The Glory of Geocaching in Glorious Scenery

According to Clay Jenkinson, we as geocachers are part of what makes humanity strange and fascinating, and are to be admired as such. Check out his recent column in the Bismarck Tribune where I and all of you receive this honorable mention:
The Article

We’re right in there with the miracle of heart transplants, great music, and the world’s largest collection of Elvis decanters. LOL. But he’s right: our species really IS remarkable.

Yes, yes, I know I’m #3 and not #2, as he wrote, but someday I probably will be, so it’s close enough. I have a plan for that, you know. I’m going to outlive everyone. Seriously! I have a goal to be a healthy 103. Ha HA! That oughta do it…

Meanwhile, here’s what I’ve been doing just to try to stay ahead of the fast-approaching Team Snook, who have been rising through the stats at break-neck speed.

I grabbed 50 caches with f0t0m0m and Spoondoggie all around the Solvang area amongst the myriad wineries. We drove for miles through the vineyards and agriculture.

The best caches of the day were a nicely crafted fake pine cone, a bolt in a guard rail, a sneaky magnetic in a tree, and one in a part of a guard rail that we had to rotate to access.

The best FIND of the day, though was this guy!

f0t0m0m saw this sign elsewhere, but they needed one here, as I almost drove over the beauty!

I spent the last few days up in the Eastern Sierras, as I had a performance in Bishop with Beethoven’s Wig. I was surprised to find a large group of petroglyphs at this cache:

NOAH’S ARK

I was also surprised to get the FTF at this cache:

Streamside

I hope more people get out there, as it’s idyllically lovely.

This is the view from
Owens Bridge Cache

and I found this awesome chalk cliff as I was driving to

The Fisherman’s Cache

Get out and find more caches, all you strange and fascinating examples of humanity! Let me know what marvelous things you discover!

Mt. Shasta Summit!

I chose the “slow and steady” version with the Shasta Mountain Guides, and as it was, I realized that I was just barely in training enough to make it! One never knows what is required of one, until one attempts things, though. When I climbed the mountain, there were NO caches at the top OR even on the way! At least, there are will soon be TWO Earthcaches at and near the summit, graciously posted by bthomas and f0t0m0m using information I collected! (Yes, I’ll be able to log finds as a beta tester!)

The epic trek began with an equipment check at The 5th Season sporting goods store in Mt. Shasta City. After we had all of our gear together, we drove up to the trail head. This was an adventure in itself! There were some slightly sandy spots and one larger, sandy hill to get up to the parking lot, but my Prius barely made it. As it turned out, it did presage things to come….

The Trailhead:

The first day’s hike (of FOUR) was about four or so miles with 2000 feet of elevation gain to our first camp, near a spring:

My tent is on the left there, and here’s the view of the spring from within said tent:

This is looking up at the summit from our first base camp:

Yep, that moonscape is the mountain terrain, and from there it was pretty much all snowless, rocky, sandy, slidy, scree to the top! The second day was only about 2 miles of hiking, but up another 2000 feet, where we camped at about 10,500 feet and did a little crampon/ice axe training on a nearby snowfield.

Here’s the view from my tent from there:

It was very smoky from the many forest fires in the state, so the view never got any clearer for this trip. It still looked like a loooong way to the top, too:

The third day was Summit Day, and it took me 9 hours to get there from the second base camp, over 5 miles of struggling up scree and talus with almost 4000 feet of vertical gain. Words like “strenuous” and “exhausting” just don’t cover the extreme effort and stamina it took to get there, and I was BARELY in shape enough to do it!

After all the scree scrambling, a couple of snow fields, and some boulder climbing, here I am at the summit!

This is how I really felt:

I didn’t have any vista or scenery to “distract” me from the task at hand, since it was so smoky:

That also shows where the summit sulphur hot springs are, but we couldn’t see or smell much of them today, as it was pretty windy up there. This is Whitney glacier, up near the summit:

This is the summit log, the “Holy Grail” for the day:

After hanging out for about a half an hour, it was time to head back down…. which was sort of easier, but it still took me 5 hours to get back to my tent, where I collapsed. The descent involved plenty of sliding down what I’d just slid up, and it was just as fatiguing. The next day, we packed it all up and hiked the 6 miles or so back to the cars!

Here are the other folks on the slow and steady tour: Angelika and Michael (from Heidelberg, Germany) and our marvelous guide, Nick, without who’s encouragement and shepherding, I would NOT have made it!

I survived the adventure with just a couple of swollen toes… whew! This was a true peak experience… all puns and senses of the word intended! What’s next? Hm… Stay tuned for more geocaching adventures!