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for a really creative hide, so I put some of these on my To-Do list, particularly since many of their caches are no longer maintained and are becoming archived.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