5,000 Finds! Mexico Adventure!

5,00 Finds!

Arco at Land' End

As I approached my 5,000th find, I wanted to come up with something fun to do for my milestone. My previous thousander milestones included a tough challenge in southern New Mexico, a couple cool caves in Kentucky and in Tennessee, and a mega event, MOGA 2018. Looking back now, I can see that each milestone is in a different state, which is also kind of cool.

1000	Locked	100,000 Foot Challenge
2000	Locked	Cavers Plunge (an extreme cache)
3000	Locked	Confederate Sinkhole Earthcache
4000	Locked	MOGA 2018

I thought about what would make a cool find for my 5000th geocache, and then realized that I had a big international trip coming up, and it would make for a perfect exotic location to get my 5,000th find. My family was traveling to San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico, to attend my sister-in-law's wedding. There aren't a lot of caches down there, but there definitely are some col ones, and I made it a priority to figure out how to get o one of the caches in Mexico.

Our trip got off to a rocky start, with a missed connection in Atlanta resulting in us arriving far later than planned, but we made it ok, and our first day in Mexico we planned an adventure out to Land's End, the southern mos tip of Baja California with an iconic sea arch... and an Earthcache.

We hired a water taxi to take us over to Pelican Rock, and after swimming and snorkeling for a bit, took a walk along the beach to Playa Del Amor, and the two Earthcaches and Traditional that I wanted to target for my 5,000th find. Land's End is a very cool spot, a rocky point with a narrow and very picturesque beach, with a sand walkway that connects from the Sea of Cortez side, over to the Pacific Ocean side. Everyone swims on the Sea of Cortez side, as it is protected from the hard surf, but the Pacific side is just stunning. While the kids ran around and played in the sand, I took off up the arid, rocky slope to see if I could find the traditional geocache here, GC3B92, I was a bit worried about finding the cache, as a previous seeker posted a DNF, but after searching around for a while, and using the generous hint, I spotted the container and yelped for joy. A couple TBs I had with me ended up getting left here, hopefully to be picked up by another tourist, and tey travel far and wide.

The two Earthcaches, GC7HT6P and GC319DN were also fun to do, especially the one about Tafoni, a funny geological term I hadn't heard before. The rock formations along with a nice sandy beach, and an exotic location... it made for an awesome milestone.

Neptune's Finger.. a part of one of the Earthcaces

Looking out at the Pacific

Tafoni on the rocks

Divorce Beach and the Pacific Ocean

Geocache Success!

Water Taxi taking my family to Pelican Beach

It will probably be a few years before I need to think about my 6,000th find, but it will definitely be hard to top this mile stone.

The cache was up there somewhere

Pretty sure I am in this picture somewhere, looking for the geocache on the talus sope

Triumphant Return

Triumphant earthcache Pic

Me and my daughter

Hocking Hills Superbowl Hike

On a rainy dreary Saturday, I joined my friends Tom and Kim, better known as Sequoia and Kim-Possible, for a day of hiking and exploring in the Hocking Hills. This area has been on my radar since we moved to Ohio, it is known for interesting geologic features and beautiful trails. Sequoia was hosting his third annual Superbowl Hike Event out here, but unlike his event in Berea, this one was less focused on finding a lot of geocaches, and more about hiking and exploring some of the hidden places in the Hocking Hills. Sounded good to me.

After a nice early start, and a breakfast of waffles off the interstate, we met several other geocachers at the trailhead to Balanced Rock. The morning was foggy and damp, but not all that cold. There were a few large icicles hanging from some of the cliffs on the hike up, but they were melting fast. Balanced rock was a fun hoodoo like formation that looks like one strong gust o wind could knock it over. It reminded me a lot of rock formations around Los Alamos. We hung around here for a while, taking some pictures and chatting about geocaching. Two of the geocachers had to leave after this short hike (only 1/2 mile!).

Group Picture for the Event

One precarious rock

Doesn't look as precarious from this angle

From the same parking lot, we hiked north to Chapel Cave and Chapel Arch, a bit longer hike, but still pretty short. We visited the Chapel Cave first, which was aptly named, it felt like a wedding service could be held in it. The nearby earthache at Chapel Arch probably would have been overlooked entirely if it wasn't for the geocache listing bringing us there. Compared to the Chapel Cave, it was a pretty small feature tucked away on a small rock bluff, but it was pretty cool in its own way. There were two entrances a small cave chamber, connected by a very narrow fissure. I tried squeezing myself through the fissure without success at first, but then got down on my belly and crawled through a wider gap at floor level. Good fun. A rich reddish iron oxide gave the location some wonderful color contrasts to the vivid green mosses growing around the caves.

Chapel Cave

Chapel Cave from afar

Group picture near Chapel Arch

we completed both of these hikes before lunch, but the real treat was still in store for us. Sequoia had contacted park officials and got us special permits to visit two locations that are not open for regular access by visitors. We gathered up our lunches and headed over to the first spot called the Salt Peter Caves, only a short ways down the road. In my opinion, this was the coolest spot we visited. The rock bluffs here form a series of multi level cave shelters. The caves are deep enough where a flashlight becomes necessary, which also make them suitable for bats to roost in. Makes sense, since Salt peter, which is essentially bat guano, was mined here once. The first cave we came to I immediately went back as far as I could, which required stooping low, and sure enough, there were a few bats hibernating. I counted 7 in that first cave, not a lot by any means, but it was good to see them utilizing the cave. We were careful not to shine lights directly on them or get too close an disturb them.

We were all pretty hungry, so we sat down in the soft dry sand in this first cave and ate lunch. Well, most of us did, two cachers, MetalHead and half of the BoydFamily somehow got split up from our group and while we ate lunch we could see them far below at the edge of the river, trying to figure out how to get to us. The first cave we were at was less obvious to get to then the other caves and the had missed a faint turn off. By the time they got back to us, we had finished most of our lunch and were ready to explore the other 3 caves. I get so giddy exploring caves, at each one I was immediately going as far back as I could, and looking for any tight passages to squeeze through. There were a couple fun little belly crawls that connected different parts of the caves, but none of the caves was deeper than a hundred feet or so from their broad entrances. They were all really nice spots to hang out though. Sequoia set up a few more group photos as we monkeyed around the caves and small waterfalls.

LadyB and LandisB at Cave #1

Group Shot at Cave #4

Exploring the depths

Cave #2

Cool ice stalacmite

Dew covered bat

Our final hike was to Rocky hollow, a spot where there was some old growth hemlock forest. There was a nice trail cut through an area of clear-cut that was thick with small trees and thorny briars, and then a decent trail down into a ravine, but then the trail just stopped, and we were exploring the hollow as if it was virgin territory. We went upstream a short ways to an impressive waterfall, and spent some time scrambling the slippery rocks around its base. Th hemlocks here were massive, and the moss was thick and deeply verdant. A very peaceful place that probably gets few visitors.

A curious rock in the hollow

Curious rock from another view

Zen Moment

While these afternoon hikes had no geocaches on them, they were definitely the highlight for me. I think the rest of the group agreed, although most of them had previously found the earthcaches at the other spots. Hats off to Sequoia for getting us access to such wonderful spots. It was nice to meet som other Ohio cachers too, ones not from the Cincy area. I chatted with Boydfamily, ArmyMom and Metalhead about caching in Dayton, and the possibility of finding some old Weeds19 hides. LadyB and LandisB, from Columbus, I had met before from MOGA events, and there is a chance that we'll team up this year to compete in the 4-man.

The ride home had a couple detours to pick up a few caches that Sequoia needed for a challenge he is working on involving ancient civilization monuments. The most notable stop was at Hopewell Culture National Historic Park, which was a recreation of Hopewell Mound constructions. Stopping there was just the cherry on top of a great day exploring Ohio. It was a day out with geocachers, but it certainly wasn't about geocaching. That said, after this trip I am now sitting at 4,999 finds. Next one is a big milestone, and hopefully I can find an equally big adventure cache to find for it. Maybe international....?

A frigid hike in the Jefferson Memorial Forest

Lost love Letters

My friend Tom invited me on a geocaching hike near Louisville, and I was keen to go as it is an area I haven't explored yet. I also enjoy caching with Tom and Kim, two of the geocachers that I met through MOGA competitions. A few days before our planned hike, the weather forecast was for temperatures in the teens, and a biting wind to make it feel even colder. We could have decided not to spend all day out in the cold, but as my cousin Ali likes to say, "There is no bad weather, only bad clothing." So off we went.

The Jefferson Memorial Forest (JMF) touts itself as being the largest city park in the US, a claim that requires a bunch of caveats. I remember the Franklin Mountain park in El Paso also making this claim, and a quick google search reveals that there are several large city parks that could also make claims to this title. Not that it matters much, as long as we can go geocaching out there. JMF is cache-saturated, meaning that the hiders in that area have placed geocaches in nearly every available space in the forest. This means you can spend a day hiking and easily get 40+ geocaches, which is what we did. Tom and Kim have gecached down there often, but it seems that three are always some areas that have new caches, or spots they had missed previously. They had a list of caches the were targeting, but for me, I was just happy to be out and find whatever caches we happened to pass by.

We pulled up at the trailhead at about 8am, and met two other geocachers there, Bucknuts who is moving to Louisville, and BuffaloBob, from nearby Indiana. Being a party of 5 meant we wouldn't be hiking too fast, but we would also have a much easier time finding geocaches. The more eyes looking the faster things get found. The area we were hiking w a remote corner of the JMF, with no maintained trails. Winter is definitely a good time to geocache this area, as we were usually hiking cross-country and I bet the bushwhacking in the warmer months is pretty brutal. There was some nice ridge-top hiking, and something of a trail along the ridges, but we were only on the ridges part of the time. I was constantly cold though, the layers I chose for the hike were not quite warm enough. I think I was counting on more strenuous hiking to keep me warm.

Earthcache, Errosional Fissures

Most of the hides were pretty average, simple pre-forms on a tree or in a nook. There were a few challenge caches I qualified for, and some I didn't, but those were not interesting hides. The best hides were a letterbox, and some hides requiring climbing up in trees.   GCZM2N, GC83JAB, GC8476R and GC83HM9 all had fun little climbs associated with them, as well as nice page write-ups with a good sense of humor. Most were by the same cache owner, JeepStaff, who the others in our group know well, and who has quite a reputation for fun and creative hides. I'll have to keep an eye out for his hides in the future.

BuckNuts at Oh Deer! not Here!

BuffaloBob at Sky King's Plane

We ended up hiking around 10 miles over the course of 10 hours, and visited 43 geocaches, 40 of which I was able to claim as found. The only DNFs we had were ones where the CO had given permission to leave a replacement, so we left new containers at those spots. Three challenge caches I signed but do not qualify for, and may never qualify for as they require pretty big numbers.

Kim-Possible at a hide in JMF

As for my overall impressions of JMF: There is a ton of geocaching to be done there, and some fun hides, but the hiking was pretty average in my opinion. No real great views, or neat geologic formations. If it weren't fun the geocaching fun, I wouldn't recommend it as a destination. But there is plenty of geocaching fun to be had there, so I might go on another trip or two.

Earworm Multi Cache GC70M9E

One of my favorite hides of all time was GC70M9E.  What made this hide particularly fun was the final contained a digital voice recorder and I encouraged finders to record the earworm song stuck in their head on it. Unlike most of my hides  Santa Fe, decided to archive the cache so I could keep the DVR, and perhaps re-create a multi cache like it in my new home of Cincinnati. I am thikning about how to do that now, but in that process, I have pulled the recordings off of the DVR and compiled them int a Youtube Video. I had over 8 minutes of recorded material and it was fun to hear what people left.

I am looking forward to figuring out how to recreate this hide in some way.

Berea Forest New Years Hike

While not technically on New Years day, this hike was close enough to the new year to call it such. My friend, Tom aka Sequoia hosts an annual hiking event in the Berea Forest, usually involving hot drinks at one of the scenic overlooks this park. This year's event, was to be held at Buzzard's roost, and would involve a nice 2.5 mile hike in and hot cider. I made sure to get the day free to head down and join in the fun.

The Berea forest boasts 12+ miles of trails and several rocky overlooks, and it has an active geocaching community that maintains (and flips) hides in the park. A dozen or so new caches were published on the day of the event, and if one was to hike all the trails, you could find over 50 caches. Which got me thinking, why not try to find every cache in the forest on my day hike? Tom said it would be tough, but doable. So I packed light, and left Cincinnati early so as to have a good start to finding as many of the caches as possible.

I started my hike at the West Pinacle trailhead, not the one most of the geocachers attending the event would park at, since it is further from Buzzard's roost. It was still dark as I started, but that played to my advantage as there was a night cache right at the parking area that I was able to find. The first few caches hidden up the trail took a little longer than normal in the dark, but I managed to make the finds and made decent time up to the West pinnacle. One of the better caches on the way up was GC80F9N which involved lowered the cache from a lofty perch.

GC80F9N

With all the caches I stopped at along the way, I missed having sun-rise on West Pinnacle, but still had the rock to myself for a glorious morning view. The day was unseasonably warm, with a forecast for the mid 60s, and it made for perfect hiking weather.

West Pinnacle

 With most of my elevation gain already underfoot, I made a retty quick ridge walk over to the Indian Fort lookout, which also had amazing views. As I approached a trail junction and started searching for a cache at a rock formation called Devil's Kitchen, I hear voices and ran into the first hikers of the day... my geocaching buds from Cincy! They were on their way up to the event along with some Kentucky cachers and we joined forces for a couple of the fun hides around Devil's Kitchen.  The letterbox, GC8G5CQ was my favorite cache of the day, with the directions leading you to a small cave where the cache was tucked way down in deep. It was especially fun to find this with the group.

GC8G5CQ from within

Devil's Kitchen

Hiking to Devil's Kitchen

From the Devil's Kitchen over to the event, even more geocacher's joined up with us, until we were a big mob of geocachers ambling down the trail, finding everything in our path. Tom left us behind as we found caches outBuzzard's roost, but when we showed up there, he had his stove out and was heatingg cider for us to enjoy. We hung out at buzzard's roost for quite a while, enjoying home made donuts, hot cider and swapping geocaching tales. I met dsms99 who had done my Frozen head Whereigo and we chatted a bit about some of the more challenging hides around southern Kentucky and the Cumberlands, like Caver's Plunge. I might need to revisit that   e one of these days. I'm sure I could get folks interested in taking the plunge. Another cacher had a quadcopter, and he flew it about taking videos and pictures. His video was posted and provides a pretty cool view of the area.

After the event, I stuck with a large group of cachers that were hiking north to Robe and Basin mountains, the furthest trails from the parking area. It was good fun to find geocaches in the company others, but after a while I  witching to head off at my own pace so that I could also hike to the other s of the forest. So after getting to the last geocache basin Mountain, a gem of a cache at the End of the Rainbow, I split off to hike on my own.

Finding caches with the group

One of the more interesting hides, found by Scouter James

Crevice you need to climb to access Basin Mtn

Pretty walls around Basin Mountain

View from The End of the Rainbow

Headwall of Basin Mountain

Great hiking day in Berea Forest

What happened next was a comedy straight out of my MOGA competition days. I would hike up to a geocche on Robe mountain, and then not be able to find it. After 5 minutes or so, the rest of the group would catch up, and give me a gentle ribbing for being slow to find the cache, which they would typically find right away. Then i would strike off at a fast hike again to the next cache and this would happen all over again. So much for finding caches at my own pace, I would have been better off just sticking with the group. But after the basin mountain caches were found, I really did have a chance to split off, since I was heading over to the Eagle's Nest and East Pinnacle, and everyone else was heading back to the parking area. As I made my way to Eagle's nest, the number of hikers I passed starting increasing. I guess a weekend at the end of the year, with absoultely stunning weather, would be a popular day to be out on the trails, and now that I was getting closer to the main parking arrea, there were a lot of people around. This made finding some of the geocaches along the trail a little trickier, only because I didn't want to call attention to myself. maybe I should not have been wearing blaze orange then... Oh well.

Eagle's Nest

The cache at Eagle's Nest was great, and there were only a few other hikers there when i showed up, but the East Pinnacle was thronged with people. Someone even had a guitar up there and was belting out country songs. It was a festive kind of atmosphere, by somehow I like finding solitude on my hikes rather than a party of strangers. So I didn't linger long even though the views were fantastic. I did make a mental note to come back here with my family. This whole area would make for a great family outing.

Near East Pinnacle

After tagging East Pinnacle, I couldn't believe my luck. About 40 geocaches found, and not a single DNF. Sure some containers were in rough shape, with soggy log sheets, but every one of them was there and findable. Pretty amazing. Kudos to the local COs for keeping all these hides active. On my way down the main trail, I ran into Tom and we found a few caches together while hiking down to the East Pinnacle parking lot. He offered me a ride back to my car at the West end, but I declined, since there were a handful of caches along the bike path that I wanted to find on my way back. I managed to find these and was back at my car around 5pm, for a 10 hour hiking day of a bit over 12 miles. Not bad at all.  And I just about managed o clear out all the caches in this park. I missed 4 caches near a dead-end trail called Davis Hollow, which I had skipped early in the day so as not to be lateto the event. Maybe I should have grabbed those while I was nearby. There were also a couple challenge caches that I didn't qualify for, although I signed one of them anyways.  final find count, including the event, came in at 53. Not bad at all. but even better, the hiking was just awesome. Beautiful terrain, rocky cliffs with towers, caves, crevices, overlooks. Not too much elevation change, but enough to keep things interesting. My kind of day hike.

Sunset over Kentucky Hills