Hiking & Geocaching - Two Great Tastes

Geocaching is a strange and delightful activity, that's for sure.  It combines three of my favorite things in the world: seeing new places, gaming, and hiking.  So I thought I'd go back and look at some of my more interesting caching logs from the last few years, along with some accompanying images.  Good times and much adventure!  Please enjoy these stories; I'm pleased to say that I didn't wound myself on any of these adventures, although wrong moves are sometimes fatal ones on these lonely mountains.

Lookout Peak, Robledo Mountains (GCX89N)

We're back! So after our Sacramento Mt. adventure yesterday, Dave & Ganggreen called me up last night, wanting to know if I wanted to leave early to try and tackle the road up to Lookout Peak that we chickened out on driving up last November. I couldn't resist so after our rendezvous at Starbucks, we high tailed it up Faulkner Canyon Road and started the rock crawl in earnest.

Adrenaline ran high but Dave's amazing driving and remarkable Rubicon Jeep was up to the task. When we reached the first saddle, they wandered off to snag my neighboring cache and walked up the ridge to the top, where I met the white faced but exhilarated driving team. The find was easy and we enjoyed the spectacular views before we split up again, during which I placed another (evil) cache.

I skipped back down the ridge and met up with the boys before crawling down the initial obstacle from last year. Now it doesn't seem so bad.

Giving this a favorite for the awesome adventure. Thanks!

96 Tears, near Globe, AZ (GC18028)

So this was quite an adventure. I talked my sib to make the hike up from Highway 77 as a break from our drive to Phoenix, en route to a wedding in Vegas. It's a good thing we did because Phoenix was a hideous festering hell hole when we arrived, with traffic moving like frozen molasses and accidents blocking access everywhere (plus no good wine anywhere near our hotel). But I digress...

We started with a good pace up to the old jeep (?) road, remarking along the way as to why there was a long black tube running parallel to such a remote trail (much speculation ensued, including my theory about bear fluids being channeled to some secret government lab down in Globe; turns out it was just feeding a cattle tank). When we finally reached the GZ area, Roger just knew exactly where the cache was even without looking at the map; sure enough, he was spot on correct (his second find ever out of two hunts!).

GREAT cache and very very lonely (I decided we would seek this one when we saw that it hadn't been found in over two years!). It's always a pleasure to find something like this. The wooden box is starting to come unraveled a bit but I don't think it matters much given it's very well protected hiding place. Snagged a couple of tears and then high-tailed it back to his Prius. All told, we did the whole thing in about 2 hours, not bad for a couple of out of shape guys who were more concerned with getting their hands on some decent Malbec before bedtime.

Thanks! A definite favorite.  Did the mention the views and weather were spectacular today?

Big White Gap, Las Uvas Mts (GCWGRN)

BG and I reminisced last night about the time we got lost and ending driving over the Big White Gap in the Las Uvas, way back in the 90s. So the goal with the Da Boys today was clear. We were gonna go the White Gap again in his Toyota Tundra, choosing the Corralitos Ranch Road route as our entry point. Along the way, we stopped to get another cache and gawk at the amazing beauty this road has to offer. The drive up to the Magdalena Peak area has always been one of my favorites and today did not disappoint.

Afte this, the road got dicey, far worse than it was 10 odd years ago (and apparently worse than it was when this cache was placed). We cleared a few rough patches in the arroyos and near the White Gap tank, where we were greeted by cows and mule deer drinking at the pond. From here, it was all uphill to the pass. After getting out and helping our driver navigate his way through a particularly rough patch, we thought it would be clean sailing to the top, the rough being very rough but doable. After .5 miles from the top, our luck ended abruptly when the road in front of us decided to disappear into a chasm of avalanchee badness. From this point on, it would be impassible even for a 4x4 to navigate (although I'm sure ATVs could do it just fine). The hike up from here was not bad and we found ourselves to the pass within 15 minutes or so. A short rest and some awed gawking at both the Organs and the Black Range (from the place! who'd a thunk?), we made our way up to the cache site and the prize was at hand.

The boys celebrated with beers and I reveled in my first five terrain find! What an adventure. I took an amazingly cool bug and left one of my own, along with a few other goodies (earrings, $1, etc) for the next intrepid adventurer who wants to make this trek here. Thanks for the challenge! Next time we'll have to approach from Highway 26 to get the Las Uvas Springs cache.

PS The iPad worked brilliantly the whole way, even when we had no coverage at all (yet the GPSs and our satellite maps persevered throughout). I finally switched to the handheld for ease of movement during last .5 mile hike. All in all, a good day for cachers and good day for technology. Yay!

Ticket to the Superbowl, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, NM (GC21976)

What better way to celebrate 12/12/12 than to find what has to be the hardest cache I've done all year. That's not to say that any one aspect of it was particularly hard but in summation, it wins... hands down. Here's the quick and dirty version of the challenges we faced today.

1. We ran into an issue with the initial field puzzle involving the Stage One numbers. Seems we ended up a negative number for one of the coords; turns out this was the stage that the CO had to modify due to changes in signage but BB & I were pretty sure there was still a problem and a phone call to the last finder confirmed this.
2. We took the wrong road at first, trusting erroneously in our atlas maps, which took us into the heart of a ranch with no exit roads. After this, we back tracked to the road I thought I would need in the first place and we were in business.
3. Since BG couldn't join us today, BB & I were in my trusty Element, which is not ideal for this sort of thing but it fared fine apart from a bit of plastic covering over the right rear strut, which popped loose on some particularly prominent rock. Fortunately, nothing was broken and it snapped back in placed right away. The rest of the drive was rough but with no incidents, and only one bit where we drove over open desert instead of the road to avoid a particularly nasty patch of rock.
4. The climb was loose, volcanic, and somewhat treacherous because we didn't follow the CO's advice and took a different, stupider route up. 
5. The hide was HARD in these rocks. A need in a haystack hide for sure. But we got it! We also recovered Marauders stick. 
6. Downhill, especially on loose rock, is not my forte so it took me almost as long downhill as up.
7. Had to go to work so we hauled ass out of there. Now I'm 30 minutes from my meeting; no shower for me (just some freshening up!).

All in all, an adventure for the ages. Thanks BD!!!!!!!!!!! A definite favorite point for this one.