Well, November was a slower month for us as far as Geocaching goes. There were many things to juggle - and we only made 8 Geocaching trips all month (including a couple of days with just 1 Park 'n Grab)! With that in mind, the Find of the Month for November is an event cache, Passing The Torch (GC4R3N7). It was my first experience with a GCCO (that's GeoCaching COlorado) event, and I was quite pleased.
The Event took place at a library in Castle Rock. There were a few familiar faces there, and many cachers I have never met. It was a blast exchanging stories, meeting new faces and discovering the many neat trackables! My favorite part was the cache exchange, and I think more events should have this kind of thing.
"Cache Exchange? What is this?", you might say. That is actually what I said when I read the event description. Come to find out, it is an activity in which you hide an un-published cache filled with goodies. You record the coords, just as you would for a cache you were going to publish - however, you don't publish it. Instead, you bring these coords into the event and they go into an advanced randomizing device (conveniently, this is also known as a hat). At the end of the event, those who placed caches for the exchange will draw a random set of cords and go hunting for the cache. When you find the cache, instead of signing a log and leaving the cache there, you claim it - container and all! I love the idea of keeping all of the treasure - like a pirate, claiming all of the booty!
The cache I left for the exchange was a camo'd Argo container that I have held onto for entirely too long (was going to be a creatively named cache like 'the non-newtonian TB hotel', but just hadn't had the opportunity). Inside of the container I placed a TB that needed help moving along, a caribiner from our recent wedding, a CITO bag, and at least six (although it may have been eight...) micro cache containers WITH logs. The cache I found was a small lock 'n lock with an UNACTIVATED FTF coin, some alien swag, a small roll of camo tape, and some other swag for trading.
All in all, a pretty cool meet 'n greet event, at a fantastic location. Hopefully there will be more events at this library!
Friday, December 20, 2013
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
October's Find of the Month - Slender
One of our favorite types of caches to find is what we like to call the "Adventure-Style Multi-cache". This is a multi-cache that usually has a story to go along with it and gives you an extra sense of adventure you might not get with just your typical 'point A leads to point B' multi. As we were approaching our 1,000th find, we stumbled upon one of these great multi-caches called 'Slender' (GC4EY6E). Here is our recap of that great adventure!
It started on October 22nd. We were looking for some cool caches as we were inching towards our 1,00th find. I (Mike) was looking for a really cool cache to maybe make our 1,000th. I stumbled upon Slender in my searches and was very intrigued. It was relatively new, yet was racking up a favorite point for every find. It was also supposedly LOADED with trackables - and we had a bag to exchange out. The only downside was that it seemed to require a little bit of walking, and Juli's knee was not ready to make that kind of commitment that day. We grabbed the first stage and then hobbled out for some easier park 'n grabs.
That first stage peaked our interest, and we knew right away that we were in for an awesome adventure! It starts with a booklet explaining the mysteries of SlenderMan. It would seem the SlenderMan is a mysterious dark figure with a white face. It is believed this 'man' is behind the disappearances of many people, including the ones who placed this cache! There are stories for 3 of these disappearances in this booklet, and a map with waypoints named for those three people. After the map where pages of glyphs and numbers and such. We assumed that these would be part of some sort of field puzzle (and we were right!). We couldn't wait to get the adventure underway! We made sure to rest Juli's knee and the very next Tuesday we set out to find some more stages and possibly complete the Multi.
Our first stop the next week was the farthest north waypoint in the booklet. The hide for this stage was fairly obvious (if you have found that type of container before), but the clue took some extra thinking. After some brainstorming, we re-read the story associated with this waypoint. Not to give anything away here, we quickly noticed that the clue and the waypoint had a common thread. In the end, we used the story associated with the WP to figure out the clue. We took a picture of the clue (a good practice for field puzzles) and continued on our way.
The second waypoint we went to was also on the north side of the Colorado Springs map. It seemed to be close to a parking area, so we parked and searched for it. It required a little bit of a hill to contend with, but not too difficult at all. The cache was fairly large and easy to spot, however it was in a complicated container. Again, we had to use the story associated with the name on the waypoint to figure out the how to open the container. Once we got inside, we were surprised by the type of puzzle piece contained within. I don't want to give anything away, so I will just say that I have never seen anything like it in over 1,000 caches. We quickly figured out how to extract the information we needed from that puzzle piece and moved on to the 3rd waypoint.
At the 3rd waypoint, we realized why the cache description mentioned that there were restricted hours at a certain stage. Once more, we had to read into the story of the name on the waypoint. This one took us longer, as there were a few different directions we could go. After about 15-20 minutes of searching and re-reading the story, we finally came up with the next puzzle piece. This puzzle was a nice brain teaser, which gave us the final clue to obtain a new set of coords. We gathered our wits as we inched closer to solving the final mystery!
This fourth waypoint led us to a large container with an interesting puzzle piece. This puzzle piece was larger than any I have seen, and it sure was interesting. It took a lot of head scratching, and all I can say without feeling like I am giving something away is that you really have to look at the details to figure this one out. Also - Thank goodness this cache has a geochecker!
The Final: The cache owners were kind enough to list two waypoints as possible parking, with the warning that any other access may cause you to cross over private property. After obtaining the final set of coordinates, we decided to approach this from the easternmost parking waypoint - since we knew that area better than the western area. There were some workers doing fire mitigation in the area at the time, but they didn't seem to mind us. What a beautiful hike to the final! The last few feet were the roughest, but more than worth it. We spotted the Slenderman, retrieved his note and sent him back to where he came from! The actual cache container large and full of trackables. Of course, we traded as many coins and tags as we possibly could!
In conclusion, this is one of the best put together Multi's we have ever done. If we were allowed to give more than one favorite point, we would. I am sure that with proper maintenance this cache will become one of the legendary caches of Colorado. Thanks again to Brennan7 and Tom.Dog for creating this wonderful cache and all of the creativity behind it.
It started on October 22nd. We were looking for some cool caches as we were inching towards our 1,00th find. I (Mike) was looking for a really cool cache to maybe make our 1,000th. I stumbled upon Slender in my searches and was very intrigued. It was relatively new, yet was racking up a favorite point for every find. It was also supposedly LOADED with trackables - and we had a bag to exchange out. The only downside was that it seemed to require a little bit of walking, and Juli's knee was not ready to make that kind of commitment that day. We grabbed the first stage and then hobbled out for some easier park 'n grabs.
That first stage peaked our interest, and we knew right away that we were in for an awesome adventure! It starts with a booklet explaining the mysteries of SlenderMan. It would seem the SlenderMan is a mysterious dark figure with a white face. It is believed this 'man' is behind the disappearances of many people, including the ones who placed this cache! There are stories for 3 of these disappearances in this booklet, and a map with waypoints named for those three people. After the map where pages of glyphs and numbers and such. We assumed that these would be part of some sort of field puzzle (and we were right!). We couldn't wait to get the adventure underway! We made sure to rest Juli's knee and the very next Tuesday we set out to find some more stages and possibly complete the Multi.
Our first stop the next week was the farthest north waypoint in the booklet. The hide for this stage was fairly obvious (if you have found that type of container before), but the clue took some extra thinking. After some brainstorming, we re-read the story associated with this waypoint. Not to give anything away here, we quickly noticed that the clue and the waypoint had a common thread. In the end, we used the story associated with the WP to figure out the clue. We took a picture of the clue (a good practice for field puzzles) and continued on our way.
The second waypoint we went to was also on the north side of the Colorado Springs map. It seemed to be close to a parking area, so we parked and searched for it. It required a little bit of a hill to contend with, but not too difficult at all. The cache was fairly large and easy to spot, however it was in a complicated container. Again, we had to use the story associated with the name on the waypoint to figure out the how to open the container. Once we got inside, we were surprised by the type of puzzle piece contained within. I don't want to give anything away, so I will just say that I have never seen anything like it in over 1,000 caches. We quickly figured out how to extract the information we needed from that puzzle piece and moved on to the 3rd waypoint.
At the 3rd waypoint, we realized why the cache description mentioned that there were restricted hours at a certain stage. Once more, we had to read into the story of the name on the waypoint. This one took us longer, as there were a few different directions we could go. After about 15-20 minutes of searching and re-reading the story, we finally came up with the next puzzle piece. This puzzle was a nice brain teaser, which gave us the final clue to obtain a new set of coords. We gathered our wits as we inched closer to solving the final mystery!
This fourth waypoint led us to a large container with an interesting puzzle piece. This puzzle piece was larger than any I have seen, and it sure was interesting. It took a lot of head scratching, and all I can say without feeling like I am giving something away is that you really have to look at the details to figure this one out. Also - Thank goodness this cache has a geochecker!
One of the first pics from the Slender gallery
The Final: The cache owners were kind enough to list two waypoints as possible parking, with the warning that any other access may cause you to cross over private property. After obtaining the final set of coordinates, we decided to approach this from the easternmost parking waypoint - since we knew that area better than the western area. There were some workers doing fire mitigation in the area at the time, but they didn't seem to mind us. What a beautiful hike to the final! The last few feet were the roughest, but more than worth it. We spotted the Slenderman, retrieved his note and sent him back to where he came from! The actual cache container large and full of trackables. Of course, we traded as many coins and tags as we possibly could!
In conclusion, this is one of the best put together Multi's we have ever done. If we were allowed to give more than one favorite point, we would. I am sure that with proper maintenance this cache will become one of the legendary caches of Colorado. Thanks again to Brennan7 and Tom.Dog for creating this wonderful cache and all of the creativity behind it.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
It Begins at a Milestone...
Tuesday October 22nd, 2013: This day we decided to tackle the last few caches leading to our 1,000th find. We never really settled on what kind of cache would be the magical 1,000, we just went for it. We ended up with 1 multi, 1 mystery, and 5 traditionals to push us to 1,001 finds! We also DNF'd on 2 multis - one of which I believe was an error on my part, and the other I truly think the final has disappeared. Finally, we found the first stage of 'Slender' - an elaborate and exciting story multi (more to follow on that entertaining cache later)!
Number 1,000 was just a plain ammo can hide. Nothing too extraordinary, but tons of fun and lots of goodies! Our plan was to end the day there, and enjoy having a nice even number of finds. However, while enjoying our evening of television and ice cream, we received a 'publish' notification. A quick look at the cache description and we knew we had a shot at FTF! Just a short 8 minute drive to GZ revealed lots of muggle traffic, but nobody searching. After an exhaustive search, we made FTF for our 1,001st cache!
Now, just a short week later - I start our blog. Why a Geocaching blog? Well, it's an idea I've been wrestling with for a long time. I have hide ideas I'd like to get out of my head and onto 'paper', some adventures are just too involved for a simple 'found it' log entry, and I love sharing our journeys!
And so it begins - at a milestone find: Our Geo-blog! Let's cache!
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