Vasquez Rocks

Just after New Year's, I'm planning a caching trip with one of my caching buddies to Vasquez Rocks Park.  It's located in the foothills of the high desert off of the 14 freeway.  Basically, it's in between the Lancaster/Palmdale area and the San Fernando Valley.  We were out there three weeks ago and had a great time, dodging muggles and finding a variety of caches.  It was there I ended up breaking my PDA near the first cache we found.

When we got there, the place was teeming with muggles and we weren't sure how many caches we were going to get.  I think most people, myself included, have visions of grandeur when going out caching.  We figure we have this many hours and we're going to get this many caches.  Vasquez Rocks Park has 18 caches in it, so I figured we'd get them all.  Well, with the muggles, we only got half as many.

Part of the problem was we spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find an access to one cache which was up on the rock formations.  At least I think it's up on the formation.  We never did get a good fix on it.  After several attempts, we gave up on that one and headed over to another one which we found.  It was there I discovered the PDA malfunction and I thought our day was really going to be cut short, but we improvised a way to access cache pages, so it was all good again.

Once we had that figured out, we had a new plan of action.  One of our goals was a three digit cache, Between a Rock and a Hard Place.  This cache had been placed there in April 2001.  It was a large ammo can and was easily found.  I always enjoy finding these old caches, since they're usually large ammo cans.  I often wonder how they could have survived that long.  The likely reason is most are placed well off the beaten track away from muggles.  This one appeared to be near a well traveled trail which made its longevity that much more surprising.  Needless to say, we enjoyed finding such a "old" cache.

After finding Between a Rock and a Hard Place, we worked our way downhill away from it, making an arc curving gently from the south over to the northwest and back to our starting position.  This kept us away from most of the muggles in the park who were to the west of our location for most of our hike through the park.  We discovered early on, we had stumbled upon a large orienteering workshop/convention type of gathering.  The organizers said the orienteering national championships were going to be held the next day at the park.  

There were several times when we ended up crossing paths with the orienteering participants, which caused us some concern as we didn't want to compromise the cache hides.  One cache hide was near where some judges were stationed, but we ended up being shielded nicely by the juniper bush the cache was hidden in.  One other cache was within fifty feet of one of the orienteering stations, but no one appeared to be watching us at the time we made the cache grab and I've noticed that the cache in question has been found since we found it, so apparently, none of the orienteers accidentally discovered the cache.  Or if they did, they decided to leave it alone, which also speaks highly of the organization.

At one point on our hike, we ended up on what looked like a fire road.  Up in the foothills and mountains of Southern California, these are quite prevalent, so it wasn't surprising to have one here on the edge of the park.  As we walked along the road, heading for one of the caches, we realized that we were walking along the Pacific Crest Trail.  This was a nice bonus to the day, as in my mind at least, it's always fun to walk along a 2600 mile trail.  You don't find too many trails that are longer than that.

Our last cache of the day was located at the north entrance to the park and it was an earthcache.  We were treated to a variety of different geological formations within the park along a geology walk at that point.  I took some pictures and we had to post a picture of us near the Vasquez Rocks identifying what kind of formation the Vasquez Rocks were.  You can see from my picture the multitude of cars parked there for the orienteering gathering.

On the second we'll be back out there again, trying to get the other half of the caches we missed the last time.  Hopefully, our visions of grandeur will be large enough that we'll end up getting all of the caches this time around.  If not, I guess that gives us an opportunity to come back again in the future.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Vasquez Rocks Natura Area Park - by scott_n_roni
Vasquez Rocks Home (year:1850) - by fishingisfun
Vasquez Rocks Earthcache - by supertbone

Nice Gneiss

When I go out geocaching, I'm always looking around for interesting subjects so I can improve my photography skills. I end up taking a lot of pictures of flowers, mainly because they tend not to run away from me when I approach. Animals usually end up next on my list, although they do tend to not like it when I get too close, so I have to resort to my telephoto lens and sometimes hope for the best. Every now and then, I end up taking pictures of rocks, either because it's required of me due to an Earthcache that I'm logging, or because something has struck my fancy about the rock.

Usually, what I find interesting others might just pass by. I'm frequently at awe over the power of nature, especially the interaction between plants and the rocks and how they interact with each other. I love looking at tree roots, especially if they on the upper side of a trail, because you can see how they sought out the cracks in the rock where there might be some soil. You can also see how the tree roots hold the hillside in place and wonder how the hillside might be different looking were those trees not there.

About a month ago I was on a hike with my friend Chaosmanor and we noticed some faulting along a rock face. There were some bands of striated rock material that had been misplaced in numerous places. Chaosmanor was intrigued enough that he took several pictures, as did I, and has decided to create an earthcache along that section of the trail. We had an interesting discussion trying to decide whether the rock pieces had dropped down between the faults or had been uplifted. As an amateur geologist, I find rock faces that tell stories like this very interesting.

I also enjoy trying to identify different types of rock. Usually this happens when Chaosmanor is along with me, mainly because he has similar interests to my own in this area. When I try to talk about rock types with other friends, a lot of times you can see their eyes glaze over. "Geez, he's talking about rocks again." Chaosmanor and I, on the other hand, enjoy a good talk about geology. We even like to throw a pun at each other from time to time when one of us has correctly, or even incorrectly identified a certain type of rock. "Gee, that is some nice gneiss you're holding there."

I can probably blame my father for this love of rocks. He was the one who took us to Yosemite, frequently over the course of my developing youth. I can blame him because I like to look at large rocks as opposed to tiny grains of sand along a beach. And if you don't believe me, you can always say that I'm full of schist.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Subterranean Homesick Blues - by Terra Girl
Micro N Post - by not tom
Tree at 4737 - by not tom