Sunday, December 31, 2006
Reflections on 2006
The passing of 2006 marks 903 days (2.5 years) that I’ve been geocaching. I’ve told many who have asked why I do it, “I have such a blast - exploring and discovering out in God’s great creation, getting exercise and treasure to top it all off”. Many times I am accompanied by my lovely bride, Pat and occasionally my grandson, Elliot (my geo-name “popop” comes from Elliot as this is what he called me when he was a toddler). Following are a few statistics (boring to you I’m sure) and notable caching experiences from the past year:
Number of caches found in 2006 - 519
Number of days cached in 2006 - 117
Added Idaho and California to the list of states cached in.
Finding a cache in every county of Oregon was a personal goal of mine even before the Counting Counties in Oregon Challenge came along. I knew I probably wouldn’t get a cache in all 36 counties in the time allowed (full calendar year 2006) but I figured the CCiO challenge would help me attain this goal a little quicker than I would otherwise. That it did. I had nearly as much fun with the planning portion as with actually hunting and finding these caches. I was able to find caches in 22 of the 36 counties - not too bad. I hope to complete this goal in 2007. A few of the adventures alluded to below came directly out of attempting this challenge.
A few of my favorite caches from this year:
Wolf Creek Falls in Douglas County east of Roseburg was a really nice trail to hike and scenic as well.
Umpqua Joe has a painful story to go with it - click on the link and read my 5/20/06 log entry. This was part of a caching trip between Grants Pass and Graves Creek along the Rogue River in the spring.
The best hike all year was without a doubt the late September outing in the Cummins Creek Wilderness along the Oregon coast between Florence and Yachats. Gwynn Creek Huff & Puff took me through gorgeous old growth fir and spruce and Perpetually Puzzled provided an awesome scenic vista overlooking the wilderness and ocean.
Loeb Loop is a short but pretty hike accessed from the Alfred Loeb State Park along the Chetco River east of Brookings. This was one of our favorite camping spots this summer as we were travelling with our grandson. Had a little excitement on this one - a forest fire broke out within 30 minutes after leaving the trailhead. Fortunately they caught it before it got big. Really, it wasn’t us!
Early in the year I was able find all the caches located in the Oregon Dunes NRA on foot. I made it a goal to get all these caches without using vehicles or ATV’s. A few new ones were placed out there over the course of the summer and fall and I got those on foot as well. It was in the course of getting all these dune caches that I showed how addicted I am to this madness so I’ll wrap up with my 5/5/06 log entry for Lost at the Lake:
“Cinco de Mayo was the day for completing my year long goal of finding all the Dunes NRA caches on foot -no ATV. Waited until Goose Pasture Goodies was re-enabled this spring so I could get these last three plus the new one (Grassy Knoll)to the south. Managed to get all four but this one was, by far, the most challenging.
I had seen PMOGUY’s log from several weeks ago and decided to wait for the water levels to drop before attempting. Well I arrived at the lake edge only to find the cache location still surrounded by water! Sheeesh I said to myself, I knew I should have waited another month or so. I REALLY didn’t want to come back another day for this one soooooooo…... inspired by PMOGUY’s “bravery” I too stripped to my skivey’s and waded to the prize. The water level had dropped some because the deepest part was just above my waist. Thanks to his warning about submerged logs and brush I went slowly to avoid scraping shins. The cache was high and dry. Signed the log, back to shore and hiked on back to the vehicle. A few ATV’ers were out but no one ventured down to the lake, thankfully.
Man, what a guy will do to get a higher scoring CCiO cache!! Seriously though I love hiking in the dunes today was no different. Thanks for the hide.”
I’ll share some of my goals for 2007 shortly after the new year begins.
What’s this - an email notification of a new cache in the area? Gotta run…....................bye now