Mike's Geocaching Blog

Monday, December 31, 2007

Reflections on 2007

After 3.5 years of geocaching the love of exploring the outdoors combined with the hunt for hidden treasure has failed to diminish one iota!  I’m forced to geocache further and further from home but that’s a good thing!  The hunt takes me to places I may never have otherwise seen.  Rising gas prices haven’t really slowed down my outings but have forced me to plan a little smarter. 

For 2007 I found 665 caches over 152 caching days.  That’s about 30% more than last year.

One of the more significant highlights from early in the year was a trip to the ORIGINAL STASH TRIBUTE PLAQUE where the origin of geocaching is honored.  Check out my blog entry HERE.  I made this my 1000th find.

Geocaching with friends is always fun.  Four specific outings stand out from this year…...

North Fork Smith River Trail with a group of men from church

Long dune hike with Gblack and knightcb

Upper Table Rock with knightcb

Hike to Hanging Rock with church group

Pat’s job with SOCC has provided some interesting opportunities for geocaching.  She has meetings/conferences/training throughout the year and I either tag along and get in some caching or used the time she’s out of town to go caching somewhere.  I camped, hiked and cached near Santa Rosa, CA while Pat attended a conference in San Francisco.  I camped and cached in the forest around Cottage Grove Lake while she was in San Antonio, TX attending another conference.

We also love getting out in our little trailer as often as we can and these outings always provide some caching opportunities.  We made trips to South Lake Tahoe, Columbia Gorge and several up and down our Oregon coast.

The southern part of the Oregon coastline with it’s rugged scenery and many hiking trails continues to be one of my very favorite places to hike and cache.

I made progress on the challenge caches I’ve chosen to pursue.  I picked up one more county for the CCiO cache, six more DeLorme pages, two more USFS Nat’l Forest caches and began a new one involving caches associated with forest fire lookouts in Oregon.

Terracaching and geodashing continue to be a part of my weekly planning but I didn’t do too many of these this year.

TOP FIVE cache hunts for 2007:

WHAT HAPPENED TO BRUCE?
Rock of Ages
Oregon Walkabout 2
A Giant Amongst Us
Forest Above Ocean Below

Overall, it was a fun year caching and exploring new places.  I look forward to the next year - bring it on!!

Monday, December 10, 2007

Hiking South of Gold Beach Again

The forecast for sunny weather early this week was just too tempting.  Took a day off and trekked down Highway 101 for a day of hiking and caching between Gold Beach and Brookings.

Nine of my thirteen finds today were put out by trailsailor who has a knack for finding truly picturesque vantage points along this rugged section of the Oregon coastline.  Several required hiking out less-traveled paths.  The sunny cold weather made for very clear skies and great pictures.

Most notable incident on this trip was running into trailsailor himself as I was approaching one of his caches.  It’s always great to meet fellow cachers “on the trail”.  We had a nice geo-chat then parted ways.

View of Natural Bridges

Here are a few from today…...........

Frustration!
Made a day of it south of Gold Beach today and tried to get this one on my way down but muggle crabbers too close to GZ so tried again on my return trip and found it quickly.  Thanks.

Fishin From the Bridge
First of several finds between Gold Beach and Brookings today.  Reeled it in and signed the log.  TNLN Thanks.

For Dad
Last time I went down that trail it was the end of a long day of caching/hiking and my knees were just killing me but I bucked up and hobbled down to find the cache.  Today I hit it on the first part of my day - zipped down the hill and found this cache.  Grabbed the coin.  Forgot my TB’s back at the vehicle so will drop one of them in the nearby cache.

Gorgeous day - thanks for the cache.

Cross the Bridge
Another great hike in the Natural Bridges area.  Dropped a TB.  Thanks.

Friday, November 30, 2007

101 in November

Pat had a work-related meeting in Albany today so I offered to chauffeur!  Of course, on the surface this was a not-so veiled excuse to have a day of caching!  Dropped her off at Linn Benton CC campus then headed for the first of twenty caches this day.  Not hiking to a mountain top or waterfall - just some fun hides in and around Albany.

This little excersion capped off my second best month of caching in terms of number of finds.  The most interesting cache was The Adventures of W. Smith (Fire on the 4th) - container was a converted fire extinguisher hung up inside a large metal bell in front of a fire station.  I felt really bad that I had to leave it somewhat exposed because I could not, for the life of me, get that thing to hang again.  You have to reach somewhat blindly up into that bell and it was difficult to find whatever it was hanging from!  I emailed the owner right away so he could fix it up right.