to give me a few more minutes. We found the last known tack and she said she saw something strange nailed to a tree. It wasn't the cache, so I ignored it. Then she shined the light on something that looked suspicious, but she couldn't find it again by the time I got over there. I still couldn't find the final marker, and since the rustling was getting louder, we (she) decided to bail. After we got back to the cabin, I pulled up the cache listing and looked at some additional information. "Hey, that's what I saw on the tree!" she said. D'oh!! So, the next morning, I returned to where we were and the suspicious item I saw briefly in her light turned out to be the cache! It was really cool to return here in the daylight and see how things looked. Trail wasn't so bad, drop offs weren't so steep, and no wild animals near GZ. This was exactly what it was designed to be, a slightly scary but very cool adventure. Caching is SO much more interesting at night!

The hidden Zombie Meter

The TOTT in action!

Two nights ago, I teamed up with local San Diego legend BlondHiLites, a couple of new cachers, sjjjhall(s), plus my wife and daughter to find a very special night cache in La Jolla. The DAK Girls, also local legends for the truly fantastic hides they create (the Wizard's Chess series, the Indiana Jones series, etc) had a new cache publish this week. 'Night of the Zombie Apocalypse' (link) is a multicache on the UCSD campus that can only be done at night. A couple of groups found it when it first published, but it was still new enough that we didn't know what to expect. We met near GZ to find the most critical component for our search: The Zombie Meter. This device was, without question, the best TOTT I have ever used to find a cache! We boldly followed the directions on the screen, dodging zombies as they approached and making u-turns when the device mocked our poor directional choices. The goal was to find the secret zombie headquarters, and two places of zombie worship. These had to be found quickly, or else the zombies would get you and you had to return to the last found waypoint. What pressure! Our brave little group battled the zombies and found the waypoints without too much trouble. Well, that's not true. Right in the middle of our zombie apocalypse, I had to go pee, so I broke one of the cardinal rules of horror movies... never leave your group to have sex or go pee. You will surely get killed. I managed to survive and we eventually got the final coordinates. The cache description had this cute narrative about the zombies jamming the GPS signal and as we closed in on the final, we found that part was true, too! The campus buildings made our GPSr go wonky and we wandered around trying to get a good read on GZ. There was one spot I kept returning to, and while the others searched on, my family thoroughly searched this area. Finally, I found the cache! We were the third group to find it, and it was my 1500th find. After hearing all the hype about DAK Girls caches, it was nice to see they lived up to the hype! It was really awesome! Both of these night caches were definitely among the most enjoyable I have done, and offered a very unique caching experience.

Munzee Post-Holiday Blues

First of all, I want to wish everybody a Happy New Year! I know a lot of my caching friends have resolutions and goals about caches or munzees, but mine are pretty modest. I would like to find caches in a few more states, and perhaps a new country this year (I currently have five of each). I’d also like to find more caches than last year (382), since this was my lowest total of the 3+ years I have been caching. My find total was lower this year because of Munzee, no doubt about it. I have very limited time for my geo-hobbies, and sometimes going after that special icon takes precedence over finding a few LPCs in town. 

9/12 icons (top three rows)

First ever Christmas Badge!

Speaking of special icons, I wound up capturing nine out of twelve of the Munzee 12 Days of Christmas icons. This was good enough to earn the Christmas 2013 badge, but I was disappointed at not coming away with the whole set. Honestly, though, it is pretty tough here in San Diego. On the one hand, the number of Munzee players is much less than the number of geocachers, so going after the special icons is usually not a FTF-like race at all hours of the night. That said, since I have deployed a high percentage of the San Diego munzees, the odds are high that specials will fall on my own munzee (which I can’t cap). On average, I would say that one or two specials would appear in the greater San Diego area each day, and if they happened to fall on a munzee I knew was still there (always a concern), was not too far of a drive, and was an icon I needed, then I tried to cap it. I missed out on a few that appeared in the middle of the night or were not close enough to go after, so it was theoretically possible to get the whole set, but I was still pretty happy with what I got. I think this was one of the most entertaining programs Munzee has done, because even after a month I was still checking the map every few hours to see if any icons had popped up. I’m sure next year I’ll be complaining that I can’t get the icons because there are too many players going after them!