Hello Doug, Well written. Being somewhat of a Geocacher myself (we mostly do it as a family), you had me laughing the whole way through. I can certainly relate!
-- Bruce Monday, April 6, 2009, 8:34:10 AM, you wrote: DB> Scott Loveless wrote: >> On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 6:16 PM, Mark Roberts <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>>Here you go: >>>http://www.robertstech.com/blog/?p=58 >> >> >> What's up with the geocaching? >> DB> This is the write-up I did in the geocaching.com forum: DB> "So my friend Nicoman and I are relativley new to caching. This will DB> become evident. We were both in the area of Mossy Rock (GC4431) for an DB> event at Grandfather Mountain. I had done a quick search for travel DB> bugs, since tomorrow I'm off to Colorado and I thought it would be cool DB> to take some along. Not much time for prep work, so I just grabbed the DB> coords and glanced at the online maps... DB> Friday afternoon I took off down the hill and turned on the eTrex. I DB> followed the arrow until I came to the "Member's Only" Golf Course. DB> Several trips around the neighborhood surroundings had me wondering why DB> the cache would be on the golf course, so I decided to turn up a DB> different road, and I came on a trail head at a turnoff. The GPSr DB> indicated the cache was .54 mile away and I put on my boots for a nice DB> nature walk. A couple tenths into it I glanced at my watch, which told DB> me I didn't have anough time left to hike in, look for the cache, hike DB> out, and still make it to where I needed to be at 3pm. I turned around DB> and went back to the car. DB> Saturday morning I was talking to Nicoman and I said he had not had good DB> luck finding any caches, so I suggested we go find this one. After DB> wrestling with his GPSr for thirty minuted ar so, trying to figure out DB> how to enter coords manually, we got it pointed toward the cache and DB> drove to the trailhead. DB> Now, some people would have been put off by the cable strung across the DB> beginning of the trail, blocking the way. But we're not "some people," DB> we're GeoCachers! Some people would have been put off by the sign with DB> the name of the trail on it, broken off and lying on the ground and no DB> longer reliably indicating the proper direction of the trail, but we're DB> not "some people," are we? NO! We're GeoCachers! DB> And some people, when faced with an arrow on both units that said the DB> cache was a half a mile that way, through what could very well be the DB> thickest stand of wet rhododendrons in the known universe, with no DB> discernible trail, would have rethought the whole thing. but we're not DB> "some people," are we? No! DB> We're morons. DB> With no hesitation, with no timidity, with no working gray matter, we DB> jumped in and fought our way through. Through bushes. Up steep grades. DB> Over rotten logs. Past slugs the size of small snakes. Over rocks. Mossy DB> rocks, no less. DB> I can't count the number of times we stood somewhere in those woods, DB> noting that there was no possible way to get any farther, then finding a DB> way. We kept losing the sat signals and had to bull through to an DB> "opening," and try again. The tree cover and rolling clouds kept us DB> guessing. I stepped onto a slippery log and ended up gashing my shin DB> with a sharp rock. Several times, when gravity and a committed angle DB> conspired to keep me from remaining upright, I reached for support, only DB> to have it crumble as I crashed through and landed on whatever was below. DB> And yet, though the cursing and crashing and tumbling and certainty that DB> we would not fid the cache, we kept laughing. We were on an adventure, DB> to be sure, and we were having a grand time. DB> So, three hours later, scratched up, covered in mud and bugs and sweat, DB> huffing and puffing and looking for all the world like Andy DuFresne DB> when he crawled out of Shawshank, we emerged onto the marked trail and DB> the top of the mountain to marvel at the view. DB> A quick converation with a tripod-toting photographer we came upon DB> confirmed our suspicions: that there was a paved parking lot about a DB> tenth of a mile away, right off the Blue Ridge Parkway, and that if we DB> had driven another ways up the mountain, we could have just rambled in DB> and been on our way. DB> So did we find the cache? Yep. After a few moments rest, we took some DB> readings and walked right to it. I was a little crestfallen to find that DB> the original had been swiped, so there was no travel bug to tote to DB> Colorado, but I was thrilled that LittleJohn had put in a replacment DB> logbook and some tags so we would have something to find. DB> Both of us signed the log, and I left a carabiner keychain. We rehid the DB> bag and walked the couple miles back to the car for the drive back to DB> GFM, laughing the whole way." DB> -- DB> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List DB> [email protected] DB> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net DB> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
