Mr.WitzAbout goes Geocaching

2012-01-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

When I got my Gecko travelbug from Groundspeak, I decidedthat I didn’t want to drop it in any ordinary cache. I decided I wanted to putit in a new puzzle cache that someone would have to work at to solve. I had anidea floating around in my head for a while, and was able to code it up inabout a day. It took me the longest to go back through decoding to make sure Ihadn’t made any mistakes and that it really was solvable the way I meant it tobe solved.

It is published under the ID GC2YA1Z, and I named it “Witzis O9960”. I scored it as a level 4 difficulty, butI’ve been hearing from others that they would easily rate it higher. I’ve alsoheard that no one was able to solve it without hints. Now, I could up therating, but I feel there are other puzzles out there that are harder, and thatI’m thinking of other puzzles that I think should overall be harder, so I’mleaving it as a 4.

However, for those of you that read this article, you are about to get a whole lot of hints! I’m not only going to giveyou everything you need to solve my puzzle, but I’m going to go over some ofthe techniques to approach this type of puzzle, that might help you solve otherpuzzles as well!

When you first look at the cache page, you see just a littlebit of writing, to give you a very minimal amount of story, and then a coloredgrid of numbers that looks a little like a printout (as the story tells you):

Now, on the cache page, I could have just given the data inan image, making people type the data back in. That would have been a lot ofwork, and if I forced you to type it in, you would probably miss some subtleclues in the data. But I was nice! I put the data as text on the page,formatted using just a little HTML (web page code) to make it come out lookinga bit like a print out.

Now let me take you through some of the steps involved indecoding this cache puzzle, and show you some techniques of logically solvingsimilar puzzles.

Looking at the data, we can get some stats on the layout:
1447 chars
664 are zeros
704 are ones

79 are O-s (capital O, not zero – notice anything yet?)

An interesting thing to note is that 1447 is a prime number.Prime numbers can be very valuable when creating encryptions. Do you think thatwill help you solve this puzzle, or perhaps it is one of the wrong directionsthat are in this puzzle.

If we look at the data as if the O-s on the outside are tractor-feed for printout paper, and only look at thedata inside the O-s, we see it is a grid of 37 rows by 37 columns.

If you take 37 x 37, it gives you1369. Lets see what happens if we trybreaking the data into regular chunks, starting at 15 and going down to 3. Istart by dividing, and show the result to 3 decimal places. Then, after the‘::’, I take the result and round down, and multiple the result by the divisor,to see how many bits would be left over by subtracting the rounded amount fromthe original 1369 - shown as the ‘r’ value for remainder::

1369 / 15 = 91.266 :: 15*91 = 1365 r4
1369 / 14 = 97.785 :: 14*97 = 1358 r11
1369 / 13 = 105.307 :: 13*105 = 1365 r4
1369 / 12 = 114.083 :: 12*114 = 1368 r1
1369 / 11 = 124.454 :: 11*124 = 1364 r5
1369 / 10 = 136.900 :: 10*136 = 1360 r9
1369 / 9 = 152.111 :: 9*152 = 1368 r1
1369 / 8 = 171.125 :: 8*171 = 1368 r1
1369 / 7 = 195.571 :: 7*195 = 1365 r4
1369 / 6 = 228.166 :: 6*228 = 1368 r1
1369 / 5 = 273.800 :: 5*273 = 1365 r4
1369 / 4 = 342.250 :: 4*250 = 1368 r1
1369 / 3 = 356.333 :: 3*456 = 1368 r1

Now we see something interesting: many of the divisions havea remainder of 1; when we divide by 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 12. Why is there one leftover in so many cases? We see 1368 show up a number of times. Does it suggestanything to you?

Also, looking a little closer at the numbers, we come upwith some odd things: adding up the count of zeros and ones, we get: 1368. Yetwhen we calculated 37x37 above we came up with 1369. We also see that there are79 O s, yet there appear to be an equal number of them on the left and theright of the grid. So what is going on?

Perhaps there is a rogue O in the puzzle, but it looks likea zero? See if you can find it! That is important in this case!

Why did I try dividing from 3 to 14? There are many possibleways that binary data could be broken up. While not all the possibleexplanations, here are some ideas to consider, presented in order based on thenumber of bits:

(3-bits) can be binary for thenumbers 0-7
(4-bits) 0-9 decimal,with 6 unused combinations (can be BCD when 2x in abyte)
(5-bits) 32combinations - could be an offset on the English alphabet or could be Baudot code used on early teletypes
(6-bits) 64combinations – enough for upper and lower case letter and numbers, one possibleis the Fieldata, also usedby a couple of models of teletypes
(7-bits) which is thebase version of ASCII, was thecharacter code used in the most common teletypes (which used 7-hole papertape) and the basistext encoding on most computers these days (though ASCII is usually is storedin 8 bits, or a byte).
(8-bits) could be 8-bitASCII; or EBCDIC a mainframetext/number coding scheme; or any other standard use of a Byte, including 0 to255 or -128 to 127
(9-bits) a byte with a parity bit, as used in serial communication and memorystorage
(10-bits) 1024combinations – could be used to code 000-999; or communication modeused with modems via RS232
(11-bits) A versionof RS232 if adding 2stop bits or adding parity to 8-bit code
(12-bits) [IBM] punch cards use 12-columnsbased on Hollerithcode
(13-bits) EAN-13 European bar code relatedto UPC barcodes
(14-bits) EFM CD Romcoding per byte

Maybe there is a clue in the name of the cache? O9660 soundslike a zip code. But doing a search on 09660, it does not appear to be a validzip code. But wait, look closely at the characters on the lines above – the zipcode looks a dash different that the characters from the name of the cache! Onceagain we see that one of those characters is an alpha O instead of a zero.

In fact, the part after “Witz” would be: “is O9660”, whentaking out the space, we get “ISO9660” or “ISO 9660”. This is a CD-Romencoding method! Doing a bunch of research might give you some of thisinformation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-to-fourteen_modulation
Data on a CD is coded for both resilience to defects on the surface and toassist with the tracking and speed of the rotation. Data is encoded by havingpits and lands, where it alternates between being in focus to the read head andbeing out-of-focus. To make sure it knows the speed and stays on track, thedata never spends much time out of focus, and limits the number of bits thatare out of focus. It does this by encoding 8-bits into a special 14-bitencoding, know as EFM. http://www.physics.udel.edu/~watson/scen103/efm.html

Now, if the cache puzzle was coded using EFM, we wouldexpect that it would be divisible by 14. But looking at the list of divisions,it does not look likely, unless there was a bunch of left over bits. It soundslike the puzzle could be sending you down another dead end towards the solution.

Now, back to the extra O in the puzzle: did you find it? Theplacement could well suggest a CD-Rom or a record album (33 1/3 style). Information on both CD-Rom and albums are encoded ina spiral: meaning one continuous line wrapped like a piece of paper around astick, and just looking at the edge. Could the data be coded in a spiral?

If it were a spiral, that leaves the question of in-to-outor out-to-in, clockwise or counter-clockwise, and which point starts the data.If it were like a record album, we would expect the data to start on theoutside and work in; if it were like a CD, it would start in the middle andwork out.

The ISO9660 reference in the title suggests it is like a CD.So we would expect the data to go counter-clockwise, unless the data wasconsidered to be on a master-disk.Also, starting could be any one of the 8 points from the middle, though the 4cardinal points make the most sense (up, down, right and left – similar tonorth, south, east and west).

Based on the length of the data, and on an assumption of1368 digits, we can give a try guessing that the data is coded in an 8-bitcharacter format, spelling out a bunch of words. That would give 171characters, which sounds like enough words to spell out coordinates and a bitmore.

Now, it turns out that Witz is known as a mainframe programmer, so he might have usedEBCDIC code to make the puzzle harder. If it is letters, and it is EBCDIC, wewould expect the bytes to start with 11. If it is ASCII, we would expect thatthe bytes would start with 01 (assuming they are letters, or 00 if numbers or mostother characters).

Let’s look at the options using the 4 cardinal directionsand 2 directions of rotation:

Counter Clockwise
Down	Left	Up	Right

Clockwise
Down	Left	Up	Right

So, looking at the numbers:

Direction - Start	Binary	ASCII	EBCDIC
CC-Down	01001110	N>	+
CC-Left	10010011	“	l
CC-Up	11100100	ä	U
CC-Right	00111001	9	***
Cw-Down	00111001	9	***
Cw-Left	11100100	ä	U
Cw-Up	10010011	“	l
Cw-Right	01001110	N	+

*** - non-displayable or undefined character

It is interesting to see that the same characters repeat. Itseems that the binary digit is some sort of anagram. That could make it alittle harder to determine which is the correct solution.

We can throw away the EBCDIC for CC-Right/Cw-Down, as thatis an invalid character. And unless the data uses extended ASCII, we can throwaway the ASCII that starts with 1 in the left-most position: CC-Up/Cw-Left andCC-Left/Cw-Up.

That leaves us ‘N’ and ‘9’ from ASCII and lower-case ‘l’,‘U’ and ‘+’ from EBCDIC. Certainly the ‘U’, ‘N’ and ‘9’ all look the mostpromising.

Ok, let’s look at the next character:

Direction - Start	Binary	ASCII	EBCDIC
CC-Down	11101100	ì	***
CC-Left	11011110	Þ	***
CC-Up	10011101	***	***
CC-Right	11001001	É	I
Cw-Down	11110111	÷	7
Cw-Left	01110010	r	***
Cw-Up	00100110	&	ETB***
Cw-Right	01101111	o	?

*** - non-displayable or undefined character

So, going in order of the first and second character, thereare only 2 cases that do not have go into unprintable or extended characters: (1) ASCIICw-Right ‘No’; and (2) EBCDIC Cw-Right ‘+?’. Thecharacters ‘+?’ don’t look very promising as compared to ‘No’.

The next byte from Cw-Right 01110010, gives us a pretty goodfeeling we are on the right track. We can rule out EBCDIC, as Cw-Right gives usan undefined character. But for ASCII, it is ‘r’, which goes on to make ‘Nor’.This is the beginning of a number of words.

The 4^th byte this way is 01110100, which comesout as ‘t’ in ASCII. Added to the 3 other characters,we are up to ‘Nort’, which seems to work well towards spelling North – a wordthat works very well with decoding coordinates!

Now, I’m not going to do all the work for you here. I’vedone the complex part by giving you the secrets of the puzzle, but you willstill have to do the manual work of decoding the binary. Make sure you alwaysstart on a Zero. If you need a binary-to-ASCII table, you can start with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII

Now, as you get through the puzzle, everything should looknice, giving you words for coordinates. The words do not have any spaces, soyou will have to figure out how to break the words apart yourself. However,this should be very easy to do, as the words should easily stand out, each ontheir own.

That is, until right after you finish decoded thecoordinates. There are still more characters. But all of a sudden, they lookgarbled! Did you do something wrong? No you didn’t! It seems that there is acode within the code!

However, this code is very easy! It is the encrypted hint.And how is the encrypted hint normally encoded on a cache page? They are in ROT13. This code is the same,except you have to decode it without clicking on the decrypt option on thecache page. You will have to manually decode the ROT13 (or find a site to helpyou decode the string). The hint gives you information about the physical hide.So, I suggest you take the encrypted hint with you and only decode it onsite ifyou are having trouble with the hide.

Overall, with this write-up I’ve taken a puzzle that is at least a 4 difficultyand brought it down to about a 1.5-2 difficulty. I’ve also given you some moretechniques for approaching puzzles in general. Finishing solving this puzzlewill require some diligence and time to accurately decode the whole puzzle.

I hope this article is something you have enjoyed and thatthe puzzle will be a favorite of yours. In fact, I would be most honored tohear that it has inspired you to solve more puzzles or place more puzzles! AndI’d be glad to hear that you want to borrow some ideas from the puzzle. I’deven be glad to see others use the exact same method to hide a puzzle cache ina new area! I can’t wait to find “GenericCacheris O9660” (or similar) in another area or state!

GCTCB7 Cheesy Rat

2006-05-27T11:50:00.000-06:00

Second find for the day. Talked my Pirates into doing a second geocache as long as we were out. This one looks like it is with a bunch of others up the Santa Fe trail, but it is on the other side of Monument Creek.

GCTCB7 Cheesy Rat Reg 1.0/2.5
Pirate #1MrWitzAbout Pirate #2 #3
Found-It log: May 27, 2006 by WitzAbout

~11:50am Mr.WitzAbout and my 3 pirates.
Started going on the wrong side of the fence. Then we went the right way. Looked around for a minute or 2. Thought I saw something. Pirate #3 zoomed in and confirmed it was the cache.
The over-bag has seen better days.
Pirates took a toy each, for 3 total. Left 3 items: Car, Photo frame, air force keychain & suction-clip.
SL. Thanks for the cache!
Saw a garbage truck pick up a dumpster on the way out for a bit of excitement :)

View of the area

GCV8Z3 Hefe's Hideaway

2006-05-27T11:23:00.001-06:00

I felt bad that I was not able to log Deena's Heffalump into a cache in NY. Even though on it's first travel, it got all the way to where it wanted to go! :)
So I had to put the Heffalump into a cache - and what better than another cache from the same team that owns the Heffalump. :) I packed up the pirates and headed out to this cache. Okay, I got confused on which cache I was going to at first. I had driven behind CompUSA and thought it was that one. I checked the GC-ID on my palm, and found I'd gotten caches mixed up. Then I remembered, this one was behind the Albertsons/Game Crazy/Juns mall. So we drove down, and was glad to find parking in back as I saw on Google maps. The dumpster was a little stinky, but we were not that close. I can just imagine the Pirates reminiscing: 'yeah, my dad used to take me down stinky alleys behind shopping centers' :) :) . I was a little nervous when I truck pulled up as we were returning to the car. I was afraid I was parked in the way of turning around. But the truck seemed find, backing up to a loading dock without needing to come very near to my car.

GCV8Z3 Hefe's Hideaway Reg 1.5/1.5
MrWitzAbout Pirate #1 #2 #3
Found-It log: May 27, 2006 by WitzAbout

11:23am Mr.WitzAbout and my 3 pirates.
Parked behind the shopping center. At first the GPSr was pointing down the cliffs, and I was worried.
Followed a trail, and found the cache without much trouble.
The pirates picked 1 toy each, for 3. Put in 4 items: Kodak hotwheels car, picture frame, large blue die and superball.
Also left TB Deena's Heffalump. I got the TB all the way to Central Park in NYC as it wanted - but I could not find any place in NY to put the TB. So it came back here. I thought it somehow appropriate to put it in a different cache by the same owner as the TB :)
Thanks for the Cache!

4 Items for the Cache

GCT81X Light Saber (the 3rd)

2006-05-19T23:30:00.000-06:00

After finally finding a cache this day, and going to my school reunion, I got back to the computer to read that the bomb squad had been called out to this one of my caches. I diabled the cache. Not a fun thing.

GCT81X Light Saber (the 3rd) Small 1.5/1.5
Disabled log: May 19, 2006 by WitzAbout

Will check when I get back in town

GCF17B Top of the loop

2006-05-19T10:00:00.000-06:00

After being 0/5 for the area and 0/7 for New York, I finally found a cache! It was raining, but I was determined. There was a hole in the rain around the cache. The satellites were giving me trouble in this area - headed one way, then it would say: hey, it is 150 feet the other way! I waited 5 minutes for another satellite to come into view, and finally got to the right area. I would say this is a small, not a regular - as there was barely enough room for 1 of the 2 travelbugs I had with me. I wound up taking the second travelbug back with me to Colorado. But I was so glad to finally find a cache in New York. I would have put money on finding a whole bunch more. I will have to make sure to always have the hints with me from now on :)

GCF17B Top of the loop Reg 1.5/1.5
Found-It log: May 19, 2006 by WitzAbout

Finally found a cache in NY!
After striking out for days, I finally found a cache.
Left Dexter Dog TB who wants to go to Hershey.

GCGZ10 Bear Mountian Number 3

2006-05-18T16:30:00.000-06:00

I tried to do this one from the road. I bushwacked up a steep mountainside and found the trail. I spent a bunch of time bouncing all around the coordinates without luck. If I'd had the hint with me, I'd have had a better chance.

GCGZ10 Bear Mountian Number 3 Reg 2.0/2.0
Posted note: May 18, 2006 by WitzAbout

Could not find this cache - did not have the hint with me :(

GC238E Stony Point Battlefield

2006-05-18T14:00:00.000-06:00

The area was interesting and the lighthouse was pretty neat. Frustraiting not to be able to find another cache - 0/3 for the day, 0/4 for the area. Took some looking to find a way down that did not say do-not-cross. Wound up coming back past some of those signs.

GC238E Stony Point Battlefield Reg 2.0/2.5
Wrote note: May 18, 2006 by WitzAbout

Could not find the cache. Spent more than 30 minutes looking. My GPS kept jumping more than 30 feet around the area. I also did not have the hint with me :(
Quick note: the sign on the way in said 1779 not 1776 :)

GCFB9B Silvermine.Overlook

2006-05-18T12:30:00.000-06:00

The gnats were horrible trying to get to this cache. That, and it was steeper than I expected - but I guess 2.5 is accurate that way.

GCFB9B Silvermine.Overlook Reg 2.0/2.5
Posted Note: May 18, 2006 by WitzAbout

Checking my notes, this is one I tried back in May but could not find. Did not have the encrypted hint with me. That probably would have made the difference.

GCGYWV Bear Mountian Number 2

2006-05-17T11:00:00.000-06:00

Seems this one can't be done without the written clue. The coordinates are right at the building - but the cache is up the trail according to the hint. I'd tried to look up the hint on my Cell phone, but it would not connect.

GCGYWV Bear Mountian Number 2 Reg 1.5/2.0
Couldn't Find log: May 17, 2006 by WitzAbout

Drove in with hopes of a quick find. I recognized along the driveway that this was the spot where my sister got married. My GPS has been a little crazy lately - and I could not find any sign of a cache. I had a terrible run of bad luck trying to find caches in NY. First in NYC then in this area.

GCE826 In the Ramble

2006-05-16T14:45:00.000-06:00

GCE826 In the Ramble Reg 2.0/1.5
Posted a note: May 16, 2006 by WitzAbout

I spent about 25 minutes looking for this with my step-father. My GPS was going a little crazy in this spot. Most of our searching was over a fence - which made me feel a little nervious if a man in blue were to take sight. But we saw very few people back here - amazingly secluded! But, unluckily, this was strike 2 (of 2) for us today. I had a Travelbug TBQ1FC that wanted to go to Central Park. I got a picture of it at the boat lake, so it did get it's mission complete - but I would have liked to have placed it in a cache in the park. Hope the next person finds it with no trouble. Keep on 'cachin!

GCM90X Lakeside View

2006-05-16T14:01:00.000-06:00

When I looked for caches in Central Park to take the Heffalump TB to, I was transported back in time. The spot I found on the lake was what I knew as Birthday Island. When I was a kid, we lived in NYC - and my parents took me to the boat lake and boated over to an 'island' to have my birthday. They even called it 'Birthday Island'. I remember being disappointed for a moment when I realized it was a peninsula. But it was a plesant reminder and neat to return to this for geocaching. Unluckily, we could not find the cache. I think it had gotten affected by the serious rains up to the day before. I am glad to see that it had been found after my attempt - and it is interesting to note that it seems to confound about half the cachers! :) Of course, that suggests it it not a 1.5/1.5

GCM90X Lakeside View Small 1.5/1.5
Couldn't Find log: May 16 by WitzAbout

I took my step-father out for some geocaching since I was visiting the area. I had a travelbug TBQ1FC from Colorado Springs that wanted to see Central Park. I thought it would be great if I could put it in a cache in Central Park. We looked for about 25 minutes. Based on the clue, we were pretty sure the *point* it should be. But we could not find it. We wondered if all the rain may have affected the site. I did get a picture of the TB near the spot, so I wa able to complete the TB's mission that way. I hope I just somehow missed the cache, and that it isn't missing. Good luck - keep on 'caching.

TBQ1FC Deena's Heffalump

2006-05-16T14:00:00.000-06:00

TBQ1FC Deena's Heffalump Travelbug
Posted a note log: May 16, 2006 by WitzAbout

I tried to find 2 different caches in Central Park, NYC with no luck: GCM90X GCE826
But I did get a couple of pictures of the Heffalump at the boat lake in Central Park (There was supposed to be a cache right in that area!) (visit link)
I will find a different cache in the general region in the next few days
Keith aka Mr.WitzAbout

Central Park

Heffalump at the Boat Lake

TBG8R8 Dexter Dog

2006-05-15T12:01:00.000-06:00

TBG8R8 Dexter Dog Travelbug
Retrieved-it log: May 15, 2006 by WitzAbout

I've had this bug before! :)
Picked this guy up waiting at the airport. Well just outside the airport property at the bug hotel. Only took me 20 minutes extra to get this TB on my way to the airport Monday. He didn't have to wait long, as I saw him dropped in Monday morning (yes, I'm one of the lurking watchers of this TB :) ).
I am now on the East Coast, about 3 hours driving time from Hershey. I will not be able to get him all the way to his destination, but he is much, much closer. I will get him into a cache - probably in NY State, just North of New Jersey in the next few days. :)
Mr.WitzAbout

GC5E9B Mondo's Bug Hotel

2006-05-15T12:00:00.000-06:00

GC5E9B Mondo's Bug Hotel Regular 1.5/1.5
MrWitzAbout
Found-It log: May 15 by WitzAbout

Found this one back on the 15th. I had written a note for it - but just realized I never did a find log for it!
It took me a few minutes to find the cache - my GPSr had me looking on both sides of the road. But even with the time it took to find the cache - it was only 20 extra minutes total to get the TB from this cache.
Mr.WitzAbout alone on my way to the East Coast for a few days.
Picked up Dexter Dog TB - this will get him much closer to his destination of Hershey PA.
To save time, I decided to drive the dirt road. Okay - I have a sedan, so driving up the curb was a bit risky :) I drove past the cache side by about 30 feet, and found what looked like an area that had been parked-in/turned-around-in a few times :)
While I was searching, a truck came barrling over the hill. The driver gave me a bit of a look, but didn't stop. I tried to look innocent. I bet he thought I was looking to water a tree ;-)
It was nice to be able to pick up a travelbug on my way out rather convieniently. Thanks for the cache! Signed log.

GC5E9B Mondo's Bug Hotel

2006-05-15T10:00:00.000-06:00

GC5E9B Mondo's Bug Hotel Regular 1.5/1.5
posted a note: May 15 by WitzAbout

Headed east this afternoon - if I'm running on time I'll stop by and grab Dexter Dog - but I probably won't log it officially until late tonight or tomorrow - thanks!

TBQ1FC Deena's Heffalump

2006-05-14T17:37:00.000-06:00

I was going to be in the New York area - just a few blocks from Central Park in just a few days - so how could I pass up taking this Travelbug along?

This is a brand new Travelbug - just created, and put in it's first cache - the same owner for the TB and the cache. And on it's first travel, this TB is going to make it to it's destination! So I asked what does the TB want to do after it reaches its listed goal.

TBQ1FC Deena's Heffalump Travelbug
retrieved-It log: May 14, 2006 by WitzAbout
from Hefe's Travel Bug City

Picked up the Heffalump, seeing as I'm headed in the correct direction.
What does the heffalump want to do after reaching Central Park? :)
I'm headed back east for a school reunion. I was born in Long Island, but lived on the Upper West Side of Manhatten for 10 years as a kid. We would take bike rides in Central Park down to the Sheep Meadow.
MrWitzAbout

GCVEF1 Hefe's Travel Bug City

2006-05-14T17:36:00.000-06:00

GCVEF1 Hefe's Travel Bug City Large 1.5/1.5
MrWitzAbout Pirate3
Found-It log: May 14, 2006 by WitzAbout

Found this one today with Pirate #3 - late afternoon. Another cacher stopped by just as I was walking away from my car - nice to see them!
I popped by this cache to pick up a TB that wants to head east - and by luck, I'm heading the right way.
Nice, easy walk. I wasn't sure at first if the cache was hidden under some old signs, but it was nearby.
Very nice cache - very convienient. PLENTY of room!
SL Took TB Heffalump and a necklace. I left a few toys: butterfly, bat, pirate, and 2 large dice. (see picture)
Thanks for the Cache!
Mr.WitzAbout

Left toys

Attended/Found Logs From My CITO Event

2006-04-24T10:21:00.000-06:00

As a measure of the success of my CITO, I am going to list the wonderful feedback I got on the logs for the event. I am very pleased with the turnout and the wonderful responses I got - and the great job everyone did!

GCTYHG Midland Trail CITO Sunday 4/23 CITO 2.0/1.0

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by 2/3 Marine (296 Found)

Thanks Witz Crew. You're real good at putting events together. Very nice to meet cachers for the first time and see ones I know.

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by Happy Meadow (98 Found)

Had never been on this trail before. Hot day but had a lot of fun meeting new cachers and visiting with cachers I knew. Good job WitzAbouts'.

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by Explorer99 (911 Found)

Excellent day for the event and I enjoyed meeting all the people whose names I’ve seen in the cache logs. I will leave my GeoCoins for the people who wanted to log them. Thanks for the cache.

Found log: April 23, 2006 by Team GPSaxophone (820 Found)

What a beautiful day for a cleanup! I had never hiked this trail before or been to this park. I think the best part of this CITO was the couple of people driving or riding by that yelled "Thank you" when they spotted our full trash bags. It's always nice to be recognized by the community for lending a hand. Maybe next time we'll have tshirts that identify who we are and why we're cleaning up.
Thanks to the WitzAbout crew for hosting this CITO event. You did a good job.

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by Hefe3 (152 Found)

nice day! Enjoyed putting names and faces together. Really big KUDOS to the Witz gang. Thanks.

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by Dew Crew (33 Found)

It was very nice to talk with a few cachers, a lot I didn't know, and some I did. Also a lot from the forums! Saw a bunch of geocoins. Nice to talk with Sax. I recognized rustybeercan too. I planning on putting together one in Norhtern Michigan next year. Thanks WitzAbout! I don't think anybody got the tracking numbers for my coins. I'll grab them back.

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by mtn_goat (232 Found)

I had a great time and met a lot of new people. We couldn't have asked for better weather. Thanks for putting this together!

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by hikerRon (1203 Found)

a VERy nice event, on a beautiful day. it was good to visit with friends and meet some new ones as well. thanks Witz, for all the time and effort you invested while putting this thing together!

Found-it log: April 23, 2006 by The Johnson 4 (55 Found)

We had a great time. Thanks for the effort in putting this event together.

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by nursegirl (266 Found)

Thanks to the WitzAbouts for hosting another successful event. I had a lot of fun talkin' cache and pickin' up trash. It was a perfect day for it. Had fun seeing old friends and meeting new ones too.

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by Geo Spy (228 Found)

I had a lot fun today. Someone should have brought a scale and a prize for heaviest bag. Oh the things you'll find out there. TNLN and again I had lots of FUN!

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by Bhob (2122 Found)

Great event, excellent crowd, flawless organization. I especially appreciated that this event was held on a day other than the one in Denver - it gave me a chance to do a little payback twice this year. Thanks !

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by MrCOgeo (128 Found)

A big thanks to WitzAbout and of course family for a great CITO event! (What's a great captain without his crew?)Really good work and even enjoyable at that. It's nice to be able to give back this weekend. Always great to see everybody.Thank you for the CITO event!

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by sparrowPI (380 Found)

Had fun seeing everyone today and it was a good thing to clean up...Mr/Mrs SparrowPI

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by RustyBeerCan (538 Found)

Great day to be out on the trail and meeting everybody.
BIG Thanks to WitzAbout for hosting the C.I.T.O. event and to Everyone for pitching in on Earthday weekend.
I have never seen so many Geocoins in one place before and was given some really great ones to add to my collection. Thank You!

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by Buzz Lightyear I (194 Found)

Thanks WitzAbout for organizing the CITO. We got there late but headed up the trail and meet Hiking fool and started picking up trash. Enjoyed seeing everyone and talking GeoCoin.

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by gorillagal (138 Found)

I had a great time meeting new people, putting faces to names, etc. Thanks for organizing this event!

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by team w-bar-v (278 Found)

We had a wonderful time helping with the trash out and seeing old friends and meeting new friends. A gentleman who lives in the area told us he appreciated our cleaning the trail up, also half of the bicycle people said Thanks too. Keith, you and your family know how to set up an event. Job well done. Enclosing some of my favorite pictures.

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by cache_venturers (169 Found)

Thanks Witzabout for setting this up! Very well organized! Great day for picking up trash...thank goodness for the breeze!

Attended log: April 23, 2006 by doc4001 (445 Found)

Caching provided another "feel good" day for us today, happily doing our part for Earthday. Good project, good social event, gathered a few hints on my DNFs. Chuck & Pegge

Attended log: April 24, 2006 by 4krejcis (184 Found)

We had a great time too while giving back a little. Thanks so much to the WitzAbouts for setting this up. We appreciated the geocoin prize too!

GCTYHG Midland Trail CITO Sunday 4/23

2006-04-23T22:10:00.000-06:00

During my event back in February, there were some who asked for a Sunday clean-up event instead of on Saturday, the main day. So I set up this event for Sunday, the day after Earth Day - but still the same weekend.
The event started at noon at a local resturant. We had maybe a dozen people.
Then at the park we had about 16-20 people.
I was talking with one of the other geocachers about having a contest for the event - and he talked about hiding a special piece of trash. I liked the idea, but went a little further. I made up icons - of the geocaching clean up 'CITO' icon. I printed out about 12 to a page - 4 pages. I wrote different values on the back of each paper: 1, 2, 5, 10, 20. Then I taped the papers to bits of trash. Most of them were on soda cans I brought home from work. But I attached a few more on other trash already on the trail and on a few objects on the trail. Unluckily, I did not get to the trail ahead of time. So instead I set up while everyone was meeting up and driving to the end of the trail. I finished taping on the cans, got my bike out of the car, and headed down the trail. I had put the gear needed for the clean-up in the back of my wife's car. I had fun littering my way up the trail - tossing cans every few hundred feet.
I stopped a few times to tape up icons on spots. As I was about 5 mintues away, my wife calls and asks about the trash bags. Talk about a moment of panic. Then I remembered they were in a cardboard box in a bin. I finished up and got to the head end of the trail right on time at 2:00pm. I saw a few people already gathered around. Then I looked up the street and saw a huge number of people heading our way. I was amazed at the fantastic turnout.
I wound up staying behind cleaning up the trail head. Most of the group went ahead. Just one or 2 others stayed to help. There was a huge amount of cigarette butts to clean up there. After a while I headed off. My wife decided to drive back with our youngest. The other 2 boys had headed off with the group. I had a large amount of water bottles, extra bags, and hand cleaner. So I figured that I should try to catch up.
I caught up with a small group of 4 who were really doing a good job cleaning. I stayed with them for a while. Then my middle son showed up, leading another group heading back for cars. I was surprised to see him without my eldest. But I didn't make a big deal of it. I was glad to have him along. We worked our way up the trail, doing some more cleaning. I had a few of the icons left, so I seeded a few for the follow-up group. After a while, I decided it would be good to get to the end of the trail. I got back to the pavillion at 3:29pm. One minute ahead of schedule. Someone was playfully complaining about how long I took - so I playfully retorted that I was one minute early, and if they hadn't been in a rush, they would have been right with me :)
There was some car pooling back - I stayed with the boys and visited a bit more with other geocahers.
I was feeling a little guilty about being a little behind schedule getting everything set (again - happened at my first event too) - but the people at lunch said I was the most organized that they knew. That was a nice compliment.

GCTYHG Midland Trail CITO Sunday 4/23 CITO 2.0/1.0
MrWitzAbout Mrs.WitzAbout Pirate #1 #2 #3
Attended log: April 23, 2006 by WitzAbout

The whole WitzAbout crew attended - and hosted :)
It was a fantastic turn out - and a wonderful effort!
Thanks everyone who turned up to help with the clean up!
This should put us in a much better place with the parks department - we have shown them very nicely how we give back to the community!
Looking at the logs entries so far, see all the thanks - you are most welcome! I was glad to see so many I've met show up and was really glad to meet some new faces too! As always, there is never enough time to visit and talk geocaching - but I was happy to have a chance to talk with some of you.
I really big thanks to those who hung back and scoured the trail for as much trash as they could! I was really proud of the extra effort you put into getting the trail really clean.
I also have to add an extra thanks to Mrs.WitzAbout for helping me get everything done - she was fantastic!

5:39 Mr.WitzAbout - I will be posting pictures from this event to this log now :)

Meeting at the Park's Pavilion

Large Group Heading up 21st for the CITO

Getting ready to clean

Lagging behind - clean trail

Cleaning the Trail, Pikes Peak in the Distance

79 Degrees, Not a Bearing - Warm Day!

Mr.WitzAbout Lugging Water and Supplies
Pirate #2 wanted to take some pictures - so I have a picture of myself to add to the gallery :)

Post Event, Back at the Park

Post Event

Group Picture 1 - Not as Good

Geocaching Group CITO in Colorado Springs
CITO cleanup Midland Trail to America the Beautiful Park in downtown Colorado Springs - Generating Plant and Cheyenne Mountain as our backdrop

Main pile from clean up at the end

Geocachers, Post Event Time

GCV8E3 Simon's Salute

2006-04-16T17:47:00.000-06:00

Second time trying this one. The first time I tried this I was on my way to work. I didn't have my GPSr, but thought I could do it from the location on the map. I was wrong. I had tried for about 40 minutes the previous time. This time I had my youngest pirate along - we spent maybe 5 or 10 minutes and I found the altoids can well hidden.

GCV8E3 Simon's Salute Small 1.0/1.5
MrWitzAbout Pirate3
Found-It log: April 16, 2006 by WitzAbout

5:47pm - finally found it! Yay! Pirate #3 was along with me. I had my GPSr with me and it made a difference.
Yet it had me going on different levels. First down. Then up. Then down. Then up. Then up. Pirate #3 was examing some bushes when I finally found the correct spot. It seemed like a spot I had looked at when I was here the first day - but I don't think I checked that spot quite well enough. This was a nice find, and a fun follow-up from this afternoon's meeting.
SL - Pirate #3 took a butterfly. I left 2 ladybug type toys - one red, one yellow.
Nice hide! Thanks for the cache!

Somewhere up there
Could give a hint

TBGWPJ M&M Bug Mobile

2006-04-16T15:00:00.000-06:00

Cute punch buggy with an M&M theme! And it has a bunch of stuff inside. We added an M&M character inside. :)

TBGWPJ M&M Bug Mobile
retrieved it log: April 16, 2006 by WitzAbout

Picked up this neat travelbug from the event today. This is a neat container and a neat idea. I have taken a picture of the current inventory.
Glad to move this bug along!

TB PunchBug Inventory 4/16/2006

TB PB Side Top View

TB PB Top Front View

GCTZD4 C.A.C.H.E.South April Meeting

2006-04-16T14:05:00.000-06:00

This is the first meeting I've attended of the state's local sub-group. My event at REI in February had displaced the possibility of the official group's meeting time - unintentionally. I've been to 3 Denver meetings and a semi-local meeting in Castle Rock before. This turned out to be a smaller meeting, but it was nice. I tried to help out with the meeting, getting my foot in the door as a co-organizer. I'd asked about doing a raffle for the local group - in part to help fund the prizes I wanted to give out at my geocaching clean-up event next week. I got raffle tickets, that can be used for the group for quite some time. Sax, the local head and the event organizer, provided the ammo box. I provided a bunch of swag. One of Sax's daughters picked and packed the cache. I also brought along name tags that we well recieved, and a bucket for holding the small collection of travelbugs.

GCTZD4 C.A.C.H.E.South April Meeting Event
MrWitzAbout
Attended log: April 16, 2006 by WitzAbout

Mr.WitzAbout (only WitzAbout) attended.
Helped out with the raffle - added one of my left over Easter-egg sized micro caches to the raffle pool as well. Turns out Grand High Poobah visiting from Denver won it. The Ammo can cache went to a lucky Kattrax. It was a pretty small meeting, probably due to the holiday today - but that made it easier to visit with everyone.
We visited inside for a while, and then moved outside so that the resturant could clean up. There was talk about geocoins and hiding caches, and interesting night caches.
Afterwards Sax went to check his new Saxy's Place cache. Our Denver guests decided they needed to do this one next - having tried it before the meeting. So I followed them to take a few more pictures and visit a little longer.
A nice day and event. A few pictures to follow.
Thanks Sax for putting this on!
I look forward to seeing many of you at the Midland CITO next week! :) And at future events, including the CACHE-South meeting in Pueblo.
Picked up an M&M Punch Buggy TB

Filling the Raffle Cache

Meeting Table

Meeting Table CACHE-South 4/16/06

Smiling at the Meeting

GPSr located a doggy bag!

Announcements

Sax - Our Host

Happy about the meeting

View down the table

Checking a devious cache

Chatting as we worked our way out

Outside the Resturant

Checking out coins

Takin' Cache

Rare GC Icon Geocoin

Grand High Poobah Relaxes
I even got myself in the reflection - not even looking at what I was taking a picture of! :)

Extra Hairy Geocacher

Afterwards - Saxy's Place
It has to be here somewhere!

Sax is happy his cache was found!
We stayed and talked while they searched. Sax wasn't giving much in the way of clues except that it was within about 20 feet. :)

GCT7XZ Tiny Tooshie's Tokens

2006-04-15T15:21:00.000-06:00

We road bikes from our house. Other than losing our chains downshifting a few times, things went pretty well. I noticed how much the tag-a-longs for the kids could sway. And any time the kids swung their weight, the whole tag-a-long swayed hard, pulling the parent a little off course. I wonder if it was something about our model - or if it was something about tag-a-longs in general.
We go to the bottom of the hill on powers where it crossed the bridge. But I was pretty sure we needed to approach the cache from the Northern side of the creek. So we had to cross over to the powerline trail. This meant crossing a sandy hillock that required pushing the bikes. Not very comfortable when you don't get off. :) But we made the approach. I may have to invest in a GPS holder for my bike, and riding and looking for a cache on the GPS while holding the GPS was a little shakey. But this was fun! It was nice to find an easier cache.

GCT7XZ Tiny Tooshie's Tokens Small 1.5/1.5
Pirate3 Pirate2 MrWitzAbout - MrsWitzAbout standing guard
Found-It log: April 14, 2006 by WitzAbout

We were out for a bike ride this afternoon. Mrs.WitzAbout is in training. We each had a Pirate on tag-along. I checked Google Earth for the location of this cache - seeming to be near our route. I took us a little off-road as we were going along powers. We got to the general area, and realized we needed to hoof it the last 175 feet.
I looked for a good spot to head down - it was back about 20 feet from where we stopped the bikes. I headed down. I was followed a minute later by Pirate #2, then another minute by Pirate #3. We crossed over a micro-stream which required a small hop. Pirate #2 decided he needed to take a long running jump at the creek, it was cute. I went back and helped Pirate #3 cross. We headed down. I'm glad the steep parts didn't last too long :)
The GPSr got us to the general area. It kept pointing in as I circled the spot. I figured this one would be similar to the last one of this type by this team. I was right. I spotted something that I thought was the target. I just realized now that this is the most accurate my GPSr has been in a long time.
I held my place about 5 feet away to let the Pirates catch up. Without having to give any clues, Pirate #3 moved in and got the offical spotting for this cache. We opened it up - it took surprising bit of force to get the lid off. The Pirates quickly found trade items that made them happy: Pirate #2 took the Darth Vader figure and Pirate #3 took the flower thingy (technical term :) ).
I signed the log, and we left a tiny Uno game, an ornage plastic toy and a mini-Narnia snow globe.
Thanks for the cache - this was a fun and rewarding find!
The kids really enjoyed playing in the nearby playgorund for a little while afterwards. I even made a quick sand mountain for them to crush. We took some turns on the swings. I plays the rollercoaster swing game and the how-did-you-get-away game. Then we decided to return home via the Eastern secret path, going back through the Fairfax development.

Nearby Powers Road Bridge

Deep Gully near the Tokens Cache

Team List and Found Icons

2006-04-11T15:07:00.000-06:00

I had this idea that it would be neat to have team members listed on the find logs for geocaching. You could even indicate which member(s) got the find credit on the icons. I have made some simple stick figure icons to such ends. I went back and updated the logs I've posted to this blog with the new icons and member list.

Here is a sample of going caching with another team, 4krejcis, and the Mrs. found the cache:
4krejcis MrWitzAbout

Here is I gave up without finding:
MrWitzAbout

And one where my middle child found it, and my youngest was along too:
Pirate2 MrWitzAbout Pirate3

GCGHMZ Colorado Keychain Exchange II at Cragmor Overlook

2006-04-09T11:27:00.000-06:00

I was ready to do a CITO where the cache was hidden! :) I was glad I decided to check under it with my foot.

GCGHMZ Colorado Keychain Exchange II at Cragmor Overlook Reg 2.0/2.5
MrWitzAbout
Found-It log: April 9, 2006 by WitzAbout

Mr.WitzAbout alone about 11:27am
3rd stop, second and last find of the day. Fantastic weather for caching. Spring is definately here! I know - the weeds are growing around my house ;-)
This was a neat cache - I like the theme very much. I've been meaning to get up here for a long time. Wonderful views. It is great that there are a couple of more caches in the area now - to do on the way.
I was searching around for the cache - checking out the obvious places. I already knew my GPSr was off by at least 20 feet today - from finding the previous cache on the way. So I looked around a bit more. I looked over to an area that seemed a bit far - but there was something that caught my eye. I didn't think it could be hidden there, but when I checked, there was the cache! What a surprise! There is a bunch of keychaings and lots of room.
I left a keychain pen and a koosh-character frog.
I took the discovery trek keychain.
Thanks for the cache! (pictures)

Koosh Frog - 54' Confused GPSr

Pikes Peak above Garden of the Gods

UFO Refurb Station?

Barbed Wire, Cell Tower, Blue Sky and Clouds

GCT76H Tulip's Treasure

2006-04-09T11:10:00.000-06:00

Another Micro I could not find. There were many, many place a micro could be in this area. I probably spent about 25-30 minutes looking for this one. I checked lots and lots of likely places. A number of times my GPSr seemed to want to lead me down a crevace. But I didn't want to try it. Knowing the team that placed the cache, I did not think it was a good bet. The average spot the GPSr took me was an open area near abotu 100 hiding spots. I might try this one again. I might chalk this one up as another micro that is just beyond me.

GCT76H Tulip's Treasure
Micro 3.0/3.0 MrWitzAbout
Note log: April 9th by WitzAbout

DNF - but I think it was my GPSr's fault. It was 26 feet off at your other cache up here, and it was only the clue that let me find the other one. Unluckily even with the hint's help I couldn't find this one. My GPS started me over by one tree - but then had me about 40 feet West later on. This was a nice hike - I was glad to be out today in this neat area. I'm glad there were other caches for me to find up this way. Neat area. Wild looking rocks! I will have to add this one to my list of wanting to try it again some time. I guess my luck with micros has been used up - for now! :)

This Rock Face Caught My Eye
Nearby the listed coordinates, downhill and South

Rock Face Wide View

GCT76P The Rat Family

2006-04-09T11:04:00.000-06:00

Second stop. I was glad to find this one. My GPSr was off by 26.1 feet. If I was smart, I would have brought the travelbug I have along. But it would not have fit into this cache. The log book is the same size as the container. Good thing there is a waterproof overcase as well. This was a tricky hide - I liked it. One of the 4ks specials. They are creative!

GCT76P The Rat Family Small 2.0/3.0
MrWitzAbout
Found-It log: April 9th, 2006 by WitzAbout

Mr.WitzAbout alone - 11:04am
TNLN-TFTC
This was my second stop, and first find of the day. This was a nice hike and an amazing day. I think I got just a fraction of a sun burn. Wasn't there a blizzard 2 days ago? Very nice hike. I was glad for the parking corrdinates.
The was a good hide. Considering how crazy my GPSr was acting, I was very thankful for the hint. I got in some very nice hiking, and continued on to keychain exchange.

Low Bridge

Wonder How This Formed

Mighty Pikes Peak Above GOG
GOG=Garden of the Gods

GCRXP5 Cuppie's Cache

2006-04-05T17:50:00.000-06:00

I'd stopped at OfficeMax for raffle tickets for the coming meeting/event. Then I stopped at the supermarket for a few food items. I parked on the access street to Checks Unlimited - the closest spot to this cache. This cache was one of the nearest to my house. It was bothering me that there was this cache so nearby that I hadn't found yet. I was feeling lucky from finding a couple of other micros easily lately. I was feeling less lucky after not finding a few times. But I finally got this nearby cache!
And as I was working on the log entry, the same group posted a new micro just a little further away! Another one to find! I wonder what my chances are of getting the FTF on the new one on my way to work? :)

GCRXP5 Cuppie's Cache Micro 1.5/1.5
MrWitzAbout
Found-It log: April 5, 2006 by WitzAbout

Third time lucky!
Mr.WitzAbout alone. 80th find! About 5:50pm.
I tried this one twice before. I must admit I asked for a hint on this cache.
First time I tried for about 15 minutes with my 2 younger pirates on the weekend. The boys needed to go before I was ready to go.
I hadn't read the hint I got well enough. I tried again for about 5 minutes last night without any luck.
I reread the hint much better the second time.
I went back this evening on my home after running a couple of errands. I walked up, looked at one spot then looked at another. It must have been less than a minute. I had one of those 'how could I have missed it' moments :)
This was a very cute cache. I had to use the pliers on my Swiss army knife to get out the log.
I felt like a FTF, signing this blank log!
Thanks for the near cache - and the help!

2006-04-03T15:00:00.000-06:00

I always hate having to mark a travelbug missing. I've not had to do it too often, but I had to do it with this one. I'd figured it was missing for a while now. It is a nearby cache, but I just didn't get around to it until this Monday. Someone had put in a little votave candle. I didn't think it was a good thing to be left in the cache - especially as the days start really heating up. So I went by and checked the logs for who took this bug. I was thinking that it wouldn't be listed. But it was. And there was an online log too. It looks like a geocacher took 3 in the area, never moved them on, and hasn't been online in a month or so. I can only hope that the bugs are someplace safe, and that this use will get them back in a cache soon. I also sent an email to the geocacher to contact the owner about this bug.

TBBACD Lil' Squirt
Post a note: April 3, 2006 by WitzAbout

It is with great regret that I have reported this travelbug missing. This TB was removed from my cache GCR8A9 Nit Witz on 12/21. Sorry about the delay in tracking down the log entries.
The log says:
"12/21 Rroundncircles
(Boniquish Holywolf & Kalamazoo)
T Lil Squirt TB (tbnum), playdoh
L 2 pennies"

There is a matching online entry:
"December 21, 2005 by roundncircles (16 found)
had to pet a muggle's dog before finding cache. T-TB L-spiffy$ Further got Quisha and the holy Wolf mesmerized by geocaching Had a great time!"

I just sent them an email asking them to contact the TB owners:
"-- Copy of email sent to roundncircles -- Hi roundncircles, I was doing some maint on my cache today: GCR8A9 Nit Witz I was checking the logs for a TB called Lil' Squirt - TBBACD .
The log on 12/21/05 says that you took the TB, but I am afraid that the TB has stayed checked into my cache.

I am going to mark him missing. Please contact the owner fugowee about the status of this TB (visit link)

Mr.WitzAbout"

The profile for this user shows last on the system 1/31/2006.

TBJEWW Kim Bug

2006-04-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

It is always fun to find a travelbug. It is interesting this one came from the UK. I decided to check the path of this travelbug to see if it came from or went near a great blog-friend who lives in Bristol. It started about the same distance south from London, but quite a bit East. I hope to be able to move this travelbug on shortly - maybe even tomorrow.

TBJEWW Kim Bug
Retrieved: April 1, 2006 by WitzAbout from Flutter's Fortune

Picked up this TB from Flutter's Fortune. This was our second try at this cache. I guess fortune smiled on us and on Kim - as she wasn't there the first time we had tried for this cache. This way she gets to spend a little time with us.
My youngest Pirate pulled her out of the cache and yelled 'Kim Possible!'. I said, 'let's check her mission and see if we can help her out'. I read her mission - Disney World and UK. Colorado is closer to Disneyland in California, and neither is close! But I figured we can move her on. So I told my 2 pirates that we could take her along. We brought her home with us. I snapped a picture of her at home, with some geocaching accessories.

Kim Possible Fighting for the Camo-Way of Life

GCT769 Flutter's Fortune

2006-04-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

We had tired this one before. Last one weekend day a few weeks ago with all 3 pirates. I had to give up after not too many minutes due to the cold. I had already done one cache on my own this morning - a FTF on a micro. But I had a couple of hours to kill, and my younger 2 pirates. So I said 'let's go geocaching!'. While they weren't all that enthusiastic, they seemed to accept it. I asked them what kind of cache they wanted - no big surprise when they wanted an easy, close one that had toys to trade. So I decided to try this one again. I'd reset my GPSr since the last time, and checked the location on google earth again.
Well, reseting my GPSr has not helped all that much. In fact, it seems about equally inaccurate, and it seems to trust me less. Twice today it hard a hard time getting the satellites at first, and when it couldn't, it kept asking me questions:
Are we inside? No.
Have we moved a great distance since the last time? No.
Usually that is all that it asks, but it asked an extra question twice today:
Is today April 1st, 2006? Yes.
Yes you silly GPSr, it is April Fools day! No, I'm not trying to trick you with false satellite readings! Now show me where the cache is!
Well, I was trailing Pirate #2 coming out of the tall weeds, and he just reaches down and plucks up the cache. In fact, his wording and style reminded me very much of when I found the micro the other day when caching with the neighbors - and he wasn't even along for that! :)

GCT769 Flutter's Fortune Reg 1.5/1.5
Pirate2 MrWitzAbout Pirate3
Found-It log: April 1, 2006 by WitzAbout

Mr.WitzAbout and Pirates #2 & #3 - about 11:38am.
Second try at this cache. I started out parking at the wrong secret trail - second time that has happened to me today. Got back in the car and found the secret trail we had used the last time to try this area.
Luckily it wasn't anywhere as cold this time. This way we were able to spend more time without the cold forcing us to retreat.
Again the GPS was bouncing all over the place. Changing it from low-power mode to full-power mode does not seem to help. This area must be very reflective for radio waves.
I went far enough out that the ground was getting really soggy. I warned the pirates back. At one point I thought I was going to sink in and lose a shoe! And with no sword or shovel along to help. *
Taking a number of passes over the area, I could not find it, but more often than not, it kept leading me to a line about 30 feet long. I searched high and low, in and out. I could not find it. I was getting to the point of giving up. I was even considering checking the abandoned tire.
Pirate #2 bends down and says, 'is this it?', plucking it out of it's hiding spot so fast that I can barely figure out where it had been hidden. He had found it just like that! Wow! I complimented him on his really good spotting. Even Pirate #3 congratulated him - what a great sport!
I couldn't believe how hard this one was for me. I was really glad we could find it. It is one of the few left that we haven't found in our home area - that is big enough for trade items. I knew I needed to do one with trade items for the kids today.
So we traded! At first both pirates were considering the click-clacks, and I'd even written that in the log. But they decided not to take them in the end. Then Pirate #2 decided to take this solid dog/dragon looking toy. Pirate #3 handed me the Kim Possible travelbug. I read the mission. I don't know how much I can help with Disney in FL or the UK, but I am certainly willing to move her on.
Pirate #3 then decided he needed the stuffed bear - with rainbow, American flag-colored wings. Why a stuffed bear has wings, much less American flag-colored wings, I have no idea - but he likes it!
We put in a dragon figure, a koosh character, and a McToy-style General Grevous. Pirate #2 wanted to put in one of the micros I have left from the REI event, but I explained him that it was a cache. I must admit, I was tempted for a moment to leave it as a spawn - Denver-Bacteria-like :)
Thanks for the cache - this was a good one! SL.

Clouds Moving in as we headed for the Fortune

GCV4NG Saxy's Place

2006-04-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

The truth is I'd like to have slept in this morning. But some of the boys were making a little noise, and that woke me up a little. Then I thought about that first-to-find waiting out there, and I couldn't go back to sleep. In case you weren't sure I was obsessed with geocaching. :)
I got to meet the cache-owner, SAXman, last meeting in Denver. So I had an extra connection to this cache. I saw that he posted this morning that the coordinates were off. I'd seen the night before that the coordinates were in somebody's back-yard. But I could tell the secret trail, as I call them, was pretty narrow here, limiting the places the cache could be if the coordinates were close. So in spite of only having a short time, and in spite of the coordinates being off and in spite of it being a micro, I was drawn to do this cache.
I was glad I was able to find this cache - that means I was able to confirm more accurate coordiantes, so the cache-owner doesn't have to run out himself to check - especially since he works on Saturdays.
There is a bit of irony in how easy this one was compared to the 2 others I tried today. I could not find another micro, even with the help of my 2 younger pirates. And the middle pirate found a medium cache that I was having trouble finding today too. I guess I used up all my luck in the morning :)

GCV4NG Saxy's Place Micro 1.5/1.5
MrWitzAbout
Found-It log: April 1, 2006 by WitzAbout

N 38° 56.813 W 104° 47.381
Mr.WitzAbout on his own - about 8:30am.
A day later and nobody has claimed the find. I saw the DNF last night. I woke up this morning a little early wondering if anyone had found it yet. Checked - nope - no finds. So I got out of the house while half the family was still asleep.
I tried coming in from the south, I'd sort of turned the map 90 degrees in my mind. I parked at the spot that showed I was the closest, at what looked like a path in. I got out of the car, and started walking a couple of feet down the path when I realized it was actually a driveway. Wrong way!
I got back in the car and drove the long way around the block clockwise, past where they were building a church.
I saw a couple of people near the spot as I rounded the construction area. I was thinking I was too late for the FTF. But I figured I might meet up with a couple of other cachers this way, and perhaps get some help with my nemesis: the micro cache.
I found the secret trail entrance from the North, so I did not have to cross the construction zone. I hurried out to the cache coordinates. The other two people seemed to be talking about 200 feet away. I wasn't sure then if they were geocachers. I tried to look nonchalant as I looked around the natural cache hiding places. Boy is this area screaming for some CITO. But the only caching gear I had with me is my GPSr. And I was on a tight schedule - I had to stop looking in a half hour to get home in time. So I will have to come back to CITO. I think there may be more trash here than all of Midland Trail ;-) Watch out for the fresh doggy droppings.
So after a couple of minutes, I figured out what the other 2 were doing. I had wandered about 50 feet further down, and saw that they were filming some sort of intro or sales video in the construction area. But the camera was facing the other way. The guy with the mic was facing towards me, but he seemed to be more interested in his script.
So I turned my back to the muggles and continued my visual search.
I was not optimistic. A micro. A micro that had a DNF. A micro in an area with many places it could be hidden. And lots and lots of trash that could possibly be a micro.
I checked one piece of trash that didn't seem likely. Nope.
I was walking back to the general area of the coordinates. I check my GPSr and got as close as I could to the coordinates without going into the back yard. I looked around the area some more. I spotted something in a logical area. I think I said out loud - that doesn't seem right here. Poke, poke. Pick up. It must be the cache! It reminded me of something from the listing!
Cool container! I wasn't positive it was the cache until I tapped out the empty log.
I got the FTF - yay :) :)
I have to acknowledge the Spot Crew for trying first and having trouble with the coordinates.
Signed the log. Put it back. Took a GPS reading.
N38 56.813 W104 47.381 - checking google earth, it looks like the right spot. Double checking the listed coordinates - same exact longitude, just a different latitude.
I think I spent more time finding the right place to park than finding the cache. :) I agree with the rating.
I had enough time to run over and get some fresh bagels for the family.
Thanks for the cache!
Mr.WitzAbout

GCMCW7 Knock-off # 15 (Paul I. area)

2006-03-30T16:50:00.000-07:00

GCMCW7 Knock-off # 15 (Paul I. area) Micro 2.0/2.5
MrWitzAbout 4krejcis
Found-It log: March 30, 2006 by WitzAbout

Mr.WitzAbout (only WitzAbout) along with the 3/4krejcis.
We were heading back to the parking area. I decided to peak if there were any more caches as we were taking a different route (much easier!) back. Thre was - less than 400', and it seemed like it was right along the trail - the numbers were counting down quickly! It seems Mr.krejci had the same idea - he found that we were quickly approaching this cache.
We got to the area, and our 2 GPSrs were closer than they'd been all afternoon. But that still meant about a 50 foot area to search for a micro in the forest. We needed to head back, so I was emotionally prepared to give up after just a little time. I have so little luck finding micros. We were searching the area, and I moved over to a spot that was passed. I looked, and there it was! Wow - I found the micro! I think the Knock-off series will be the key to my learning to enjoy micros! This is the second one I've found without much trouble at all! It probably helped that it was missing one piece of natural camo. I put it back in place after we were done.
SL. Thanks for the cache - and thanks for helping me believe in doing micros again! :)
(pictures)

Steep Rocks on the Way

Great view of Downtown from up here

Looking back up the trail on the way out

GC247F Red Rocks Ramble

2006-03-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

For us, this was Red Rocks Scramble. We took one of the hardest ways into this cache. Trying to get to it as the crow flies. It was interesting to note, when I went back and read more of the logs for this cache, that we were not the only ones who ever came at it a harder way.

GC247F Red Rocks Ramble Reg 1.0/2.5
4krejcis MrWitzAbout
Found-It log: March 30, 2006 by WitzAbout

Mr.WitzAbout (only WitzAbout) along with the 3/4krejcis. We took the 1.0/4.5 route in to this cache from the 'which came first cache'. Definately the hardest route in for this cache. We had some real challenges getting to this cache - brush, scrub-limbo, steep downgrades, slides that left us with red mud marks, box canyon, ice, steep crevace climb up, down again, up again through more scrub, it seemed like an hour that the GPS said we were about 300 feet away. Finally we hit a trail with less than a hundred feet away. I'm standing there, reading the detail for this cache from my palm - hoping it will help us find it. Thunk-thunk interrupts my reading. Mrs.4krejcis was tapping the cache with her walking stick. Seems they had spotted it about the time I started reading, LOL.
TNLN, SL. This was a nice cache. Easy find if you go in the right way. Super challenging to get to if you take the wrong way - but we were exhilarated by the hike and glad to find the cache. And even gladder to find the main trail nearby to head back on. We were clued in to the main trail by the moutain-bikers that passed as we were doing our final ascent on this cache.
Thanks for a nice hide!
(pictures)

Rocks across the valley
What do you mean the GPS is pointing at the rocks across the valley?

Box Canyon

Still some ice along the stream

Look there's downtown Colorado Springs!

Interesting Rock Formation

What a vista!

GCNJAK Which came first...?

2006-03-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

This was one of 4 for the day. I was glad to be going along with the other team for the caching - and especially for this cache. I was spending too much time looking in cracks and crevices. I've since debated the postive merits of placing a copy of this cache myself, and calling it 'Witz came first' :)

GCNJAK Which came first...? Small 2.0/3.0
4krejcis MrWitzAbout
Found-It log: Mar 30, 2006 by WitzAbout

Mr.WitzAbout (only WitzAbout) along with 3/4krejcis. Was balancing around the rocks when Mrs.4krejcis spotted it. This was great! TNLN-SL
Which came first? Taking the wrong trail. :) We doubled back and made our way in by the lower trail from the South.
We then decided to do the next nearest cache - Red Rocks Ramble.
Nearest if you are a crow. Going from this cache was very challenging. Do yourself a favor - stick to the main trails even if it takes you way out of the way.
Great views from here.
This was a neat, creative cache - fun find!
(pictures)

Threatening Clouds
It made it a bit cool for a while, but they didn't bother us otherwise

View over the meadow

Deer Watching us Watching Them

GCC276 Away Team Mission

2006-03-30T14:54:00.000-07:00

A premium puzzle geocache. (Premium=you have to be a paying geocaching.com member to see this cache's listing)

I'd pretty much worked this puzzle-cache out a while back. You need to triangulate from 3 radio antennas. I'd found a site online that listed the rough coordinates. They seemed too rough, so I went onto google maps, and tried to get better coordinates. I was able to zero in on 2 with a little work - especially when I noticed the shadow from the antenna masts. The clues give you bearing from these coordinates. I printed out a google map and did a rough by-eye location for the solution cache. I figured I could use google earth to tune the coordinates.

Then I put it away for a while. Last week, I was emailing with a close neighbor who geocaches - it turns out they had been working on this one too! We compared notes, and it turned out we were in the same basic area. They made to go back through their notes too to get what they figured out.

I figured I could use the line function in google earth to calculate the location. Turns out the line function in google earth does not give you bearing. So I went online and found a web page that lets you find distance and bearing for 2 coordinates. So I did trial-and-error to come up with a matching bearing with a distance past where I estimated the cache to be for each of the 3 reference locations. I was very pleased when the 3rd line crossed the same spot that the first 2 lines had crossed at. It was about 100 feet west of the coordinates the neighbors got. And mine was just in the trees, so I was feeling pretty good about the numbers.

So we decided to join forces on Sunday to find this cache. I took my 3 pirates, and they left behind their junior searchers. We detoured to get one cache along the way. It was not far off the route, and turned out to be pretty easy. I spotted what must have been the formation hiding the cache, but I let Pirate #2 confirm it and retrieve the cache. We did some trades and logged the cache. Then we were back on the trails. We were able to take a different trail from the detour towards the puzzle cache. We were at the turning point before we knew it. Pirate #3 was being a little cranky, so I wound up carrying him a little bit.

We got to the area. An area with rocky outcroppings and trees. And the hints say pine needles cover the cache. So it seemed like we were in the right spot! We searched up and down. I checked out a bunch of likely places. Then some less likely places. Then I did some more digging in needles in some likely places. Still no luck. We were also looking for a pink ribbon. We did not see that. I went up along the trail and found a weather-beaten wooden bench placed by the parks department. Not around there. I went along the ridge for part of the way. Still no go. Then I remembered that one of points was a cardinal point. 90 degrees. That meant I should be able to get to the longitude for that coordinate, and walk the line. And I did. But then I found out that the coordinates that the neighbors had were different than mine! They got them from Magellan.

So that gave us a corridor maybe 50 feet wide instead of a line. But that didn't give us the answer. We still couldn't find it. The pirates had finished their snack and were getting bored. So I did one more sweep around the ridge. No luck. We gave up. On the way back down the trail, we found another spot that we wondered if it could be right. So we spent another 10 minutes searching in this area. Finally I had to say enough for us. We left the neighbors checking one more spot.

We got down off the trail in time to just make it home to hand off Pirate #3, who had a show to go to. Or I could take them to lunch and meet the Mrs at the arena. Called on the phone, and agreed to do the lunch thing. Took the pirates to Micky-Ds or as I like to call it, the evil M-pire. And then M&Ms stole my line!

I heard from the neighbors - they got some clues from the cache owner. The copied me on the clues. I emailed some with the owner too. The neighbors decided to take Monday afternoon to try again with the hints. I could not join them. The went with their 2 junior searchers. The stayed until dark, and did not find it.

We got some more hints from the owner. I pointed out the variety of coordinates possible for the antennas, and suggested listing the source for the coordinates. Because it turns out that the coordinates he used were different than the ones I found online and the ones I calculated on the maps. I sent him maps of the different coordinates.

So it turns out the coordinates for the 90-degree was .009 less than mine. Then he said we needed to search further North. North? That would either mean that the coordinates were even further off - or they were not exactly 90-degrees.

They were not 90-degrees. I'd planned to take Thursday afternoon off from work to try again. Turns out that is exactly when the neighbors wanted to try again. So we agreed to meet at the trailhead.

I met the 3 of them there. They had along the elder Junior searcher. I cam alone. The 4 of us headed up armed with much more specific clues from the owner. Any more specific and he would have had to lead us up there by hand. :) We got to the area pretty quickly, and assaulted the location. About 5 minutes up from the trail and we were in the area. Not a minute goes by, and the ribbon is spotted. Less than another minute later, and Mr.Neighbor finds the cache! Wahoo! Yet, finding it that quickly with how much we spent looking for it before was almost a let down. Yet having done it quickly gave us time to think about more caches.

Mr.Neighbor took a reading with his GPS on the 90-degree coordinate. My GPS isn't that fancy, so I was glad he could check. When he checked, it said 91-degrees. That is quite a difference with the coordinate being probably over 2 miles away. Specifically, the final location was probably about 300 feet away from the closest we had searched on Sunday.

I had realize when I was loading coordinates for other caches in the area on Sunday that this would be my first puzzle find! Ironic since I'd put out my own puzzle cache 4 months ago. But I finally got to claim a puzzle find! I added it to my profile page that night. :)

So we wound up doing another 3 caches. The next one we started up a trail, but decided we were going the wrong way after about a half mile. So we turned back and went another way. That one worked pretty well. We only did a light bushwacking the last 100 feet. Mrs.Neighbor spotted this one. It was a cool container.

We checked our GPSs. Only 3 tenths of a mile to the next one. That is closer than the first 2. At least as the crow flies. We wound up bushwacking and playing scrub limbo following deer paths for about a half an hour. Lots of deer droppings. We even saw 2 deer at one point. Then we came to a valley. We worked our way down the valley. It got very steep towards the bottom. Bottom travel was used by most, either on purpose or due to a slide.

Then we were in a box canyon. A tiny little trickle of a stream ran through. The GPS said the cache was somewhere way up in the rocks on the other side. Without thinking about it too much, I decided to head up the stream to see if there was some way out of the box. It was really steep - I just barely managed to make it up. And all the of the neighbors were following! Okay - that works. They made it up the rocks and then we were in slightly easier terrain. But then we were going up through scrub again, and down another hill. Then we hit a trail - perpendicular to our course. We followed it a short way, then we were bushwacking uphill again. We heard, then saw some mountain-bikers to the West. Finally at the top of the hill, we were less than 100 feet from the cache!

I pulled up the listing I'd loaded on my palm. I started reading it to help us find the cache. After a couple of pages, I hear thunk-thunk. It seems Mr&Mrs.Neighbor had found it probably about the time I started reading. It was rated at the simplest level for a find. I had to laugh at myself for reading and reading when it was already found.

We did our trades, then took the main trail back towards the West, where we had seen the mountain bikers. In spite of looking like the trails weren't always going directly where we wanted to go, we doggedly stayed on the trails and followed the signs towards the trailhead parking.

As we were heading along the trail, I couldn't help but wonder if there were any other geocaches along the way. There was! Less than a 1/10 of a miles, and closing fast. It was so nice to see the distance go down so quickly after the really long time at the previous cache. It seems Mr.Neighbor had the same idea, and he had started checking about the same time I did.

It was a micro-cache. And I've developed a bit of a phobia to micros. Mostly because so many have stumped me. But we tried anyhow. The description said that enough people had a hard time with this that geocaching.com asked him to check it! Not a great sign. So I put my palm away, and joined up with the group searching. I looked down at a spot where 2 of them had just passed, and said 'is this it?'. I'd found it very quickly! I might be getting over my micro-phobia! This is the second one I've found of this type - and the other one jumped out at me too!

We signed the logs and made for the cars. It turned out we went right past the place we had turned back when we were headed for the second cache. There were still more caches in the area we wanted to do - but we needed to get back. So we will have to hit the area gain to get more of the listed caches.

A wonderful day of geocaching! Exhilarating hiking! I got some great pictures. And with geocaching friends. This was a really good afternoon!

GCC276 Away Team Mission $ Puzzle 3.5/2.5
4krejcis MrWitzAbout
Found-It log: March 30 by WitzAbout

MrWitzAbout (only WitzAbout) - my 2nd try along with 3/4krejcis on their 3rd try. We had some hints that helped a lot. Mr.4krejcies spotted it first. Turns out I was too literal on the 90 exactly - it may help to round up. Pink ribbon is 2 very small ribbons - one 2 inches long, the other just a tiny piece tied further along the branch.
I'm glad we could help the federation members transport back to the bathrooms at Palmer Park ;-)
I like the Trek theme! This was a fun, yet a little frustrating cache. I'm really glad we were able to find it this time!
TNLNSL - Thanks for the cache, the challenge and help! It was really nice to be able to do this with the other team.

Amazing View on the Way

Marker Along the Trail

Not much left to flutter

Getting to Know Geocaching

2006-03-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

What is Geocaching?

In the simplest terms: finding things hidden by others with the GPS location or clues to the location posted on the web.

Another view of the sport: a somewhat geeky form of entertainment that gets mouse-jockeys outside for a while. Often very addictive.

How I came to geocaching:
I've always been a geek. Even when I was 7, I thought about computers before I ever saw a real one. I helped build our first computer when I was 12. I work and hobby with computers.
I used to bike all the time before I started driving. I hiked and biked a bit on rare occasion as a child and adult - and did some downhill skiing. But like most mouse-jockeys, I spend most of my time staring at a computer screen and not much time outside or exercising. I've always been heavier than 'standard'.

When I moved to Colorado in the second half of 2000, that started to change. They say it takes about 6 weeks to get acclimated to the altitude - the town is about 6,000' (about 2km high). We live at the Eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. The town is where the high-plains meet the Rockies. There are 9,000'+ foothills at the western side of town - and at the western edge of town, a 14,115' peak mountain called Pikes Peak. The Purple Mountain Majesty in the national song.
I'm not here 2 weeks, and I'm already starting to hike around and bike a bit. I do find I run out of breath easier, but you catch your breath faster when you stop.
On my first hike, I start thinking how neat it would be to have a digital camera to take pictures along the hike. That happened less that a year later.

Since then I've been on a bunch of hikes - taking lots and lots of pictures. We would go hiking with friends - until they moved to Germany. I'd hike on my own or with others. Then 1.5 years ago, I did a bigger hike. Starting on the back side of the mountain, I hiked from 10,000' to the 14,115' summit. At one point other hikers with a GPS passed us, and were able to tell us how far we'd gotten. Neat.

At some point after that, my wife found a GPS unit in the parking lot where she worked. She turned it in, but nobody claimed it. She gave it to me. I used it a bit to track a few hikes. It was neat, but not all that exciting. A friend of ours from back in New Jersey - who moved out to California not too long before we moved to Colorado - wrote about geocaching in an email. He'd been doing more hiking with his family too. His job was working with satellites, and he was involved in sending up some of the GPS satellites, so it made sense that he would be interested in a GPS game. I didn't get it at first.

Seven months later, I was doing some training. I wanted to be able to hike up Pikes Peak again - this time from the front, starting at about 6,700' and going up to 14,115'. 7,500 vertical feet over about 13 linear miles. So I took my GPS on a bike ride up one of the foothills. I pushed until I made it past 8,000'. Then I was planning another training hike on my own. I was going up an old quarry that went up the foothills called The Scar. And I decided to check geocaching.com to see if there were any geocaches on or leading up the scar. I'd expected, as it was semi-private property, that there would not be any geocaches. I was wrong. There were a few listed, but I wasn't sure how many were on The Scar. I took 4 print-outs from the web site with me.

At that time I didn't know you could pre-load a location into the GPS and have it point out direction and distance to the point. So as I was climbing halfway up the scar, I checked the coordinates on one of the print outs. It seemed close. So I looked at the latitude and longitude on my GPS, trying to figure out which way the hidden spot was. I wound up spending about 15 minutes going down a very steep scree field before I decided I was going the wrong way. I scrambled back up and decided to get to the top of the scar before I tried to find the hide again. On the way down, I managed to wind up on the correct side from the scree field. In fact, the GPS got me to about 5 feet away! Considering the accuracy of the model I have is at best about 13 feet, that is pretty good! I'd read that most geocaches are hidden under something that can make them stand out - rocks or stumps being popular. I was right near some dead trees. Peeking under some trees, I see the edge of a zip-lock bag. Inside was a plastic sandwich container with some toys and a log book. I signed the log, and left a nickel I put my nick-name on.

I was pretty excited. This was more interesting than I thought it would be. I hadn't realized I was infected. Many people find geocaching becomes an obsession. I had a relatively long incubation period, but I was definitely infected. A little less than a month later, one evening after work, I took my 3 boys out to find some nearby caches. A lot less hiking was involved. We found 2 caches that evening. The following weekend we all went out and found another 2 - though there was another one we couldn't find. I was starting to obsess. I figured out caches we could find further away. I took other friends geocaching. I found caches near shopping. I found caches to stop at on road trips. I considered road trips just to find caches. My family was not as interested as I was, and I could not convince them to do as much caching as I wanted. But I still managed to do a little caching most weekend.

I looked at my eldest son. Not yet 13. But larger than me in most dimensions except height, and he will pass that before he is 13-1/2. I've had some hand-me-up from him, because he out-grew something, but it would still fit me. He is a big kid. And he could definitely use some more exercise. I know the only times I've really lost weight and kept it off for a while is when I've done lots of hiking.
So I needed to get him hiking more.

I could just taking him hiking purely for exercise, and nothing extra. Or I could take him geocaching. Geocaching would give us various hikes, in new spots, with a chance to find toys. This sounded like a great additional motivator. Sometimes he still complains, but he also seems to enjoy it some of the time too.

So geocaching to me is the chance to exercise and get my kids outdoors. It give us a chance to enjoy the outdoors more - especially with all the warmer days that Colorado has to offer year-round. It give us new places to find all the time. I've also found caches in places I've hiked in the past, and had no idea there were caches there. It gives me a new geeky view of places - knowing where caches are hidden about town. It gives me new reasons to take pictures - and share pictures. It give me a chance to hide my own caches.

And even more, it has given me a new connection to people. I've never had many friends from work. I don't have that many contact as friends. But I've found kindred souls in geocaching. Even more, the geocaching infection has affected me more strongly in some ways than the average geocacher. Most get obsessed with how many caches they can find. Some see if they can be the first to a new cache. Some see how devious or hard they can make a hide.
But I've found myself connecting with other cachers. And not just one or 2 at a time. But groups.
I've always been somewhat shy. I'm almost always uncomfortable in groups. Public speaking is not something I'm known for.
Yet, somehow, I'm driven to do just that. I've run one event - and I am planning another. And I'm working on teaching classes at the library.
Organizing. Public speaking. Big groups. Me. If that doesn't tell you the power of the geocaching addiction, nothing will.
Okay - there are other factors I could point to that would help explain some of my interest. But most of it is just the obsession.

But what is geocaching really like?
It started when the government decided to turn off the fuzziness of information sent to consumer GPS receivers. Instead of an accuracy of worse than 150 feet, suddenly you had an accuracy of less than 30 feet. 3 days later, sort of as a test, a person hide a 'stash' and posted it on the internet to a news group. It didn't take long before a few people found it and posted that they had found it.
A little while later, a web site was dedicated to the sport. The eventually lead to geocaching.com - the main site of GPS hides. There are a few other GPS games and hide sites out there, but together they don't even come close to geocaching.com.

If you put in a zip code, especially if you are in or near a large population center, you will find a lot of caches in your area. There are a variety of types and sizes of caches. Anyone can make and hide a cache. While there are some rules and a few guidelines, there is a huge amount of freedom to make hides whatever you want.
A lot of caches with trade items are old ammo boxes or tupperware. Many of them are camouflaged. Some are hidden more deviously than others. And some are so small, all they have is a place to write a log entry.
Trade items are usually dollar store items and happy-meal toys.

So you decide to find a cache. Often you can find a few in a general region. Take a print out or download the data to a PDA. Download or enter the coordinates into your GPS. Drive to the area. Follow the GPS and the trails until you get pretty close. Follow the GPS until you get really close - about 20 feet. Look around. After doing a few caches, you start to see most hides pretty quickly. A stack of rocks or sticks, a likely hole, they start to jump out at you when searching. Sometimes they are a bit harder, or the GPS was being a bit more inaccurate. So it may require a few passes with the GPS to get an idea of the range to search.

The first thing to do when you spot the cache, it to stop and take a good look so you can do a decent job of rehiding the cache.

Open it up. Usually newer caches have more interesting stuff to choose from. Older caches can get pretty thin on loot or swag as it is called. Sometimes you might find a 'travel-bug' a hitch-hiker. An item with a special dog tag that is purchased and tracked on geocaching.com. Some have missions of where they want to go or what they want to do. Geocachers are supposed to take them only if they plan on helping with the mission and moving them to another cache usually within 2 weeks. Unluckily, too many go missing - but a good number of them travel great distances and have interesting adventures.

But even when it is only a log, or nothing good to trade - it is still neat to find a cache. It is a bit like a scavenger hunt or treasure hunt. Some of the puzzle caches can be quite a challenge. Most of the caches we have placed are easier and most are good to do with kids.

It is interesting to see how many caches there are - and how it has spread all around the world.

It is interesting to see the interesting things people write when the find my caches. I also check out what is being written on other caches near mine - and also watch travelbugs I've moved to new caches.

About This Blog

2006-03-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

I've decided to make a special blog for my geocaching.

Inspired by some other geocachers who wrote long, colorful log entries on the geocaching site, I became determined to add more blog-like descriptions to my find logs.

But I find that I often have even more to say. And people who do not have access to geocaching.com would not see what I've been writing about most lately.

Also, geocaching.com does not have a way to browse log entries of a user like a blog - you have to go into a users finds and other actions and scroll down to their log entries. If it is an older entry, you have to ask to view all logs to view the specific entry.

Ironically, each user has the ability to see a index of their own log entries, very much like a blog.

Thus I will be including my new log entries entered on geocaching.com - and often some extra thoughts that I did not include on geocaching.com. The entry from geocaching.com will be in a special colored box, similar to what is on a cache page. I also hope to add some extra member-of-a-group icons that I'd like to see on geocaching.com.

Also, when I have images, I will often upload slightly higher resolution pictures to this blog. Basically geocaching.com limit pictures to about 640. On the blog, I can upload 1024.

New Blog

2006-03-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

I recently had a comment on my main blog asking about geocaching.
As my main blog has gotten pretty dusty since I've been geocaching, I decided it was time for a blog just for my geocaching.