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sucker for a really creative hide, so I put some of these on my To-Do list, particularly since many of their caches are no longer maintained and are becoming archived.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!