A blitz on my caches... and a SAR mission

Most of my caches don't get found very often, so it was very cool to see a bunch of them, some long hikes, all get tackled on the same day. It was indeed a beautiful late winter day, and for Tennessee, that is just perfect hiking weather. I received email notifications that some cachers found my lonely multi in Big Ridge State Park on the Indian Rock Loop Trail. Then I got another email notification from my T4.5 cache in Haw Ridge, Irresistible. I always get such a big goofy grin on my face when I get these notifications, and I almost always stop whatever I am doing and immediately read the logs. I want to know all the details of their trip, and the more people write the happier I get. Reflecting on this a little now, it is kind of funny how this works out. I want more finds on my caches, but by lacing caches that get found infrequently, I'm more likely to get the kind of feedback/logs that make me happy. Just the nature of the kind of caches i like to place I guess.

I also got some messages from a group who attempted my 17+ mile hiking Whereigo, Frozen Head Ridge Hike. I was really hoping to hear good news from this group, as this is one of my most ambitious hiking caches in the area. Unfortunately, I never heard the good news that they had completed the hike. The opposite happened, I found out the next day that they had gotten onto the wrong trail by mistake and got caught out after dark. Luckily, no one suffered greatly, as they were able to call help and the park Rangers mounted a SAR squad which got to them pretty quickly. Unfortunately for me, this brought some extra attention to my cache which until now had been flying under the radar. Looks like I'll have to jump through some hoops in order to keep my cache alive, but I'm hopeful. The cachers who got lost have contacted me and already want to give this one another try. And the Park Rangers have contacted me as well and we are working towards getting my cache permitted with them. So far as I can tell, only good has come from this ill-fated cache attempt.

Back to work

For over a year now, I've had the grand luxury of not working. That's not to say I've floated by leisurely every day. I am, as my wife puts it, "Chief of Household". I have responsibilities, just not a regular job. Anyone who has been a full-time parent for two young kids can attest to this. And I've enjoyed it quite a lot. It has been especially nice to take my daughter out geocaching during the work-week. We will pick some nearby trail or park, and play around, see what we can find, and just enjoy ourselves. Not having a job has meant I've been able to go after a bunch of FTFs that I wouldn't have had a chance on otherwise. But ultimately, I haven't gotten sucked into many crazy FTF hunts. My kids aren't as gung-ho geocachers as their dad, so mostly we do outings that will be fun for everyone. But now, I'm back to work. No more spontaneous geocaching adventures during the week. And I expect my find rate to plummet. But there are still lots of geocaching adventures that I am looking forward to. One nice thing about my new job is that I will have every other Friday off, similar to my job back in New Mexico. These off-Fridays, combined with the fact that the kids will be in daycare on those days, means I will have two days a month that are perfect for me to get away on a serious adventures. Crazy hikes, more caving, maybe some climbing... who knows?

The North Ridge Trail Geocache Demon

There are demons out here in these woods. I haven't seen them, but they are there... Almost a year ago, I placed a geocache on the North Ridge Greenway. A geocache that you might call somewhat involved, with 9 stages spread out over almost 8 miles of trail. It was going to be awesome... But it was never found by geocachers, because it got pilfered. Well, geocachers like to say it got muggled. I wrote a long, sob-story post about it then, and made a mental note not to hide caches on this greenway. If there is someone who frequents that trail that takes geocaches, well, I'll jsut steer clear of it. And I've warned other local cachers about this trail as well. I'd hate for someone else to go through a bunch of grief of stolen geocaches.

But despite my warnings, some friends of mine Lullabye4U and Kaput360 began placing caches out on the trail. They are building a really cool Alice in Wonderland series of caches, with placements in Kingston and Oak ridge areas so far. They have wonderful Alice in Wonderland swag, really creative and fun containers, great cache write-ups. The series is going to be fantastic.

The kids and I went after 4 of these caches a few weeks ago, braving the cold. We found the caches just a day after the FTF, and only a few days after publication. This past week a few more AiW caches dropped and as luck would have it, we got snow and snow days. So I took the kids on a snowy hike and we nabbed a few FTFs on the series. The snow stopped us from getting all the new caches though, since the kids got a bit wet and cold after hiking a half mile.

We had an opportunity to go back this weekend and look for the one we missed. We hiked down to GZ and began looking in all these rabbit holes for an ammo ca, but cam up empty. I did note that there were some bootprints already at the site where the cache should ahve been, and at first had thought that a geocacher had beaten us to the find. But after finding nothing, I began to suspect something more sinister. A Geocache Demon!

On our hike out we passed by the spot where the Flamingo cache was and on a hunch I thought I'd check it out to see if it was still there. Sadly, it was not. The Geocacher Demon had nabbed these two geocaches in the last few days. I checked on one other cache in the series near the trailhead and it was still in play, but it may have survived since it is listed as a Mystery cache and is not at the posted coordinates. I hope the others in the series haven't gone missing as well, but I fear the worst. I was able to get in touch with Lullabye4u shortly after our hike and confirmed my suspicions about the cache we couldn't find. it should have been an easy ammo can right where we were looking. The Demon is here, and he wants our caches....

How dare you!?!

Last week I got this log on one of my caches, Hiking through History: The Indian Rock Loop Trail.

It's been a year since this cache was last found or maintained. I searched for a bit since I noticed not many cachers come up here judging by other logs on other caches. A multi cache would have been nice on a day like today. 

I'd like to say I remained calm and unfazed. But I didn't. And here's why. Why would anyone request a cache be archived just because it hasn't been found in a year and that the last few seekers left DNFs? Does that in any way mean the cache isn't there? And what does this guy mean that it has been a year since it has been maintained?

Not surprisingly, I got very indignant about this post, but at least looked into this cache's history a bit before sending him an email. It is true, that the cache was only found once, by two cachers seeking the FTF way back in January of 2015. Two other cachers posted DNFs in March. The first one had mentioned being confused by the additional waypoints I added at trail junctions and I suspect that this cacher didn't actually look for stage one in the correct location. I reached out to that cacher at the time, but never heard back from them. The second cacher to leave a DNF admitted to only searching for a few minutes. And after these two DNFs I simply did not feel it necessary to go out on a maintenance check. Perhaps I should have. The cache has gone unfound since then and I can imagine that some cachers that might have been interested in it have skipped it because if its find record.

But even after reflecting on all this, I felt a bit offended that someone would post a Needs Archived (NA) log on this cache. Why not just post a DNF and Needs Maintenance (NM) log? That way you've expressed your belief that the cache isn't there and needs a check. But going a step further and requesting that the cache be wiped from the game? That seemed overly presumptuous to me. So I wrote to this cacher, to let him know that I am very interested in maintaining my caches and up until their log, had no reason to believe that there was an issue. I even went so far as to ask him to delete the NA and post a NM instead, which he went ahead and did. And I made plans to do a maintenance run on this cache.

Next came my period of gross suspicion. Who is this cacher anyways? Looking up his profile, he is a cacher from Canada that has never cached in Tennessee before. Would this cacher happen to be down here and just happen to after my cache in a remote State Park, and no other caches? Now I was getting really suspicious. This cacher went through the bother of posting a NA on my multi cache, and presumably hiking out there, but then didn't log any of the other caches in Big Ridge State Park? Now I was thinking that maybe this was an armchair log, and was getting really infuriated. My internal fury calmed a little when I saw this cacher log my cache, Sharp's Station and also replied to my messages. I had invited him to come out with me the next day to check on the cache, but he declined. He did mention another nearby cache in Big Ridge that needed maintenance though, so his story was beginning to seem more plausible. Still, the nagging thought in the back of my head is why in the world would someone be down here from Canada and only find a few caches in this one out-of-the-way State Park that even local Tennessee cachers mostly ignore? My suspicion creeps back in.

The next day I puled into the park early in the morning, the first car in the lot. A cold weather was pushing through and it was windy and cold. Actually, it wasn't too cold, but it got colder as the day went on. But never too cold for trail running. As I clogged up the ridges, the one thought in my mind was whether that first stage would be there or not. I crested onto Big Ridge and went right to the hiding spot, and there was the cache, looking pretty much undisturbed. I opened it up, contents were in good shape. Then I checked my GPSr, and saw it was pointing me something like 50 ft away. Hmmm... that could account for people not finding it. I walked over to where the GPSr was telling me to go, and ended up in a spot in the woods, surrounded by some stumps and fallen logs... perfect cache hiding spot. Now I was seeing why people were having trouble finding the stage. I didn't re-take coords just then though, opting for checking this one again on my way back out. It is a loop trail after-all.

I jogged over to the final next and found it easily as well. But once again, the coords I had were way way way off. Like over 100ft. It is on the side of a steep ridge-line, so satellite coverage can't be that good, but still, 100ft is terrible. I took new coords and headed off to stage 5.

Stage 5 was closer to being on coords, only 49ft off according to my GPSr that morning, but still too far for my liking. I wasn't very confident in my GPSr accuracy this morning though. One reason is that it took an abnormally long time for the unit to lock onto the satellite signals. In fact, it failed to get a lock on the first try, which is pretty unusual when I'm outside. It made me think twice about my readings, but what could I do? I was out there to perform maintenance and the GPSr was telling me the coords were off. Should I believe it, or trust the original coords? I hemmed and hawed about this for a bit and decided I would add an update strip inside the stage with new coordinates for the Final, but also leave the old coordinates in the stage. I then added a small note saying check whichever coords are closest to the trail first, and that the cache was less than 10' off the trail. Hopefully, that will be enough for the next seeker. But it also might be just plain confusing. In a game that depends on having good GPS accuracy, questioning your GPSr reliability isn't good.

Stage 4 was in good shape, and also the coords seemed pretty close, only ~30' off. This is on the margin of what is considered acceptable, since on any given set of coords, a 15' error can be expected, and since the person taking the coords can be 15' off, and the person going to the coords can be 15' off in the other direction, 30' error is feasible. With the hint, this stage shouldn't be too hard to locate. I added a strip of paper to this stage with new Stage 5 coords, then took a detour off to Sharp's Station. If it was windy elsewhere on the trails, Sharp's station was a maelstrom. The wind was really whipping across the reservoir. My initial thought of eating a snack at my cache there was scuttled. I did check on the cache though since I was keenly interested in whether the cache was indeed found open the previous day by the Canadian cacher. Sure enough, his name was in the logbook. I silently chided myself for being so skeptical of his logs earlier.

Getting to stage 3 took some huffing and puffing. Also, I didn't run for much of this leg, the trial is just too steep. But upon reaching Stage 3, the coords were once again pretty far off, 46'. And it was also a bit more difficult to remember where this cache was hidden, so it took me slightly longer to find the stage, but I find it I did, and it was in good shape. I averaged some new coords for this stage, left an updated clue and continued on up the trail.

Stage 2 was the only stage I found to be somewhat compromised. It was also the only stage that had coords which took me right to it. It is hidden in the hollow portion of a small tree, and tethered using some spider-line. A critter, probably a chipmunk or squirrel, had chewed through the tether and I had to reach way into the hollow to find the stage, which also had been chewed on. The cap was about 1/3 chewed off. The contents were perfectly safe though, and I had the foresight to bring extra caps with me, so it was easily repaired. I also had some extra spider-line, so I re-tied the tether, added an update note with coords for Stage 3 and was off to complete the loop.

Upon returning to stage 1, my GPSr took me right to the stage. Where it had been over 50' off only an hour earlier, it was now 15' off, perfectly accurate for geocaching. I had wanted to add some updated coords to this stage, but now I didn't have much to update. Still, I took a new set of coords. My maintenance run complete, I ran back to the parking area, passing the one and only hiker I saw all morning on the way. It was great to be back out in this park. Maybe I should place some more caches out here?

The drive home offered some needed time for reflection. Why am I so darn suspicious of cachers? Sure, posting a NA was not entirely appropriate, but harboring doubts about everything this cacher said afterwards left me feeling petty. I doubted his claims because I wanted to, because I was incredulous that he would dare to tell me my cache needed archiving without contacting me first. And this is wrong of me, or at least it feels wrong. In the end, only good came from his log, I took the opportunity to check on a lonely cache of mine that rarely gets searched for, verified it was still in pretty good shape, fixed up a few things that needed fixing and hopefully improved the cache as a whole. And I had an excuse to spend the morning out trail running. Definitely a lesson I'll have to remember next time someone informs me my cache needs to be archived.

A New Years Day Hike to Coyote Point

I was invited on a New Years Day hike by a local geocacher from Morgan County, TN, 9thLife. 9thLife and I have been corresponding sporadically about placing caches in Morgan County for their annual Laurel Mountain Walks Festival. I think it would be awesome to team up with the county's Tourism Board and make a mini Geo-Tour of the areas many hikes. There is the Obed River, Big South Fork (Rugby area), Frozen Head State Park and Lone Mountain State Forest, all wonderful natural areas with many trails. I've offerred to help 9thLife with this project, but so far she has not asked for much help from me, other than bouncing a few ideas off me. Regardless, when I got an invite from her to go on a hike, I was immediately interested. One of the hikes I've wanted to is in Lone Mountain State Forest out to Coyote Point, and when I mentioned this to 9thLife, she accepted it as our destination. I knew she was probably wanting to place a geocache out there, and decided I'd bring along the ammo can I retrieved from an archived cache I found a few months back. It was well labeled and had a bunch of swag already in it, all it needed was a fresh logbook.

We met at 9:30 at the trailhead. 9thLife had also invited a few other friends, so our group was 4-strong heading up the mountain. The hike was on a wide trail, wide enough to pass as a road, which I bet it once was, either a logging road or ATV one. 9thLife and her friends were very talkative, relating many of their adventures. They had been hiking together for around 20 years and have had quite a few crazy trips, like kayaking down white water rivers without having white water experience, and doing a grueling 26 mile backpacking trip in the Smokies over just two days. They laughed and joked and the time flew by as we marched up the trail.

The hiking distance to Coyote point is about 4 miles with 1000' elevation gain. The incline kept us warm, it was a cold day. The view from Coyote point was indeed fine. We snapped pictures, we hid the ammo can. We ate lunch. Then we were off back down the trail. On the way back, I expressed an interest in tagging the high point, lone Mtn itself, which was oh so close, just a 1/2 mile out of the way. no one else was too interested, but they were fine if I split off, so split off I did. The summit of Lone Mountain, also called Brass Knob by the locals, was not much to see. It's a tree covered mountain after all, but even with the leaves off the trees there wasn't much of a view. The extra elevation though was enough to put me above some magic frost line, as the plants and trees at the summit were suddenly and starkly coated in fine ice crystals. That alone made the diversion worth it.

Coming down off the summit, the trail trends west and if I had stayed on it, would have added a couple miles or more to my day. But I shortcutted down and across the steep mountain side which put me back on the Smokey Bear trail we had come up. Looking back at the track log, I doubt I added more than 3/4 of a mile to the overall hike. The rest of the way down was a quiet cruise, and I was somewhat, but not entirely surprised to see that I made it back to the parking area before 9thLife.

FTF in Wonderland

WARNING: MILD SPOILERS BELOW. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

---

It's been a while since I've gone on a FTF hunt. Not sure why, there have been plenty of new caches popping up here and there. Most of them require a bit of a drive to get too, and perhaps I just don't have much competitive spirit these days. However, when I got a notification last night that a new cache by my friends Lullabye4U and Kaput360 was out I became intrigued. It looked like they had started putting out caches for their new Alice in Wonderland themed geocache series already, a series they had mentioned while we were out hiking Slickrock Creek. Digging a bit deeper, I found out they had already published a few oif this series, but they were just beyond where my radius is set for notifications. Not only was there this new cache, but another one, a puzzle also hadn't been found yet, and it had been out for a few days. With my son being out of school, I decided a little morning geocaching trip was in order, so I set about solving the puzzle and packing up for the next morning's adventure.

On our way to FTF gold

I was expecting it to be a windy rainy day, and packed accordingly, but it turned out to be sunny and warm, perfect weather to be out with the kids. We visited Roane County Park first, and got our first FTF within minutes. My son made the find, and both kids were happy to trade for toys. We ended up hiking to two more caches in the park including another of the Alice in Wonderland series, which was really cute.

Ada attempts to go down the rabbit hole

A short drive away we had a chance for another FTF, this time on a nature trail near Harriman. We flushed a couple of dear on our way down to the cache, which was found quickly. This one was great even though the kids were disappointed that it was only a micro.

"Drink Me"

Turns out, we beat out Ol' Fogies to this cache by a few hours. Guess I've still got a little competitive spirit left in me. We finished the morning by searching for a few more Harriman caches before heading home for a well deserved lunch. Looking forward to more Alice in Wonderland caches, they're fun!

Getting my Hike On

Viewing Tennessee from Hangover Ledge, GCVZ2W

December has been a pretty slow month for my geocaching, and unless I go on a spree in the next few days (which is always a possibility), it will be the month this year where I have found the fewest caches. It may even end up being my lowest month of caches of all time, which is currently a distinction held by May of 2012 when I only found 13 caches (followed closely by June 2012 with 16 caches). Of course, I ahve always maintained that the number of cache finds isn't really that important a statistic, at least I try to project that sentiment. It shouldn't matter if I haven't found many,a s long as the ones I did find were awesome adventures. Even so, the statistics help see a broader view, and this month has indeed been a slow one for geocaching. Between some violin engagements, birthdays, and family visiting from out of town, I just haven't had as many opportunities to go out caching. And the itch was definitely there, so I made plans to go on a nice long caching hike the day after dropping my in-laws off at the airport. The hike I had in mind was a ridge-top, starting at Beech Gap on the Cherahola Skyway, and ending at Hangover Ledge. I was hoping for wintry conditions, but would be happy just getting out.

 This is Tree eating wilderness country

I invited fellow cacher and caver, GISpuma and her boyfriend Mtippetts (that's his cacher name, he just got started with this geocaching nonsense) to come along. While I do enjoy a solo outing, having company is nice too, and I felt that I owed GISpuma a trip after she graciously led me on a trip to Blue Spring Cave. As the day of the hike drew near, it became apparent that we would have unseasonably warm weather, which was fine by me as well. We'd make better time if the ridge wasn't covered in snow and ice. I picked GISpuma and Mtippetts up at 6:30 am and we were off on our adventure. An earlier start might ahve been prudent, since the days are short this time of year, but I didn't want to leave too early since I wanted to eb able to see the scenic drive up the Cherahola Skyway. I'd never driven up it before and it was indeed pretty nice. We stopped at one of the overlooks, nominally to use the bathrooms, but also just to see the view and find a nearby cache. I made the mistake of letting my dog run loose. After finding the cache, the dog came bounding over to us, smelling something awful, and with an enormous grin on her face. If there is something smelly nearby for her to roll in, it will be found quickly. I can't say what it was she rolled in, but it was rank. Luckily, we only had a short drive left to our trailhead, and her stench wouldn't be too noticeable while out hiking. I secretly hoped that by the end of the day, it would be gone. Hey, one can dream.

Pre Hike Photo

The first section of the trail was along dirt road, and was pretty uninteresting. We chatted and made good time, and were soon on the southern flank of Bob's Bald, our first peak to climb. GISpuma had been up on Bob's Bald before for a meteor shower viewing party, so this was all familiar territory for her. She hadn't found the cache there though, so hopefully we would be remedying that. The top of Bob's Bald had a few nice meadows giving decent views to the east over North Carolina. It was also windy and cold, and we were bundled up in our layers. I was expecting 70 degree weather so I had on just about all my gear. If it got any colder I'd be in trouble. The cache, GC37QG5, was found pretty quickly with three sets of eyes.

Finding the Cache Happy!

The next four caches were part of a series called the Mile High Series, and were all around 5280' elevation. They were nicely spaced out around .5-1 mile apart, so we never had too far to go before getting to the next cool destination. The trail got better too, with interesting rock fins protruding from the ridge-top, and frequent views off to either side. Our next stop was Stratton Bald, which was not really a bald at all, being entirely tree covered. Maybe it used to be a bald? The weather got warmer the further we hiked. We also ran into a few backpacking groups near the next trail junction which was called Naked Ground. I was expecting Naked Ground to be a wide open meadow, but it was simply a saddle with a few open spots where people camp. There was a nice view off to the east. By the time we reached our next cache/destination, Haoe Bald, it was past lunchtime, and we were tempted to break at one of the many campsites. But the lure of a beautiful view at Hangover Ledge was too much, and we kept on trucking.

Searching for the cache near Haoe

Hangover Ledge was by far the gem of this hike. It was actually lower in elevation than Haoe Bald, but out on a ridge covered in short Rhododendrons. Several rocks were high enough that when you stood on them, you could see well out in every direction. And of course, the trail ended at a rocky outcrop with just stunning views. It was about 1:30pm by the time we arrived, but it was finally time for lunch. The sun had popped through the clouds, making it warm and pleasant. Hard to believe it was December high up in the mountains. But before taking it all in, something very important had to be done.... eat lunch! I was famished! The geocache, the views, they could both wait. I needed food. And I had a gourmet spread of flat bread, chicken, vegetables and greek yogurt sauce (tsaziki?). GISpuma and Mtippetts had energy bars, a whole mound of them. We all dug in sharing what we had and were soon sated. Even Sasha had some food and was soon taking a nap in a sunny spot.

One tired pup

Eating right after a long hike

Looking north from Hangover Ledge

We did finally get around to finding the cache here, which is a pretty old one, having been placed back in 2006. The logbook is one of those rare ones that is actually pretty full, although it looks like this is more because it is often found by backpackers rather than just geocachers. There were some really interesting log entries in the book, and we all took some time reading through it. A couple of geocachers got engaged at this spot, someone else left a hollow point bullet since they hadn't seen any bears on their hike and he could afford to leave it behind. And person after person exclaiming about the beauty of the place. The cache was pretty well loaded with goods as well. A lot of the items looked like stuff that backpackers would have on them, including a bunch of food packets (oatmeal and the like). There's no saying how old that stuff is, and I took them out thinking that I was doing a service by taking out food items. You aren't supposed to leave food items inside caches, so I consider it the right thing to do to take them out when I see them. The main reasons for this is that you don't want to attract animals to the cache, but also you don't want the inside of the cache to get covered in gross sticky food when it inevitably gets wet. The thing is, the food in this cache was all pretty well dry, and I suppose it could be used by backpackers. But I grabbed them anyways. Was I doing a dis-service? Only the caching gods will know.

The return hike was mostly uneventful, at least for me. GISpuma was having some joint pain though, so we took it easy pace wise. She got along much better after finding some suitable sticks to use as trekking poles. I wish I had brought mine. It threatened to rain on us a few times on our return, but the cloud would always blow over before any real rain started. The slight rain helped de-stinkify the dog though and by the time we got back to the car at 5:30pm, she was almost normal. Well, not that good, she still got a bath as soon as we got home, but the drive home wasn't atrocious. The hike ended up being over 12 miles, which was on the high end of what I had estimated. We could have shaved off some of that distance by starting at a different trailhead, but the ridge-top was pleasant enough to walk along. And it felt great to be outside and hiking again. I need to get out and do more of these hikes. Even if it means finding less caches per month.

Posing on Bob's Bald

End of Hike