Serpent Lake hiking with the kids

After a long day of driving around Mora County with my kids, I decided our next adventure would involve more hiking. There is a hike in the northern part of the Pecos Wilderness that I've been wanting to do for a while, Serpent lake. Actually, the hiking guide books refer to this hike as Jicarita Peak, which is the mountain overlooking the lake. If I were hiking on my own, I would certianly have been aiming for that lofty goal, and maybe even would hide a geocache up there. But with my kids, I decided on a shorter hike that would be challenging for them but hopefully still well within their abilities. The hike up to Serpent lake would involve about 1000' elevation gain, and 8 miles round trip hiking. This is more than they've ever done before, but given enough time and the right incentives, I felt that they would be able to succeed here.

We had a leisurely start, leaving Santa Fe around 8am and getting to the trailhead a little before 10am. There is a very lonely cache near the trailhead that we stopped to find at the start of our hike, Langdon's Hollow. I'm not really sure why, but in 5 years since it was published it has only been found twice. It is not difficult, and does not involve much hiking, being a tenth of a mile from the trailhead, a trailhead which should be reachable by most cars. But for some reason, it is not on people's radar when caching in this remote part of the state. I can understand that at least. The kids both delighted in trading items in the cache, and then we were off up the trail towards Serpent Lake.

I had two "tricks" up my sleeve for getting the kids to keep hiking. The first was Jellybeans. Every 0.3 miles I would loudly announce "Jellybean!" and they would each get one from my stash. This was jsut about the right distance to keep them forging ahead to the next reward, but not so much that it made them feel like they wouldn't get there. The other fun thing about this is that we bagan measuring our distance in "jellybeans". They would ask how much further to the lake and I would reply, "oh... looks like 5 more jellybeans".

Ready for Jellybeans

My second trick was walkie-talkies. Not sure why, but kids love playing with these.  Once the two of them had walkie-talkies in there hands, they would run up ahead to "be far apart" and then talk all sorts of nonsense into the radios. If there had been other hikers around, I might not have been ok with this as all their incessant chatter on the radios might have been annoying to some. A lot of their talk on the radios was to make "static" noises, and other silly nonsense. But we had the trails almost entirely to ourselves, so I let the childish noises run with abandon. And the children kept on hiking.

Yes... radios help stay in touch even at close range

We reached the lake a bit after noon, and found a nice spot for a picnic. It is a really beautiful setting, high up in the mountains with a mirror like lake reflecting the peaks above. After a good picnic, we found another lonely cache placed up here, then because clouds were starting to roll in, we started our trek back down the trail.

Ada ate this whole can of smoked trout!

The hike down was just as easy, although the mileage was starting to wear on the kids, especially Ada ho is only 6. She started whining a bit more about tired legs, and I didn't blame her. We hiked over 8 miles and did it all in under 6 hours! Definitely a worthy accomplishment for a little girl. I'm proud of them both and look forward to taking them on more hikes up here in these wonderful mountains.

Mora County Challenge

I can't recall exactly how this idea got in my head, but somehow I felt the urge to try to find every active geocache in Mora County NM. Mora county isn't exactly my home county, it's a few hours away, but I think I got the idea while looking for archived caches in project-gc.com. You used to be able to do searches in that site to reveal the locations of every archived cache in a specific county, and I like to do this in remote areas I would be visiting, partially to get the coords and look for the old caches, but also partly to see where interesting spots used to ahve geocaches but are no longer listed. You can't do this anymore (at least that I know) but while doing this some time in the past I noticed that there are a few counties in NM with not that many geocaches in them. ONe in particular, Mora County, only had around 40 active caches and this was a low enough number where I thought you could make a play to find each and every one. My home county, Santa Fe, has well over a thousand, and I very much doubt I will ever find every single one. But this Mora county challenge intrigued me.

When you look at the list of geocaches in Mora County a bit closer, you realize that finding all of them in a day is probably impossible. Despite there only being 44 or so, a handful of these are deep in the Pecos Wilderness and require all day or even multi day outings to reach. But I had already found these caches in my hikes in the Pecos, so most of what was left was along various rural highways. It looked doable but it would be a lot of driving. And what better driving companions could I ask for than my two kids and the dog! We got a fairly early start this morning (7:30) and were off on the challenge!

Wagon Mound Cache

Our first geocaching stop was Watrous, NM, where we picked up 4 pretty easy caches. Next we made a quick find at an I-25 rest-stop (a multi cache, but still quick) before getting off the interstate at a funny little town called Wagon Mound, where we picked upa  couple more caches before heading east, to the far reaches of Mora county, and for our most difficult terrain rated cache. Getting all the way out to the eastern boundary of Mora county was a much longer drive than I had anticipated. This part of the state is prairie, and we ended up in the Kiowa national grassland and the Canadian river canyon. We spent some time looking for a cache just outside Mora county that looked interesting, but that ultimately we couldn't find, GC1RWW4. We then descended down to the canyon bottom. The Canadian river canyon is really pretty, and very remote. Moderate sandstone bluffs surround the canyon. We passed a few cars coming out from the campgrounds, but didn't actually see any people around where we looked. The kids took one look up at the Butte that we would have to climb to reach this cache and decided they would wait in the car and watch me climb it. Which I did with relish... The ascent took a little bit of route-finding and scrambling to reach the summit, but I was rewarded with a great cache, one hidden by my friend Birddroppings. By the time I got back down to the car and the kids, it was well past lunchtime and we were not even half way through our challenge. I was beginning to have my doubts as to our success.

On the Canadian River Butte

The drive back to I-25 took a long time, but we got back to it and proceeded a short ways north to grab one cache up in the northern border of the county, before making an about face and heading back south down I-25 towards Watrous. This time, we stopped to pick up caches on the southbound side of the interstate, of which there were a couple. We exited the interstate at Watrous and went north to Fort Union. This historic site made for a cool stop on our tour of Mora county. There are still a fair amount of standing walls remaining from the old Civil War era fort. The visitor center staff were very friendly, getting us the geocache from behind a closet and giving us some recommendations for seeing the fort. We only did a short walking tour though. The kids didn't want to walk too much, and we also still had a lot of miles and caches to go. We were past the half-way mark, but it was already 3pm.

Fort Union

From Fort Union, we had to back-track south a ways before picking up a small country highway that would take us west and towards the mountains. The landscape slowly changed from prairie, to juniper, to high meadows and pines. We were actually getting close to the town of Mora itself, but we also encountered our first DNFs. Actually a string of them on highway 442 between La Cueva and Ojo Feliz. The first two had some history of DNFs, but the last one was supposed to be an easy find in a juniper tree by a cemetery, but we just couldn't find it. It was also getting later in the afternoon and the kids were showing some signs of road fatigue. Still we kept on north grabbing a cool geocache along a forest road on the northern edge of the county, and also grabbing two caches just outside of the county in extremely picturesque valley called Black lake.

Jaws (GC2K5FD)

More rock art 

After these though, the kids were about done, and I was getting worried that we wouldn't make it back home until well past their bed-time, so we passed by two geocaches near Coyote Creek State Park, and booked it south to the town of Mora. We did stop for one last easy cache there, but there were 3 more caches west of Mora that we opted not to visit due to time. Instead we headed home, only stopping in Las Vegas for some on-the-rd-dinner.

So was it a success? Not entirely. We had started off the day needing to find 30 caches in Mora county. We were able to find 22. Of the eight we missed, three were DNFs and 5 were ones we just didn't have time to get to, not without staying up way past the kids bed-time. Maybe if had been jsut me, and I was really motivated I could ahve at least visited all 30 locations. But with those 3 DNFs, there was no way I could have completed the whole county on this trip. Time to harass some COs to see about maintenance or archival on some of those... ;) As for miles driven... I'm not really sure but we definitely went through a whole tank of gas, so probably around 350 miles. It was a lot of driving but the scenery was well worth it, from the antelope filled prairies, the historic monuments, the alpine lakes and meadows... Mora county had a lot to offer us. We'll be back some day for those last caches!

Whiskey Ridge

Whiskey Ridge, the Thumb and Higher peaks

The biggest untapped geocaching/hiking/scrambling playground near to our home is the Sandia Mountains eat of Albuquerque. I would guess there are readily more than 1000 geocaches in this range, there are 20 or so good hiking trails and plenty off-trail hiking explorations, and the rocky mountains off really adventurous ridge walks and 5th class climbing. All this only an hour or so away and yet I have rarely visited the range, usually opting to explore further to the North of Santa Fe. I have no good reason for this. Maybe the proximity to the big city and the potential for large crowds, or the overwhelming # of geocaches making it difficult to focus on just one place to go? I don't know. But one unfound cache on Whiskey Ridge finally lured me down to the range.

The geocache, GC7FNN5, placed by DesertRomantic who I've hiked with before, is located on a pretty cool looking Rocky ridge that stretches from the 2nd tower of the Sandia Tram, back up to Whiskey peak about a mile into the mountains. At places it looks to be as narrow as 10' across with steep 100+ ft drop-offs on either side. A month or so ago, I was able to get a good look at it when the family rode the tram, and I decided then that it would be an awesome adventure. Most of it looked scramblable, but the cache listing mentions that 5th class climbing is required and that technical climbing gear is also advised. There are geocaches located on either side of GC7FNN5 called "SUCCESS .. sort of" and "FAILURE" along the ridge, placed by a  geocacher who was trying to traverse the ridge on his own but couldn't due to some of the 5th class obstacles along the way. One geocacher had made an attempt on GC7FNN5 since it was published last December, RockyMtnRidgeRunner, and he had turned around due to lack of time.

With unknown amounts of 5th class climbing involved, I figured this cache should not be attempted solo, so I contacted RockyMtnRidgeRunner, to see if he would up for another attempt of it. I have never hiked or climbed with him before, but have had several email exchanges with him about various lonely caches throughout the state, and he is one of my favorite geocache hiders in New Mexico. His hides almost always involve long hikes into the wilderness, and are placed at prominent features along those hikes such as mountain summits or deep canyons. Despite not ever meeting the guy, I felt pretty sure that we would make a good team for going after Whiskey Ridge. Plus, he is intimately familiar with the Sandias and teaming up with him would mean having a expert guide for route-finding and approaches/descents. I was psyched to hear back from him that he wanted to go for it and we spent a week making plans and figuring out logistics for our trip.

Early morning view from La Luztrail

I left Santa Fe early Friday morning to met up with RMRR at 7am at the Sandia Tram parking lot. Our plan was to leave one vehicle there, and drive over to the La Luz trailhead to start our ascent. The La Luz trail is one of the few trails in the range I had heard of and read about, I think it is one of the more popular and well traveled trails in the range. The morning was cool and the skies were mostly clear, perfect hiking weather. We started off immediately at a pretty good clip. There are a bunch of geocaches along or just off the La Luz trail and normally, I'd stop to look for each one, significant;y slowing progress up the trail. We did stop at a few, but also skipped by a bunch. Not only has RMRR already found all of these, but we also needed to make good time up to Whiskey Peak so that we would have enough daylight to complete our route. RMRR showed me several of the shortcuts that one can take going up the La Luz trail, that shave off miles of hiking. In a few hours we were at the base of the granite monoliths, deep in a lush (by NM standards) canyon populated by aspen and fir trees. It's a really pretty hike and I can see why it is popular. At the base of the rock formation known as The Thumb we split up to allow me to tag two additional lonely caches in the area, The Thumb GC1ECPW and Whiskey on My Mind GC32NHG. We had discussed this on the way up, these two geocaches would be close enough to our route that I thought I could push hard and find them both and still meet up with RMRR on top of Whiskey peak. RMRR of course had already found them, but was ok with splitting up so I could go after them. Plus we had 2-way radios so we could stay in touch.

Upper La Cueva Canyon with the rock formation known as The Frog in the middle

Getting up to the geocache on the Thumb was steep hiking, and I was definitely feeling the weight of my pack, laden with a rope and climbing gear and lots of water. It was slower going than I had thought it would be, but then I didn't realize quite how much elevation I would be gaining over a short distance. Oof! I made it up to the spot where my GPSr was getting close to zero, and began searching, only to come up empty. There is a pretty decent hint for this geocache, but it still leaves loads of possible areas to search, and I just wasn't finding anything. My problem turned out to be that I was too low. While my GPSr said I was close, I was also at the base of a cliff and it turns out the cache was more on the top of the cliff. After a ton of searching, I finally read one of the previous finder's logs about climbing out an exposed ridge and it was only then that I finally figured out where I was supposed to be and climbed up the descent route of the Thumb and got to where the cache was located. An easy find then! But I had wasted probably 30 minutes looking for this cache. Even at the cache location, the coords seemed pretty far off from GZ, but that's part of the difficulty of caches like this one, perched on high narrow rocky ledges, and placed against steep rock walls. Coords can be off a little and send you pretty far away due to the vertical drops. I was glad to finally make the find, but I was also pretty sure that RMRR would be close to the summit of Whiskey Peak already.

On the flank of the Thumb

I had radio communication with RMRR, who was almost at the top of Whiskey Peak already. I had a ways to go to catch up! I quickly decended down a gully on the south side of the Thumb and then booked it over to a geocache called Whiskey on My Mind. The cool thing about this cache is it gives you a great viewpoint of the entire Whiskey Ridge, where er would be spending the rest of our afternoon. This cache I found quickly, snapped a few pictures and then raced off to Whiskey peak. Getting over to Whiskey peak was a bit of a slog, some real steep gully climbs and also a bit of dense bush-whacking, but tired and exhausted, I made it up to Whiskey Peak where a well-rested RMRR was waiting for me. He allowed me a quick breather to hydrate and wolf down and a sandwich and then we were off down Whiskey Ridge and the adventure was begun!

RMRR getting ready to head down Whiskey Ridge

The first bit of Whiskey Ridge is a piece of cake, jsut easy hiking down a rocky ridge. There is some good exposure on either side, but it is never that narrow or that exposed. The difficulties begin just past a cache called Failure, , which was placed by Wolf11469 and named for his failure to get all the way down the ridge. The difficulties lie in first a 20' vertical down climb to a notch, followed by a 50ft climb up a chossy, lichen filled face. The lichen face actually had a fixed rope on it, with butterfly knots tied in it every 5 ft or so. I tackled the down-climb and was checking out the fixed rope when RMRR got stuck. The down-climb wasn't too hard, but it was a little awkward and some of the rock was suspect, and there was a huge drop off on either side. Sure the notch below offerred a 10' wide perch where you could land, but tumble either side from that and you'd be a goner. Perhaps I should have been as cautious as RMRR, but I was down already. I took out my rope and rack and climbed almost all the way up to RMRR, then placed three pieces of protection on the descent. After handing him the rope, this allowed him to be belayed on the down-climb and not have to risk a death fall. Since we already had the rope and rack out, I volunteered to elad up the chossy lichen climb as well. The climbing was easy but the loose rock made it kind of scary. Also, the loose rock made finding a good placement for nuts/cams really difficult. Nearly every little fissure where I could place something seemed to be bordered by a rock that would simply blow-out if pressure was applied to it... say in a fall. Luckily, the fixed line was a stout 11mm rope, and I just clipped caribiners into it for protection on. I'm glad it was there.

Approaching the first difficulty.. the tree on the ridge ahead has a fixed rope with loops in it going down to the notch below.

After this climb there was a small ridge-top of easy walking before another downclimb was encountered, but we both descended that without problem and reach another notch in the ridge with a small perch and steep cliffs on either side. It almost looked like there would be a scrambling route down the south face, but it alos looked a lot more fun to stay on the knife edge ridge and climb a short 100ft pitch up to a larger broader part of the ridge. Once again, I volunteered to lead. This time the climbing was superb, the rock was good quality, there were excellent placements for gear and the exposure and position, high on a rocky spine with immense drop-offs on both sides... it was great! But I wouldn't want to do it without a rope.

RMRR approaches the climbing pitch. The line we took is directly above his helmet in the picture

RMRR negotiates a move to reach the belay stance at the base of the climbing pitch

This section proved to be the last real climbing we would need to do. After a nice easy section of walking there was one small 10ft downclimb, which I lowered RMRR down, and then down-climbed myself and then we were at the geocache that was the reason for our adventure, GC7FNN5, FTF for both of us! We celebrated by taking off our packs and eating lunch.

From the cache, we were surprised that there weren't any 5th class obstacles until just before the next cache on the ridge, where RMRR had ended up last December with his son. The webbing he used for a rappel was still in place and in good shape, so we rigged it for our own rappel. Instead of rappelling down and staying on the ridge, we did a 25m rappel off the north side a straight show down and an easy pull. This spot left us with a little ledge scramble to get over to the main ridge, and final and the cache Success...sort of. And then it was 3rd class scrambling all the way down to tower 2. Not to say the scrambling was without its merits, parts of it were across narrow bands of rock with huge drops on either side, par for the course when doing Whiskey Ridge as we now know.

"Easy" sections of Whiskey Ridge below our FTF cache

50m rappel just before GC3GRH6

Looking back up the ridge a short ways west of the rappel.

At tower 2, I found the older cache there, and we snapped shots of the trams passing close over head. Then I let RMRR lead me back down to the tram parking. This consisted mainly of bouldery ridges, thick desert scrub and inscrutable sun. Luckily it was all down hill. I polished off the last of my water on the descent and was thankful that we didn't have far to go to get back to the car. RMRR then shuttled me back to the La Luz trailhead where we parted ways. All in all, a good day out, covering lots of new ground, and exercising my very atrophied rock climbing skills. It felt good to tie back into a rope and place gear, even if we only did so for some very short pitches. Makes me want to come back and try out some of the longer routes here in the Sandias. Maybe someday soon.

Near Tower 2

A little down-climbing below Tower 2

Success!

Some stats:

• Miles traveled: 
• Hours out: <10 
• Geocaches found: 10
• DNFs: 1
• Geocaches close by but skipped:9
• 5th class pitches lead: 2
• FTFs scored: 1

An Update on my TB projects

It's been a while since I've checked in on my two TB races that I started years ago. I created separate pages for each race, The Lonely TB Project and the Moving to Knoxville TB Race. I guess the first one isn't really a race, but the latter one was... and it mostly flopped. I think all of the TBs went missing within a year or maybe a little more, and one never even left Las Cruces, getting lost by the geocacher I handed it off to.  Two of the TBs actually made it to an adjacent state to the final destination, but none were ever close enough for me to go out and try to retrieve. I think I'll go ahead and retire the TB race page... it is no longer relevant.

Moving to Knoxville TB Race Stats

	Track	Hops	Status	Current Location	Interesting Notes
Fugads' Angry Bird	TB61NER	0	Missing??Released 5/7/14 to Updraft58	Las Cruces, NM	Declared missing. Don't know why Marcy never logged this one somewhere.
Dream Catcher	TB61NF1	21	Missing. last seen in the hands of champster850.	North Carolina	Climbed 5th class rock to reach MRE. Given to Combatnurse2003 and taken east to North Carolina.
Bonhomme de Quebec 2001	TB61NEZ	4	Missing? Last seen in GC1AH1B	Washington	Finally moved after months of sitting in Alamogordo.
Land of Enchantment	TB61NE3	41	??	Virginia	Released 5/10/14 at the Cadillac Ranch. Visited Reno, NV, then to East Coast somehow.
Lost GPSr:Magellan SporTrak	TB61N3V	21	Missing? Perhaps in the hands of Tayl0rr0se	Texas	Released 5/7/14 to Mr. Waldo, placed in a cache that was disabled! Then retrieved by CO. Given to Anymoore, who I met at an event last fall.
Just Drifting Along	TB61NEQ	1	Missing	El Paso, TX	Reported as no longer in the cache I dropped it in. Marked as missing.

The Lonely TB project has fared a little better, but then, I expected these TBs to last a little better since they are intentionally left in Lonely Caches. Of the 4 Lonely TBs I released, only two have moved. Two are still in ridiculously remote and difficult terrain geocaches that honestly, might never be visited again. Who knows? One got moved a little bit around the Las Cruces area but ended up in one of my complicated multi-caches there and has since settled in for a good long wait. The alst one I might actually see again, as the geocacher that picked it up is going to mail it to me. He had good intentions to put it in a really lonely cache, but his health took a turn for the worse and he hasn't been able to get it out. I appreciate that he is mailing it back to me. I have no doubt that I will find another good lonely spot for it.

Lonely TB Project

NAME	Track	Lonely Caches visited	Accumulated LCPs	Current Location	Interesting Notes
DNBOE lonely cache hunter	TB4KGCR	6	492	Prospectors: CYOA	My first of these that was actually moved to a new lonely cache
Lonely Cache Hunter: Hollow Point	TB56QGV	8	617	A22	A22 is one of the loneliest caches in NM, after 2 years it has still only been found by one person, ME!
Lonely Cache Hunter: Shark	TB4J2AN	6	269	Rattle Snake Ridge	Currently in a 5/5 cache.
The Turtle Lonely Cache Visitor	TB54TD3	9	489	With SirChrisRey	Was moved around a lot by SirChrisRey, but for health reasons he ended up mailing it back to me.

It's hard to find much satisfaction from either of these TB projects. The Knoxville race seemed like it really just didn't get anywhere. The Lonely TBs are kind of doing what I expected them to, hanging out in lonely caches for extended periods of time, but I was really expecting them to move around a little bit. I guess the Lonely caches I placed them in were a little too lonely.

Some thoughts on Geocaching "Haters"

On one of my recent geocache finds (GC1DX1Z), there was an interesting exchange between some person who repeatedly visited the geocache and left notes in it, and the geocachers who came out to actually find the geocache. This person obviously does not think highly of geocaching or geocachers, but it seems odd that they would bother at all writing notes in this geocache. To make things even more interesting this cache is located pretty far out in the wilderness. You are looking at a minimum of a 7 mile hike, some of it off trail, and with a good amount of elevation climb on top of that, all at elevations above 10,000 ft! It got me thinking about what kind of person would leave such notes.

The first log entry by this mystery person appeared in 2014, where they call the geocache trash. The next entry by this person, some time between 2014 and 2015, threatens to remove the geocache. The next geocacher to find the cache in 2015 actually comments on the previous logs, asking the guy to chill out. The next log, from our mystery person, responds to this, and then proceeds with insulting people who geocache. They probably realize that each geocacher that finds this and leaves a message is unlikely to ever see the response, but maybe not. In general geocachers do not return to such wilderness caches for repeat finds. Just reading through the logs gives some semblance of a dialogue. And this made me smile because it is a dialogue between this one angry person and many geocachers who will probably never see the responses.

The next geocacher to find the cache in 2016 leaves a polite response to our mystery person, which then has a retort later that same year. This time the tone of the retort is more along the lines of geocachers not being able to find joy out here in this amazing spot, because they are blindly following their GPS devices to predetermined spots. As if the act of going to this amazing place would be better if someone came to it by some other "pure" motivation. This retort is followed by what appears to be another visit from the mystery person that same year bemoaning that the geocache is still in place and being found by "robots".

Three geocachers find the cache after this, a pair in 2016 and one in 2017, and the mystery person leaves another note after these finds that simply reads, "Connected Lemmings Suck.. try something on your own". It sounds like the issue this person is having is that people are using electronic devices to get out in the wilderness? If someone found these locations by map and compass, or just by following a trail guide, would that be ok?

It is at this point that I signed my own name to the logbook, and added a little note to the "conversation". Being curious about this whole exchange, and having had one of my geocaches targeted by someone opposed to the game in Tennessee, I left a note to this mystery person to contact me so we could talk... maybe over beers at a local watering hole. I figure it is a pretty remote chance that they will actually contact me through my geocahcing email, the last time I reached out to someone like this (the stolen cache in Tennessee) I got no response.

Ridge line within <.1m from geocache, and overlooking Nambe Lake below.

So who is this person and what is their beef with geocaching? Given the remote location of this geocache, and significant hike, this person is probably an avid hiker and lover of the Pecos. The Nambe Loop hike is probably one they do a couple times a year, and since 2014 they seem to check on this specific geocache whenever they pass by. And each time they find it they seem to be incensed by the presence of this geocache. It doesn't appear that it is just because the geocache brings people to this location, this person appears to be ok with people hiking and exploring the wilderness. Just  as long as they are doing it for some other reason beyond geocaching. The fact that people come to this cool spot because of the geocache appears to somehow taint the hike in this person's mind. They refer to geocachers as sheep, robots and "connected lemmings", all negative views that somehow people visiting this location cannot really enjoy themselves because they either lack the mental capacity to come here independently. But what would constitute coming here independently? Would doing this hike with a meet-up count? Would reading about this hike in a trail guide count? I find it hard to believe that this attitude can be strongly held without also disparaging all the other hundreds of people that come out into this wilderness under all sorts of different circumstances. To discount geocachers from being able to enjoy this route is to open up a door to discount many others. So despite the appearances of this person's comments, I have to conclude that their beef isn't really the fact that geocachers come to this spot.

The other main point this person has about not liking this geocache is that it is trash polluting the wilderness. I think this is likely the stronger sentiment, and one that I can relate to to a certain degree. My fondness for geocaching tinges my view that geocaches are not trash, but I do wrinkle my nose with disgust when I see trash carelessly left somewhere in a remote and beautiful wilderness. And when this happens, I ask myself, "who would leave this trash behind?" Seeing geocaches as trash in the wilderness I feel is a very legitimate sentiment and one that I think geocachers should attempt to reconcile. My own thoughts on this hinge on the fact that geocaches are hidden and meant to be found only by those seeking them out. When properly created in this fashion, they do not create the kind of visual pollution that even I find unpleasant. That doesn't mean they won't be stumbled upon by non geocachers though. And when this occurs it is not surprising that they often go missing. When considered from this point of view, a geocache is a mark that humans were here and how you respond to this can depend a lot on how you view the impact of humans in the local environment. There are loads of ways that people mark there presence on a landscape, both historically and in modern times. Aside from any practical reasons (like marking a trail, or giving signs for other to follow) I think many people feel an innate urge to mark their presence, a response to some kind of existential thought, that by marking your presence, you validate your own existence and experience. What you think when you encounter one of these markings can really vary. I'll give a few examples of the ways I see people leaving their mark on an environment:

• Leaving a summit register
• Posting about a route/location online
• Hiding a geocache
• Building a rock pile (cairn)
• Building a wooden cross
• Making a pattern in the dirt
• Cutting initials into a tree
• Chipping words or pictures on a rock
• Graffiti
• Building a small shelter/fort

I'm leaving out littering and other signs that are not intended to be found and recognized by future travelers. The above list shows actions that I believe are meant to be discovered by others, things that people do in part so that others can see that they were in a place. I have personal opinions about the items on the list, but they aren't black and white opinions. For the most part, I find graffiti and scarring a tree deplorable, and like the mystery person remarking how this geocache is just trash, I would probably judge folks who partake in these activities pretty harshly. A lot of the other items I find mostly harmless or even beneficial. I regard summit registers and online postings very positively, as a historical record of what people achieved, and how the experience was enjoyed. These can inspire others to explore and visit these locations. But I can see how some would find even these markings of a passage as something to avoid. In the end, I feel like everyone develops there own sort of sense for what human leavings are tolerable. And it is this spectrum that I think would be a good conversation to have with the mystery person, or even with other geocachers, hikers, bird watchers, city dwellers, my kids.... anyone.