Desert creatures and other things

My last cache hide was a multi-cache hidden up on my favorite trail.  It's now been hidden for over a month and has a grand total of two finds, one of which is the beta tester who went with me when I was laying out the final coordinates.  It's really too bad that the cachers around where I am aren't more of a hiking bunch.  I think they're missing out on some very nice hikes and caches all in the same boat, but that's another story altogether.

The reason why I bring this up is while on that hike, CraigsOutside and I encountered a tarantula on the trail.  That's not necessarily surprising since the area is know to have tarantulas, but what is surprising is before that hike, I've seen a tarantula in the wild only one other time and it was about 2 weeks before that when I spotted two others.

One was on the trail and was actually discovered by a couple of bicyclists coming down the hill.  One stopped about 50 feet up the trail from me and pointed it out to his riding partners who were behind him.  By the time I got up there, it was just ambling across the fire road.  Later on that same hike, I nearly stepped on one at ground zero of the first stage of my multi-cache.  If that doesn't get your adrenaline up, nothing will I guess.  Either that, or you're just a calmer person than I.

I've encountered my fair share of creepy crawly things while out geocaching.  I've spotted snakes from time to time.  Once, while out hiking we came across a very large rattlesnake.  Unfortunately, it wasn't really pleased with us being there, but there wasn't a whole lot we could do about it at the time, since we had it surrounded on a couple of sides.  We did the best thing we could do and that was to back up and make wide circles around it.  This snake encounter was in May, when the environment is becoming more habitable for all creatures in this area, but particularly reptiles, since they rely on the air temperature for warmth.

My friend CraigsOutside was bitten last year by a rattlesnake (read about it here).  This happened in November, which seems a little strange since you would think most snakes by this time in the year would have gone underground and started hibernation.  Southern California is a little bit more temperate and so in this area, we need to practice caution at all times.  One can never tell, obviously, when a snake could be lurking nearby.

Before last year, I wouldn't have had rattlesnakes on my mind at all in November or December or any of the cold months of the year.  Craig's encounter had me a lot more cautious yesterday while I was looking through a pile of rocks on the side of the road.  I keep thinking that I really should get a hiking stick of some kind to carry along with me.  Many of my friends take one along when we go on hikes.  I've never found the need to carry one, mainly because it's one more thing in your hands while you're walking.  Maybe I need to rethink that.

I'll be hiking out in the desert over the next couple of months.  It's the most pleasant time to be hiking out there.  It's cool and comfortable, much more pleasant than during the middle of the summer time.  There's another figure out in the desert that we're going to create.  I've written about the Smiley series and the Groundspeak logo in the past.  Now, in the same general area to the west of the Smiley Series is a large PacMan.  There are 30 caches, plus one mystery which makes up the eye of the PacMan.   I have this feeling after we go out and find all of those, we might be singing "PacMan Fever" for awhile.

It appears as if each cache is about two tenths of a mile from the next cache, meaning this will be a 6 mile hike.  That will make for a good hike if we do it all in one day.  If we spread it out over two days, it'll be two good hikes.  Anything over a mile is a good hike, in my opinion.  And since one of our proposed hiking dates happens to fall on one of my open cache dates, that's always a bonus.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Give or Take 20ft - by madmaxxawr
Curiouser and Curiouser - by Terra Girl, Bean Dog, and my faithful sherpa Max

Warm weather concerns

From the looks of it, I think we did the easy section of the Groundspeak series last weekend.  Based upon Topo maps and satellite images that I've been looking at, plus some comments I've received from Chaosmanor over the week, the southern part looks to be a little bit easier to maneuver around than the northern part of the G+.  I guess it's good that we have an extra  hour of daylight now.  More daylight, means more time to cache.

It's been warming up nicely in Southern California.  That's good in one sense, but not so good in another.  Last weekend, it was downright cold and I don't recall seeing another animals of the reptilian variety out while we were hiking out in the desert.  I noted to Chaosmanor that there were some spots where caches were hidden where it could get really interesting if the weather warmed up at all.  We hiked through some rocky areas on Saturday, the kind of areas that are prone for lizards to be found sunning themselves and also for other creatures that aren't as benevolent.

Last November, we had a cacher in our local area get bit by a rattlesnake, without any warning.  It bit, then rattled its tail after the fact.  You can read about the experience here.  November is not a month where one would usually be concerned about rattle snakes, yet here we have an incident that should also serve as a wake up call for anyone who lives in warmer climes.  My only encounter with a rattlesnake while geocaching happened in May of 2007.  We had been making quite a bit of noise that morning and we still ended up near a five to six foot rattlesnake, who wasn't at all pleased with its morning siesta being disturbed the way it was.  Needless to say, we always need to remember that snakes can be there, no matter what the season.

Picture was taken at or near the following geocache:
Groundspeak Series - Latitude - by HDGC