Team Geocache

Color Code

2005-03-10T14:45:00.000-05:00

Title: Summer Colors
Location: encrypted (GCK940)
Owner: MeBuff8Fan
Team Members: Daedalux, nSilico
Status: Not Found, #3 of 3

Despite the clumsy clues and unannounced knowledge requirements for this cache, we're confident we figured out how to correctly decrypt the coordinates for this cache.

Decryption Spolier

Unfortunately we never found the cache itself. The coordinates took us to a heavily wooded area and there was no shortage of potential hiding spots. After about 30 minutes of fruitless searching we finally decided to call it a day. It was probably right under out noses but we didn't see it. Maybe we'll try again later.

Mysterious Multicache Revisited

2005-03-10T13:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Alias
Location: Secret per owner's request (GCBDE8)
Owner: Gaiterman
Team Members: Daedalux, nSilico
Status: Found, TNLNSL, #2 of 3

This was our second attempt at this cache, and thankfully this time it was an easy find. Pictured below is the tree that gave us so much trouble the last time. We were convinced it had to be there. We were wrong. (Read about our first attempt)

Not here

Instead it was all the way over here - Spoiler. There was no way we would have been able to see it with all the snow during our last visit, so at least I don't feel so bad.

Winter Wildnerness

2005-03-10T11:30:00.000-05:00

Title: Start of Winter
Location: N 38° 44.675 W 077° 29.249 (GCHQMD)
Owner: lidar0101
Team Members: Daedalux, nSilico
Status: Found, TNLNSL, #2 of 3

The trail

Located near the beginning of Winters Branch Trail, this cache was easy to find despite the overgrowth.

wild woods

Inside the cache was a horrid Travel Bug that was by far the most fearsome thing we have ever encountered in our breif career as intrepid geogachers.

'Apple Annie' says "Kill meee ... please!"

Obviously the failed result of overly ambitious genetic expirmentation, this cross between a rhesus monkey and a rotten tomato was both pityable and revolting. We simply put her back in her jar of ambiotic fluid and left.

A Cruel Joke

2005-02-12T23:15:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-12T22:35:00.000-05:00

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 . . .

2005-02-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

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.

Spooky Site

2005-02-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Skull Tree
Location: N 38° 40.208 W 077° 48.854 (GCE6F9)
Owner: Team Hot Cache
Team Members: Daedalux, nSilico, Izzy
Status: Found, TNLNSL, #4 of 4

Skull Tree

After making our way over a small creek and through somewhat dense trees, we saw an old, abandoned house in a distant clearing. We made our way to the house and followed the GPS reveiver to a gnarled oak tree that looked like it came straight out of The Dark Crystal. Nailed to the tree at eye level was the skull of a bird above the skull of a larger, unidentifiable creature. It was one of the coolest trees that I have ever seen, but I was glad that we found it during the daytime and not on a moonlit night. After finding the cache and signing the logbook, we set off to inspect the old house. It looked like the perfect place to hide a body, but fortunately there were none to be found in the house (at least at ground level). I definitely will not forget this cache!

Abandoned House

A Precarious Perch

2005-02-09T11:00:00.000-05:00

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 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

2005-02-09T10:15:00.000-05:00

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.

A Walk in the Park

2005-02-09T09:45:00.000-05:00

Title: Amissville TB Transfer Station
Location: N 38° 39.184 W 077° 56.075 (GCKPYY)
Owner: rtfs
Team Members: Daedalux, nSilico, Izzy
Status: Found, TSLSSL, #1 of 4

Despite drinking one to many Guinesses the night before, Daedalux and I somehow managed to drag ourselves out of bed to go geocaching. Even Izzy, Daedalux's dog, had to be coaxed and cajoled into waking up. After the mental haze dissipated and my headache subsided, we made our way to the first cache of the day. There were two muggles present when we arrived at the park where the cache was located, so we were careful not to draw attention to ourselves. We let Izzy run around the park and covertly followed the GPS receiver to the cache location. Fortunately, the cache was hidden in an area that was out of the muggle's direct line of sight and we found it almost immediately propped up in the lower branches of a large pine tree. The cache was a large ammo can and contained a good amount of loot. Daedalux picked up a tiny, green, plastic turtle and left some treasure, I picked up the OrcaBug travel bug, and Izzy continued to run around in circles, happy to be alive. We returned the cache to its original location and left the site with the muggles none the wiser.

Mysterious Multicache

2005-02-01T15:33:00.000-05:00

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.

An Easy Find

2005-02-01T12:30:00.000-05:00

Title: Uphill Climb
Location: N 38° 41.502 W 077° 29.930 (GCBDB3)
Owner: Gaiterman
Team Members: Daedalux, nSilico
Status: Found, TNLNSL, #2 of 3

After we located Undercover Cache, we proceeded to this one. We drove along a long, windy, country road, looking for the entrance to the recreation area specified in the cache description. As often happens with me and Daedalux, we got lost in conversation and at some point realized that we must have missed the park. We made a u-turn and started the hunt again, this time actually paying attention. Despite our hawk-like eyes, we still could not find the park. A bit confused, we made yet another u-turn. Completely flummoxed, Daedalux turned to the logs of geocachers who had previously found the cache and discovered that we had to turn into a church parking lot in order to get to the recreation area. This seemed only natural; I'm not sure why we didn't figure it out on our own.

After finally finding the park, we got out and were lead down a very steep vehicle trail. It had recently snowed, so the hike down was a bit treacherous. After a short amount of time, we reached the general vicinity of the cache. Equipped with our knowledge of Gaiterman's m.o., we started looking around. As if guided by the Force, I immediately spotted a tree with a very large hollow at the base. I looked at Daedalux, pointed at the tree, and simply said "There." Daedalux, never afraid to give a strange tree a good probing, reached up into the hollow and immediately found the cache. We found the second numerical code for the Alias multicache, signed the log, and proceeded back to the car. This time, the climb was uphill, and sadly enough, I was huffing and puffing at the top as if I were an asthmatic smoker. Hopefully enough geocaching will help to get me into passable physical shape again.

Our First Cache

2005-02-01T11:15:00.000-05:00

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.

Welcome to Team Geocache

2005-01-29T12:00:00.000-05:00

As new initiates to the great sport of Geocaching (a.k.a. neocachers), we (Daedalux and nSilico) have decided to create a seperate weblog of our geocaching adventures. We are the charter members, but we hope to expand Team Geocache to include many more friends and acquaintances as we set out exploring. We hope you enjoy sharing in our adventures, and feel free to leave comments - especially if you have visited any of the same caches. Happy hunting.