This is made up of stories from my caching and my reviewing. It is a collection of those along with comments and thoughts. Photos, and maps of some adventures and lists of some of the oldest caches.
There are hiders and there are hiders. There are those people that do amazing work have a great many fantastic caches that people tip their hats too. We all know there. There are a few in every area. Perhaps they specialize in the Earthcaches that are interesting, it may be the gadget caches that keep others entertained. Other cachers may place caches in locations that make others ooh and ahh at the scenic beauty. So now there is a reward for some of them.
First I had nothing to do with it
As a reviewer, we were not asked who, how, or what should be included in the algorithm. So don't contact any reviewer mad that you did not get one. We had no input. A small group of lackeys sat down and (I am sure) pounded out the thoughts of what should be included, and what should be weighted.
However, I know people will ask. Why was cacher X chosen, and not Y? Well, obviously the most good looking, smart, and happy cachers got chosen. So when you are asked, that is the answer that should be given. That seems simple enough. Well, I can't say that, because I do not know who was chosen. No one has even shared that with me. So once again, I am no help.
You got an email
So you will have received an email from HQ if you got it. Other than that, I don't know much. The caches are supposed to go out to the top hiders, not in your area, but worldwide. Some people you may have been sure to get one, may not have, and I am expecting people to be surprised at others. That seems to be how a computer will spit things out. Congrats enjoy the day, you have a while to use it and get it listed.
If you did not get an email
Not much you can do this time around. There will be a lot that does not get them, I have no great advice. Place better caches? Place some? Just enjoy the new ones? The cache pages are not adoptable, so I am assuming that some people will not even use the ones they have.
This was my favorite day of the trip. Because we were going to see something new, something a little different and off the beaten path. We dragged our way out of bed and started the day. We were sitting in the lobby of our hotel in Green River and eating breakfast when I saw a guy in a ratty beard and wearing second hand clothes eating breakfast. I kind of watched him out of the corner of my eye.
Runoff from Crystal Geyser
Then I saw another guy come up to him and ask "Didn't I see you on X" (I actually do not remember the show). Turns out this odd guy was some multi millionaire that just decided to head to Moab for the weekend. He did not make it that far and was here for the night. I guess I should not judge people quite so fast.
Virtual Morning
I had to scramble as we headed out of town. I had forgotten to grab Green River Utah 1st Virtual Utah is the home of Virtual Caches. Utah has 255 virtual caches right now. There are only two states that have more; Texas with 340, and California with 525. With Califoria at twice our area, and Texas at four times, we have quite a few. It is easier since about 2/3rds of our virtuals fall along a few roads. Highway 6, Highway 89, and Interstate 15. I would bet about 75% of all the virtuals fall in those areas.
Well we swung back into town to grab this one before heading our way south. I had almost forgot, at the last moment. Ok well, it was not the last moment, we would come back into town. We headed south toward Crystal Geyser.
Crystal Geyser Traditional and EarthCache
We found our way out to Crystal Geyser. This was on my list for a long time. I love Geysers, so I made sure I looked for the road. We headed out of town on a rough old road, and turned with the car down a dirt road. It was pretty nice for my car. Just a ten mile drive.
The geyser is actually not a hot water geyser like those that are in Yellowstone. This geyser was actually made by a drilling company. They drilled into a pocket of carbonated water. So every so often, usually once per day, it erupts into a smallish eruption, and a number of smaller eruptions that just bubble up.
While we were there walking around, taking pictures, a group of people visiting from Germany actually stopped and visited the area. I wondered if they were geocachers. I talked to them a bit, but no luck, just tourists looking at the out of the way spots. The bubbles started boiling and a small eruption took place. Nothing dramatic, just a lot of foam, and gas coming out of the top.
Fossil Point
Eventually I walked up the nearby cache. Crystal Geyser was actually published back in 2004. So for 10 years the cache was there and it needed finding by me. It was a little walk up the canyon. I grabbed the cache and found some trash nearby. Later when I was logging the cache I noticed that there was another container someone had found, and thought they had found the real cache. So happily I cleaned up the fake cache. and we packed up the family and headed off.
Fossil Point
We headed around to another cache. The cache was only 4 miles away, but it was over the Green River. So it meant a long slow drive to the north, then over the river, then down to the south. The road actually got pretty hairy for the caching mobile.
Dinosaur ribs
The road had a few washouts, a few spots that I had to be pretty careful to get around in the car. Eventually I made it to the other side. The little two track road got pretty bad for the car. Any other vehicle and it would have been nice and easy.
The view at the cache site was awesome. The different banding in the rock layers there were just amazing.
There was no cache here, I actually asked about putting an Earthcache at the site. However the BLM was concerned. I mentioned that people had been pilfering the fosssils there. Sadly that is true. Many of the fossils have been chipped out of the rock, or broken up. When I grabbed them I noticed that the stone is actually softer than the rock around it. So people trying to steal the fossils would have ended up with a bunch of little pieces.
My kids and I looked around and found a ton of fossils there. There were some nice backbone vertebrae. They were about a foot across, and six inches high, and some ribs that would have ran three feet long. There were a large number of other fossils that seemed to be in cross section, so I could not actually tell what they were.
We spent a few hours here. I thought of placing a cache, but I really do not know if I will ever be here again. I took a bunch of photos, and we climbed over boulders that are as big as small rooms. It was a great afternoon, and a great time looking about. This is one of those sites that I think is completely amazing. We rarely get to see things like this outside of a museum so it was a treat.
Purple Pond
Purple Pond view
The nearest cache was on the route back. Purple Pond by UtahJean. This was a great location out in the desert. The view with the little pond was spectacular. There were a few purple layers, sadly the photo does not do it justice. When it was placed she mentioned a muskrat nest, and it is still there after all these years.
Goblin Valley
It took us a year or more to get to goblin valley. I have been down a lot of roads in central Utah, more than many people. I grew up down here, however I have never been on this side of the swell, on this road. This was completely breathtaking. At the site were a few caches. The Goblin Valley EarthCache. This took a little bit of work to find the few signs with the information.
State Park Cache in goblin Valley
Following that I headed out into the rocks by myself. I had a quest. An ammo can placed out in the south end of the valley by the state park. I had a few in the park that I wanted to grab, but this really was going to be one of my crowning caches from the weekend.
The hike was pretty easy. In the few days before there had been some rain, and there were a number of gullies down in the bottom of the valley in the sand. It was a great walk. I also was following the footprints of a few other cachers that had headed out the day before. So the hunt took me to the area, and the find under one of the goblins in a hole in the mud was great.
Goblin Valley
I did go look for another. However this time being in the hills by myself was not a great idea. I finally broke off the hunt when i decided that I might end up breaking my leg or something worse if I kept hunting.
Kids in the mud
There was one hill, pretty high. On the top of it were two ladies painting. Seemed kind of a ways away to drag your painting supplies. Then I realized I was walking a mile through the desert looking for a metal box with a paper inside. So not being one to throw stones I headed back. The kids were playing in the mud and we headed to the car.
You know going on a trip through southern Utah at this time of year was genius. The temperature is usually over a 100 degree F in the summer. So going at this time of year is the best time. It had rained a few days before and I assumed that everything would be dry, but 70 degree temperatures made it a great trip and at great temps.
Drive Home
The drop from the Swell into the desert.
We took the drive straight home. Well, kinda. Kind of like DrJay drove from Utah to Minnesota by way of Texas. We headed up through the desert, then through I-70. Then to Price and home. Ok, so it was a good day.
The rest of the way home was seven Earthcaches and two Virtuals. It was a great day. The view up Highway 70 is magnificent. Many overlooks, looking over many sights that are impossible to find anywhere else in the USA. Oh, I should mention that I did get a FTF on the route. Butte or mesa? I made sure I stopped at this when I was in the neighborhood.
I am so lucky to live here, in this place. Utah is amazing. I hope everyone has a chance to see this place, this great country that we live in,
Crystal Geyser
South of Green River, Utah
Crystal Geyser
South of Green River Utah
Crystal Geyser
South of Green River, Utah
Crystal Geyser
South of Green River, Utah
Toppled Stones
South of Green River near Crystal Geyser
Fossil Point
Fossil bearing stones south of Green River, Utah
Fossil Point
South of Green River, This looks to be a rib. It is about three inches across.
Fossil Point Backbone
This is a backbone in a stone at Fossil point south of Green River, Utah
Fossil Cast
This is south of Green River, the fossil bone has been chipped out for the most part. The bone is weaker than the stone.
Dinosaur Ribs
At Fossil point south of Green River, Utah
Fossil Point
South of Green River, this site has a lot of fossils in the rocks scattered about.
Well someone threw it out on the forums, so I thought I would throw a little bone out here. This new geocaching.com update added some of the backbone for the challenges/virtual system, and some forum discussion is going on about it.
I know they have spoken about it at a couple of events, but I really do not know what has been discussed. Without knowing what can and cannot be discussed I will stop my personal discussions here.
Here is a clip from Jeremy Irish:
In the UserVoice updates I never said that virtuals were coming back in their previous form, but instead something would be available that should capture the interest in virtuals without the baggage (such as the subjective review process).
To me, this is the most exciting project that we've worked on in years, but it will take some time to iterate through the idea and I know we'll get some things wrong, but the framework is solid. We'll be investing a substantial amount of effort with this project moving forward.
Some points:
It will be on Geocaching.com, not a new web site. It will be a separate section in the beta, but I expect it to be integrated into a joined search at some point.
Currently they will not go towards your find count, but it might at some point. It won't at the beginning though.
It will be a visible statistic, so you will see them on the profile, on the logs, etc.
We'll be hopefully launching with mobile applications to compliment the activity. I expect that the majority of participants will be using smartphones, but we will have components (Pocket Queries, GPX file downloads, etc) for traditional GPS devices.
So that is what I have to share. Some who went to Mega Events might want to share info that you have heard.
My GUESS as to the release. End of the month, I would also think at the same time all the phone apps will be upgraded to them as well.
There has been a lot of speculation about the return of virtuals, for those interested I quote Jeremy:
In the UserVoice updates I never said that virtuals were coming back in their previous form, but instead something would be available that should capture the interest in virtuals without the baggage (such as the subjective review process).
To me, this is the most exciting project that we've worked on in years, but it will take some time to iterate through the idea and I know we'll get some things wrong, but the framework is solid. We'll be investing a substantial amount of effort with this project moving forward.
Some points:
It will be on Geocaching.com, not a new web site. It will be a separate section in the beta, but I expect it to be integrated into a joined search at some point.
Currently they will not go towards your find count, but it might at some point. It won't at the beginning though.
It will be a visible statistic, so you will see them on the profile, on the logs, etc.
We'll be hopefully launching with mobile applications to compliment the activity. I expect that the majority of participants will be using smartphones, but we will have components (Pocket Queries, GPX file downloads, etc) for traditional GPS devices.
For the comments that we should involve the community more, we do. We don't have a public discussion about it, instead working with a smaller sampling of geocachers.
You may commence your celebration, complaints, and/or discussions now.
We left Richfield around 10am Friday morning. We started the route south and had decided to make this a Virtual and Earthcache trip. Wandered through Clear Creek Canyon in southern Utah and left the main road. I actually found a nice place for another Earthcache in the area. So I was happy to take the route.
Cove FortWe stopped for just a moment, but the just a moment never seems to work out right. We ended up taking the tour, and seeing a lot of the fort. It was really interesting, the last time I had visted it was a mess. That would be back in the early 80's and much of the place had fallen apart.
We headed south and grabbed our first Earthcache of the day on the other side of the freeway from Cove Fort.
We then headed south taking a lot of back roads and seeing a lot of interesting locations.
The country was really cool, as we entered the red rock areas of Southern Utah. It was really impressive and cool. For the most part there are a lot of Virtuals in the area. Panguich, Cedar City, and more.
As we past cedar I think I had grabbed 10-12 virtuals and a couple Earthcaches. But when we took the turnoff at the North side of Zion's Park where things got really interesting. There was a lot of snow at the high altitude.
It was really beautiful. There were very few people that were actually there. I think we past three other vehicles. During the summer I am sure it would be crowded. There was enough snow that you could do much hiking, though one couple was heading off down a snow covered trail. There were a few other Earthcaches in the area that we grabbed though we could not get some because the trails are snowy.
We then hopped off and headed on southward. We seemed to stop about every 10 miles. Our Two-three hour trip ended up taking about 6-7 hours, but it was very enjoyable. We saw much of the countryside, found many benchmarks, and virtuals and Earthcaches before we arrived at St. George for teh night and decided to stay the night. In the end we found 10 Virtuals, 5 Earthcaches, and an uncounted number of Benchmarks this day. So there is yet to be Saturday, the bigger day of the journey, and much more interesting.
