A Cruel Joke

Title: De-fence-less
Location: N 38° 43.610 W 077° 19.828 (GCJ8DT)
Owner: Gaiterman
Team Members: nSilico, Wheezy, Milhouse, Daedalux & Izzy
Status: Not Found #3 of 3

This cache was complete torture. The location was chock full 'o possible hiding spots but the tiny cache was no where to be found. We looked nonstop for 45 minutes. As awful as it was, we all would have liked to stay and look longer. Unfortunately I had a schedule to keep. This is the second time we've been stumped by Gaiterman.


Stumped (Wheezy and Izzy's tail in picture)

The only good news was, once we decided to leave, we discovered this cache was actually very near the park entrance. After happily hiking for hours, it was nice to be able to drive away quickly and try to forget about this one.

Hitting the Trails

Title: Rambo's Fountainhead Cache
Location: N 38° 43.675[.658] W 077° 20.365[.354] (GC7D15)
Owner: Rambo the cache dog
Team Members: nSilico, Wheezy, Milhouse, Daedalux & Izzy
Status: Found, TNLNSL, #2 of 3

Another easy find, this cache wasn't too far off the trail at all. I'd liked that this cache was touted as 'dog friendly' as I'm sure Izzy appreciated getting to come along. We think the cordinates might have been a bit off - the location was obvious but our GPS read slightly different than what was posted. [Amended last three digits in brackets above]

Happy dog

Over a River . . .

Title: Ghosts of Occoquan II - The Black Rocks
Location: N 38° 43.385 W 077° 20.376 (GC7E79)
Owner: Bigcall
Team Members: nSilico, Wheezy, Milhouse, Daedalux & Izzy
Status: Found, TNLNSL, #1 of 3


A nice view

This was Wheezy and Milhouse's first time geocaching. It was a serious hike but an easy find. The only trouble we had with this cache was in trying to be too direct. We left the trail early in order to reach the cache "more efficiently". It would have been best to stay on the trails as long as possible. We ended up having to backtrack quite a bit in order to cross a huge creek, and I imagine the trail had less steep climbs than the ones we ended up taking. Still it was a beautiful day and fun to be outdoors.

A Precarious Perch

Title: A River Runs Thru It
Location: N 38° 41.050 W 077° 54.240 (GCMN64)
Owner: Team Hot Cache
Team Members: nSilico, Daedalux, Izzy
Status: Found, TNLNSL - Took Picture, #3 of 4

Whoever hid this cache was a complete sadist, but it was a lot of fun. Spoilers It was hidden at the hollow end of a giant log hanging high over a narrow river. The coordinates were actually for the middle of the river and at first it was unclear if we were even approaching from the correct side. nSilico correctly devised from the clues that it had to be the high hanging log, and I gleefully shimmied out across its slick surface. At worst I would have gotten wet and embarrased, but thankfully I didn't fall. I can't help but imagine that the cache is only going to end up floating away with the current one of these days. Putting it back was even tricker than retrieving it!

No Fear
It was a beautiful location, a challenging find, and the cache even contained a disposable camera with the instructions to take a picture of ourselves and replace for the owner. What a good idea! Of course taking a picture of yourself is tricky, and I have no idea if I got all of us in the picture or not.
My dog Izzy had a great time sloshing in the water and then rolling around on the sandy shores. She was a completely contented with becoming a complete mess, and ended up looking like a giant ball of dirt by the time we got back to the Jeep. At least she had fun too.


Dirty Izzy

Down in the Dumps

Title: Little League
Location: N 38° 40.326 W 077° 57.522 (GCK05A)
Owner: LudeinVA
Team Members: nSilico, Daedalux, Izzy
Status: Found, TNLNSL, #2 of 4

This site was more than a little dissapointing. Sandwiched between a main highway and someone's residence, the cache was located in a thorny rocky snake pit. I didn't mind the difficult terrain so much as I disliked conducting a search out in the open, practically in someone's front yard. What was worse, was the fact the location had recently become somebody's private trash dump. Old beer bottles and even entire peices of furniture littered the area. The cache was reasonably well hidden (there seemed to be no limit to the number of possible hiding places among the rocks) but we were fortunate to discover it quickly. If we hadn't found it so easily I doubt we would have stayed to search for very long - it wasn't a fun place to be.

Mysterious Multicache

Title: Alias
Location: Secret per owner's request (GCBDE8)
Owner: Gaiterman
Team Members: nSilico, Daedalux
Status: Not Found, #3 of 3

We decrypted the simple code that revealed the coordinates for this cache using the clues we had discovered at our previous two sites (Our First Cache, An Easy Find). When we looked the coordinates up on the map it came out smack in the middle of yet another nearby park. Since the previous two caches had also been in similar locations, we were confident we had the correct coordinates. Sure enough the GPS led us straight to another hollowed out tree. It was the perfect hiding location - a tall gnarled stump of an old tree that had a large opening with a built in shelf that would both conceal and protect a hidden cache. The only problem was nothing was in there. We made a search of the area, but we kept comming back to the same place. Given the owner's modus operandi for hiding caches in hollow trees we knew it had to be the place - it had simply gone missing.
It was a dissapointing end to our otherwise successful first day, but we resolved to send the owner an e-mail about not finding the cache, and hoped we would get the chance to try again.
Besides, two out of three isn't all bad.

Update: (2/4/2005)
I sent the owner an e-mail, giving him the coordinates we had gone to and a discription of the empty tree. He was very kind to reply so promptly and explained we were at the correct coordinates, but looking in the wrong place. He assured me it was still there, just not in the hollow hidey hole.
Apparently we were foolish to think we'd figured out his M.O. so completely, the tricky devil. We will definately go back and try again soon. I wonder what we missed . . .

Update: (3/10/2005)
We finally did find this cache on our next visit. You can read about the find here.

Our First Cache

Title: Undercover Cache
Location: N 38° 38.262 W 077° 27.004 (GCBDBB)
Owner: Gaiterman
Team Members: nSilico, Daedalux
Status: Found, TNLNSL, #1 of 3

This was our first foray into the great sport of Geocaching. It was a fun search. From the clues we knew the cache was in a hollow tree but it took a lot of searching to find it. There were several trees with hollow places, and we even tried following the footprints of what we assumed to be recent geocachers in the snow (to no avail). It turned out to be in the very first tree we had searched, I just had to reach my arm way up into the crevice in order to find it. Inside the small container was a short snippet of a numerical code - a clue to a multicache. We copied it down, but didn't take any of the trinkets that were the available treasure. At least we're off to a good start.