Earworms!

Sometimes, an idea for a geocache just hits you and you think, "I have to do this somewhere". That idea sits around for a good long time, and you think about different ways of execution, come up with improvements, and generally dream about how cool this geocache is going to be. And time slips by... For one reason or another, the right place, and right time, and right equipment doesn't present itself. But the idea persists. And eventually, you get it together: the parts, the location, the theme. Everything falls into place and the cache is published, and it is awesome!

One of my most recent caches was this idea, GC70M9E. If you happen to live in Northern New Mexico, and don't want to have this cache spoiled for you since you may actually go find it, then read no further. However, I'm gonna blog about it anyways, just cause.

SPOILERS BELOW KEEP SCROLLING IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE REST OF THIS POST.

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The idea that struck me some time back in 2013 had to do with a song that was stuck in my head.

Miles from nowhere
I guess I'll take my time
Oh yeah, to reach there  

Look up at the mountain
I have to climb
Oh yeah, to reach there.  

Lord my body has been a good friend
But I won't need it when I reach the end  

Miles from nowhere
I guess I'll take my time
Oh yeah, to reach there  

I creep through the valleys
And I grope through the woods
'Cause I know when I find it my honey
It's gonna make me feel good, yes...

Maybe you recognize the song, an old Cat Stevens one. It got stuck in my head while I was out geocaching. I can't remember exactly where I was, but I was probably, miles from nowhere and climbing up a mountain in order to find a geocache and make me feel good. This song has geocaching written all over it. And it would get stuck in my head over and over as I was out hiking towards geocaches. It occurred to me finally that it would make a rather nice multi cache. The verses are broken up in such a way that you could have a verse for each stage. Ideally, it would be placed on a remote mountain top, miles from any nearby town, and requiring a good long hike, say 15 miles round trip. This was my original concept for a pretty straight forward multi cache. And at the time, I was living in Southern New Mexico where there are mountain ranges that are very remote, and were just perfect for a cache like this. But then I got some more ideas... what if I put a small voice recorder in the final so that when someone found the cache, they could hear the entire song, and also record their own song. This idea really grabbed hold of me, despite the fact that it requires a bit more investment in materials. How cool would it be to hear what songs get stuck in other people's heads?

I was starting to look at materials to make this cache a reality when we found out that we would be moving to Tennessee. The last thing I wanted to do was place more caches in an area that I wouldn't be able to maintain once we moved. Also, I wouldn't be able to come back and hear the songs people left. That was one of my prime motivators. So I sat on the idea. In Tennessee, the landscape just didn't seem to be right. Yes there were mountains, but they weren't as big, nor were they as easy to see from far away, nor were they miles from nowhere. There are a lot more little towns in the east.

As luck would have it, we recently moved back to New Mexico, so I started thinking about the idea again. I purchased a DVR (digital voice recorder), and a good final container, and I began scouting maps for a good place to hide this cache. Originally, I wanted this cache to be really remote, a true "miles from nowhere" kind of cache. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to make it somewhere that I could check on frequently. My sights turned to one of Santa Fe's local hills, Moon Mountain. Located right in town, but apparently a location that has never had a geocache on it. It wasn't really "miles from nowhere", but it was a decent little mountain, requiring a couple miles of hiking, and I would be able to run up and check on it really easily. Plus, being in an urban location would give it a bit of a better chance of actually getting found, and with the investment I was putting into this, I really wanted it to be found more than just a couple times (like my Organ Saint series, sigh....).

The final push for me to get this idea out was when another geocacher published a cache on Moon mountain, scooping my spot! GC70D5M was published and my first reaction was to assume that my spot was gone, and that I had waited too long. But on closer inspection, I realized that there was room enough on the summit of Moon mountain. So got my containers together, put together the geocaching.com listing and my Earworm Multi was born! GC70M9E! So far it has been found by two geocachers, and I have already ran up to the summit to listen to the earworms that get stuck in other people's heads. Awesome! Now that it is in the real world, I am even more excited about it than when it was just an idea in my head.

Consolation Hike

A few weeks back I was contacted by DesertRomantic about going after a really cool, and yet unfound, canyoneering Geocache, GC5WZF4. I've been eyeing this cache for a while, so I jumped at the opportunity. The day came that we were to head out for this adventure. i had all the gear I thought we would need: 50m of rope, etriers, ascenders webbing, rappel device, plenty of biners... We were set for hopefully anything this canyon would throw at us. At least that is what we thought. Turns out there was one thing we hadn't counted on. Roads. The turn off from the tiny town of Galina was on French Mesa Road, also known as FR 8. Not even a mile up this road, we encountered quite a bit of snow on the road. And the sections of road not covered in snow were thick mud from recently melted snow. I drove my CR-V through a few patches of this but stopped short at a particularly muddy section. Checking the GPS, there was still >8 miles of this road to go. It was clear to us that if we continued, there was a very high probability that we would get stuck. As much as we didn't like to, the best option would be to turn around and leave this cache for later in the year, when the roads are better.

So what to do? We were far from home, and rearing to go do ... something. One nearby destination immediately sprang to mind, Cerro Pedernal.

Cerro Pedernal in the Distance. A striking peak.

I first saw Cerro Pedernal last summer when the family was visiting Abiquiu lake. It is uncommonly pictaresque. And I knew I wanted to hike up it. Luckily DesertRomantic also wanted to hike it, so it became our Consolation Hike. The road up to Cerro Pedernal, FR 100, was in fine shape, and we were soon at a point where we could begin the ~3 mile hike up to the summit.

The one scrambly bit

Below the headwall

Cerro Pedernal is actually a misleading peak. From afar it looks like it should be a huge mesa top. But in actuality, the summit is a narrow rocky ridge, basically a 200-300 ft high rock wall that tops off the mountain. From some angles it doesn't look like a mesa at all, rather a rocky spire. When we got up to the final headwall we weren't too sure which way to go around the summit wall to find a way up. We started off heading around the north side, only to get stopped by deep snow. So we back-tracked to the south side where we found an easy scramble through the headwall and up to the top. The summit is about a third of a mile from end to end, and offers some incredible views. We ate lunch on the east end, gazing out at the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

We completed the hike in good time and still had a bit time left in the afternoon, so we did one more little hike in the area. I had wanted to go after some unfound caches placed by Desert Romantic, but he had a better idea, to hike up the Rim Vista Trail across from the Ghost Ranch. This trail had a handful of very lonely geocaches and ended up being a fine late evening jaunt.

Rim Vista Trail

Pastel Cliffs near the Rim Vista trail

I still really want to visit Big Canyon, but considering we weren't able to do that, we ended up having a pretty good hiking day.