It can be done

Yesterday, my friend 3blackcats and I went hiking near Big Bear, California. We did a loop hike near Moonridge which is close to the Snow Summit Ski resort located in the same general area. The hike was 3+ miles or so. I forgot to zero out my odometer on the GPSr, so I'm estimating. The overall hike was probably longer than that because most of the caches along this loop were several hundred feet off trail. We found 16 caches along this loop plus 8 more alongside the road going to and from this trail. The amazing thing about yesterday was that every single cache wasn't a micro.

We weren't trying to not find micros, but every cache on the loop was labeled either a small or regular sized cache. Granted, since this was out in the forest, one would expect the caches to be on the larger size, but I've been on hikes where you could walk 2 miles just to find a hide-a-key hidden on a tree somewhere. Even the small caches were large on this hike. There were several times we were looking for something small only to laugh when we finally found the "small" cache that was a very large cookie tin, just slightly smaller than a regular ammo can. Our only thought was they just grew caches larger up in the mountains.

Initially, we'd decided to go up to a cache that I'd already found back in July 2001 the year I started caching, just to see if it was still there or at least in the same condition. We found it and 3blackcats signed the third log book. We looked through and found the original logbook from 2001 and found my entry from July 11, 2001, my anniversary. I can remember because when we went up there, I lost track of the time, so I called home to let my wife know we were running late only to get my daughter on the phone. Now this was surprising, since I knew my wife should have been home. Even more surprising was my daughter's response that my wife was out because she was interviewing for a job that afternoon, a job that she still has today. That was an interesting day to say the least. My only regret about retracing my steps on Saturday was that I didn't take a picture of the old log page for posterity.

After getting three caches in that area, well two for me, since I'd already found one of them, we headed over to the loop and walked that, taking a good three hours to traverse the entire loop. The trail had a lot of variety in the types of caches. There were several nice spots for pictures and I didn't have to worry about waiting until I found a good sized cache to place a couple of travel bugs that I had in my possession. Even the larger travel bug would have fit in almost every cache we found. One of the caches also had a White Jeep travel bug. I haven't seen one of those in a couple of years.

Evidently, we were pleased with the size of the caches we found. Even on the ride home, the caches were large. There were several turnouts on the way home, many that had caches hidden near them. The thing that stood out was that the cachers in the area appeared to have taken the time, not to just slap a hide-a-key inside a guardrail at the turnout, but to walk 40 feet away from the turnout so they could hide an ammo can, or a large cookie tin or something of similar size. The quality of the caches we found on Saturday made us start to make plans to come up to the area again. There are many off-roading experiences up in the area that had caches along them. It appeared like we could make several caching runs into the Big Bear area and find a great deal of quality caches. It's something to look forward to in the future.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Hawk Hill - by Badgerdawg
Bristlecone Trail - by Badgerdawg
Rocky Raccoon - by Team Geo-Rangers

Friendly quirks

Living in Southern California, I’ve had the great fortune of caching with some very interesting and entertaining people, some of whom, I’ve developed very good friendships with that will probably last the rest of my life. One such person is 3blackcats.

I met 3blackcats after I goaded her into finding my Size Matters … Especially in California cache. It was a multi-cache that had a little bit of a twist and she and her sister had been out another time already to find the cache and couldn’t find the first waypoint. Trash talking ensued and that was probably enough to get her back out on the trail to find this one, which she did. For some reason, I had given her my phone number in case she needed a lifeline on it, but instead she called to brag and a friendship developed. A couple of days later, she, her sister 1bigdodgerfan, another cacher Lostlad, and I went out to conquer a well conceived mystery cache entitled Curiouser and Curiouser. We found it and 19 other caches that day and the next thing I knew, 3blackcats and I were caching together on a regular basis.

As you get to know people, you learn more and more of their personality, their quirks and what makes them tick. One of 3blackcats’ quirks is she doesn’t like to show her face when getting her picture taken. Well, not really, but it seems like that’s the case. I heard her tell it once that it was because of a witness protection program that had gone sour, but I’m not sure I believe that one.

It actually started out as a joke when she and Lostlad were caching near the Devil’s Punchbowl and she ended up getting one of her milestone caches out there. Lostlad wanted to take a picture, so she posed for the picture, with just her hand sticking out from behind a huge boulder. Her next milestone cache, I happened to be present and the traditional picture was taken, from behind her, looking over her shoulder at the view from the cache site. A legend was born.

As you can see from some of the pictures posted, she will go to great lengths to make sure she’s unidentifiable in the picture. Her sister, 1bigdodgerfan even got involved with this as well. The event picture was the best in my opinion. I didn’t even realize that she’d turned her head to make it look like she was reading the menu until after I got home and downloaded the picture to my computer. I busted a gut laughing at that one.

We’ve actually started making a game of it. How many clues can we reveal about 3blackcats before we finally show everyone who she really is? It’s just one of those diversions that keeps us entertained on the trail when we’re trudging along a steep part, or when we’ve ended up sort of bleary eyed from one too many lamp post caches. The last time I cached with her was right after Christmas, on a 4x4 trail up in the Cajon Pass. The wind chill that day was close to 20 degrees and most of the day was spent in a heated car as we bumped along a dirt road. Once we got near ground zero, we didn’t mess around taking pictures, but worked on finding the cache and moving along. It was that cold.

Our latest plans are to go out on next Monday afternoon. We may end up in an area that is ripe for another picture, but then again we may not. The one thing that I do know is, we’ll have fun.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:

Chelsea & Ginger's Favorite Walk #1 - by Chelsea & Ginger
Devil's Punchbowl by Yosemite John and Debbie
Crossroads - by fontanabill
Cache Addicts Meet & Greet #10 - by CacheAddicts.org