Mike's Geocaching Blog

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Caching with Rod in Albany

Today Rod of Family Explorer and I attended a half-day seminar in Albany then spent the afternoon caching around the area.

Mostly we focused on the rural area SE of town where we picked up a nice Earthcache - Red Bridge Erratics and several roadside caches.

Obligatory photo at Earthcache

We also got in some trail caches in town next to the river including a couple requiring some tree climbing and some log traversing - fun trail system here - Simpson Park Trail..

Finally, we got on our way home and managed to pick off a few caches along the way including Harold Woolly Bridge - a tough one to find in the dark.

Fun day all around - geocaching and conversation with a buddy.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Island Hopping II

  Rub-a-dub-dub,
  Three men in a tub…....

Well, no tub this time!

I had so much fun on my earlier water-caching excursion that I jumped at the invitation to join Bad Duck and Mr. Copper hunting caches via kayaks at Reedsport. We would be greeted by an absolutely gorgeous T-shirt sunny day!

Four caches in our sights today: Beached!  Umpqua City  Steamboat Island  Cliffhanger

Hanging Out at Cliffhanger

On Land at Umpqua City

I had previously found Cliffhanger and Umpqua City via hiking but doing them again by kayak was going to be fun. I’ve been wanting to get more time in a kayak so I could decide what kind to buy for myself this spring.

We broke it into two trips. First put-in was in Winchester Bay where Darren and I received some basic kayaking instructions from Eric. Our first cache, Beached, was only a few hundred feet from our put-in and we shortly had “beached” and found the cache. Back into the calm Umpqua River waters we needed to cross to the north side for the Umpqua City cache. The cache was within 200 feet of the river shore and was found quickly. Returned to the put-in, loaded the kayaks and headed to the Gardiner boat dock for our final two caches. A little over 3 miles for this trip.

Left Gardiner put-in and headed to Steamboat Island battling against the tide a little bit but not too bad. Once again, the cache was easily found then we were off to Cliffhanger….which looked a LONG ways away! It took awhile to get across the river to the north bank again but the time went by rather quickly as we chatted and joked about many things. For me, this would be one of the best parts of the whole experience.

Cliffhanger would be the one difficult cache of the day - so difficult in fact that it could not be found due to soil debris that had fallen from the steep cliffs directly on top of the cache! Emailed the owner for permission to replace the cache. Okay with our old friend, Mackie! We put together a new cache using the brand new water-proof box I had just bought for this outing and whatever swag we could scrape together.

It seems we could have timed the tides a little better as we noticed the tide changed while we had been looking and replacing the cache. We would have to paddle against the tide on the return trip as well! Darren and Eric hugged the shoreline more than I did and as a result I ended up working harder than I needed to…...lesson learned - ALWAYS paddle like a DUCK!

Once back at the truck with kayaks loaded, Darren reported nearly nine miles on the day! It wore me out but it was another great day out caching with good friends. Very cool!

Before heading home we checked out Bedrock’s in Reedsport for some much needed nourishment….of the pizza kind! Sad to discover the geocache inside was missing!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Roseburg! Long Time No See!

Long day caching in Roseburg with Bad Duck.

We didn’t get a very early start but we made up for it by not returning home until nearly midnight! Uh, addicted?....no, we’re not addicted!

After picking off a few between Coquille and Winston, we drop into Roseburg and hunt down a few as we make our way to a hobby shop so Darren could pick up some RC parts. Dinner at Abby’s Pizza then we hit the road again aiming for a large series of caches called “Memories of Old Highway 99…” as we head home via Sutherlin/Elkton. We didn’t have a great deal of luck with this series….several seemed to be missing.

One cache (Desert Thunder) really had us going and we spent FAR too long looking but it was one that just got in our heads and we didn’t want to leave without getting it! In the end we had to tuck our tails and log a DNF! Later, the cache owner emailed me and gave me more of a hint - yes, it was there and now I know where to look next time.

Another fun one was “Where is the whitevette?” cache. I shouldn’t give away too much here but it wasn’t discovered until Darren decided he was thirsty and needed something to drink.

Yes, a long day but certainly a fun day. Thirty smiley faces for me .... but who’s counting?