Aloha!

As I alluded to in my last posting about breaking my GPS, over the course of the past two and a half weeks I have been working out in Hawaii. I work in renewable energy, and as part of my “day job” I over see the day-to-day operations at wind farms across the US. I am very fortunate that two of the projects I am in charge of are located in Hawaii; one on Oahu and the other on Maui.

While it is certainly beautiful out here, traveling for work never really affords you the chance to explore your destination in the way a vacation would. I found myself going directly from my condo to the worksite, often leaving before the sun came up and returning after it was down. I could only day dream about the amazing caches that must be located near hidden waterfalls or along the infamous “road to Hana” which is supposed to both beautiful with the views that are available as well as dangerous with some sections of the road being on 100’ cliff sides without guard rails.

During my time on the islands, I hopped back and forth a couple of different times, but each time on Maui I stayed in a town called Kihei which is on the western side of the island along Maalaea Bay. Kihei was a great spot offering some amazing beaches and a hopping nightlife for unwinding after a day of exploring, or in my case, working. If you stay in the “Sugar Beach Condos” like I did, make sure you check out the small hole in the wall bar called “Dina’s Sand-witch”. It was a great melting pot of locals and tourists and had a great atmosphere (they staple dollar bills to the walls and allow you to write on them first to “leave your mark”).

Of course I couldn’t resist the idea of doing some geocaching, and so I did set out a couple of nights, iPhone in hand, to find some caches while either walking along the beach or getting in a quick jog.

Near my hotel was a geocache called “For: Prickly’s Brother” (GC15FXQ) This cache was located near a bird haven called “Kealia Pond Bird Sanctuary”.  The Hawaiian people take the preservation of their native plant and wildlife very seriously, and this area is important for them as it protects several different species of waterfowl. If you’re ever in this area, there is a great boardwalk through a nearby (right across the street) inland pond called Kahana Pond. You can walk right along this boardwalk and see several protected bird species in their natural environment without disturbing them.

I think the most impressive thing for me was how many other geocachers I saw out and about. They are always easy to spot, looking down at either their smart phone or GPS and looking around to make sure no muggles are looking in their direction. I introduced myself to a few and was shocked that every single one (it was 7 or 8 easy) was from Canada! I never realized that Maui was such a winter haven for our frozen cachers from the north, but growing up in Maine myself I can certainly appreciate the need to escape winter, if only for a few months!

I found several other quick “cache and dash type” caches along the same route, and even along the road on my way to the wind farm which sits on the ridge just to the north of Kihei. I plan on taking a weekend for myself the next time I visit Maui, which should be later this year, so you can expect a more to come about this amazing and beautiful geocaching destination!

Do you have a Maui geocaching stories you’d like to share, or just a Hawaii geocache you’d like to recommend for my next visit out? Please let us know! You can reach us through our contact page, our facebook wall, or just leave a comment below. Mahalo!

About a year ago I weighed around 50 lbs. more and was just turning 30. Geocaching though a fun pastime just wasn’t keeping the growing waistline from happening – nor keeping the middle age creaks and pains from encroaching. So last October I decided that I needed to get fit.

I’ve always been one for setting goals in order to achieve a desired outcome. So I had to try and figure out a goal that would help me get rid of some of the weight. I didn’t just want plan on something boring like “I will lose X amount of pounds by this date.” Instead I wanted a challenge – something that would tell me I had achieved what I had set out to do – and that I could be proud about.

So I started looking around – what would offer a great challenge? I considered a marathon, but I have never really enjoyed running all this much. I started asking some of my friends that were in shape what they thought would be a good challenge. Several of them told me about something called the “Tough Mudder”. I did some research and indeed it did look to be challenge. Tough Mudder is a distance race (the website states the races are 10 miles – the NorCal race was over 13!) that is designed by British ex-special forces. It includes several obstacles; climbing twelve foot walls, swimming through ice water, ducking under barbed wire and even running through wires with 10,000 volts! (Think a jellyfish looking contraption that likes to zap you). It’s billed as the toughest obstacle course race on the planet.

The race I signed up for was in Northern California at Squaw Valley near lake Tahoe. I currently live in central New York State – I figured if I spent the cash to fly all the way out to California that I wouldn’t be able to back out at the last moment for some poor excuse. The race started for us at noon – at an elevation of 6200 ft above sea level, and the course took us up another 2300 feet above sea level!

The race itself was, for me, pretty difficult, but I came through it ok. Ok I did lose some skin on the course, was pretty tired and had several sore muscles. I was even able to convince a coworker to run the race with me! I was very thankful for this, as you (or most people) need to have help to complete some of the challenges.

So great, how does this tie into geocaching? Well of course being a cacher I couldn’t help but run/walk those 13+ miles and
occasionally think, “gee I bet there are some great geocaches out here”. But it being a race, and one during which I would be in ice cold water and possibly jumping over fire (it was listed as a potential obstacle, but wasn’t on the course) I knew there was no way to bring a GPS (nor would I want to stop and search or carry the extra weight).

But in a shining moment – I found a cache out in the open! An ammo can sitting at the very top of the course about 7 miles into the race. We had just finished an obstacle called “Hold Your Wood” during which we had to carry rather large pieces of wood down and then back up a rather steep hill. While waiting for my coworker to finish that hurdle I was taking a break to catch my breath when I saw the cache just sitting there. Cache found!

Interested in what cache it was? Click here to go to cache listing GCHG8K – Got KT?

Somehow finding the cache allowed me to move on and sort of “zone out” for the next couple of miles run. I love geocaching!

I’ll embed the video to the race at the end of this posting so anyone who is not familiar can get an idea of what the race entails.

Have any of you found caches while you were out doing something else? Or found one by surprise? Have any questions about tough mudder, or just want to call me crazy? If you want to send us the story, send us an email (and maybe we’ll post on here), or leave a comment below!

One of the things I like most about running this Geocaching blog is be able to hear your comments about various things related to the hobby. Today I was just sitting here and I started thinking about all of the different locations we have discovered as a result of our Geocaching adventures. And it made me wonder how many other cool spots have been discovered by other cachers like you.

My most memorable wasn’t anything special, but it was the first cache I ever found! It was in Dietzenbach, Germany while vacationing there. A good friend of mine told me about Geocaching and brought us all out to a small woods near his home at the time. In that woods was an old well, which is where I found the cache. That cache’s name is Alte Quelle (pictured above.)

So tell me, what is your most memorable Geocache Location?

by: Dave Oswalt

I prefer to do things the hard way, to grunt, sweat with labored breathing and collapse in exhaustion. If not, things are too easy, too simple.

For the world at large, geocaching is a simple game of treasure hunt. Find hidden Tupperware containers with a hand held GPS. Easy enough.

A recent caching trip took my son (the Kuhn_Man) and I to the backwoods of Spring Mill State Park. We parked at the Nature Center and walked a crushed stone trail around the lake. Our goal, the “Bike Trail” cache, a hike of 2/3 of a mile.

Spring Mill has undone a recent renaissance with improved trail corridors and this trail was level with easy walking. On trail, we found the north coordinate. The west coordinate line scaled a steep slope off trail. Without hesitation, we climbed, hanging onto roots and trees and boulders in our ascent.

Breathing hard in the humid air, we twisted our way through a tangled weave of thorns and briars that gnawed at our bare legs and bloodied our ungloved hands. The slope eased as we emerged onto a new trail, just as a mountain biker rode by. Heavy with fatigue, we focused on GZ and the Kuhn_Man found the cache, hidden in the crevice of a pile of limestone boulders.

We signed the log and rummaged through the swag, taking nothing and leaving nothing. The Kuhn_Man secured the lid and replaced the ammo can. The popular bike trail is part of the new renaissance. Had we parked at the trail-head, near the campground, a nice leisurely walk would have brought us to GZ.

But that’s not our style. Not wasting a moment, we jumped back into the thick undergrowth. Our new target, the Wheezy Wanda cache, an easy 2/3 mile hike.

Author: WitzAbout, Colorado Springs

This past Saturday, we were invited to go ghost hunting as part of a group of Geocachers. A Geocaching friend, ‘QZ’, from outside Denver was making the less than 2 hour drive down to Colorado Springs for the weekend, and decided she wanted to check out the haunted tunnels she read about on Gold Camp Road in our area.

Gold Camp Road is a small road that used to be a narrow gauge railroad that ran between Colorado Springs and the gold mining area around Cripple Creek. It is the shortest path leading around the front-side of Pikes Peak, our 14,115 foot mountain Peak that dominates our area. But the road is no longer drivable all the way. It is currently closed to vehicles just a little way along from Colorado Springs. Now people drive the long way around the back of Pikes Peak to get to the gambling town of Cripple Creek.

Online, we read that the old railroad tunnels are haunted. You can drive through the first 2, but the road is cl

osed before the 3rd tunnel. The 3rd tunnel is supposed to be the most haunted, with stories of a bus load of children killed in that tunnel. I had read a while back that the road is closed because of a fire in that 3rd tunnel, which has made it unsafe to enter. But reading more online, we found out there never was a bus-load of children. But it does make it sound extra creepy!

We had spent the day working on the first part of setting up a Halloween maze, which would be a part of a major Geocaching event next month. At first, my girlfriend ‘KB’, was not too keen on going on a ghost hunt. It sounded just a little too creepy for her. I had suggested the possibility of doing some other activity that would be a little tamer. But as we worked with the other cachers building the maze, KB was gently convinced that we should go along. The plan was to meet up for dinner, and then head up the road at 10 pm – after it was completely dark.

We met up at a steak-house and had a good time chatting for quite a while. After the bills were paid, we headed out to the parking lot. We made room for the cachers who are hosting the Halloween event in our 4×4, as they only had their mini-van with them, and didn’t want to chance it on the harder part of the road. It turns out they probably could have made it with the mini-van, but it was more fun to have them along with us. It also meant that we were more obligated to go as far as they were willing to go.

Some of the group were handing out glow-sticks and light-up toys as we finalized the vehicles. That added to the festive nature of the adventure. It was a short drive on a busy highway with traffic lights, then up through a residential street to access the beginning of Gold Camp road heading into the mountains. There had been some severe rains earlier in the evening, so we thought we might be the only people on the mountain. But it turns out there were a number of other Muggle groups on the road that night.

We caravanned up the road – QZ with a passenger, was in the lead vehicle. We were in the middle followed by Big-Z behind us. The first part of the road is paved, and in pretty decent condition, other than some serious looking rocks that had fallen earlier in the day, probably from the heavy rain. As we drove up, the light rain lessened to a gentle mist. The road twists around a number of times, including a hairpin through a narrow cut. I was hoping no more rocks decided to break loose as we drove by. Just past the tight hairpin, there was a Geocache listed on the GPS. We stopped and chatted on the radios, but decided that it was too challenging to get this in the dark.

Passing a trailhead parking lot, Gold Camp Road gets narrower and turns into a dirt road with a few ruts. This is where we started to see some other cars and trucks. Seeing other people driving the road, made it seem a little less spooky. We came up to the first tunnel. We had to wait for another car to move out of the tunnel ahead before we drove in. After they left, we eased our way in. QZ stopped about ¾ of the way through. We stopped behind, and I could see Big-Z stop behind us, about halfway through.

QZ turned out her lights. Then I turned out my lights and engine. Then Big-Z turned out his. Someone whispered “There here!” al la ‘Poltergeist’ over the radios. We didn’t see anything unusual: no glowing phantoms, no noises that were not from our party, and no unexpected movements or shadows. But QZ decided after a minute that she had enough and we moved on. We parked just past the tunnel, as there was a geocache right nearby! It took quite a bit of searching in the dark, but we did find it! Nothing like darkness and misty rains to make a 1-1/2 cache into a 3 or 4 difficulty! While we were searching, another car stopped in the tunnel.

One of our group thought it would be fun to spook them. It sounded a little dangerous to walk into the tunnel in the dark with unknown drivers, but he came away with some teen-aged friends. Someone in our group decided to give a Myth-Busters inspired pronouncement on our investigations so far: “Tunnel 1, Busted!”

Then we moved onto the second tunnel. This one seemed a little shorter, but curved. We surmised that the curve would explain those that said that their cars were pulled to one side by ghosts! It was still a little spooky with our lights off., though exciting! We drove out of the second tunnel, parking just past and walked back in to see if there was anything haunted to see in the tunnel on foot. CV decided to startle a few people, but it was all taken in good fun.

As we came out, I noticed on my GPS, that there was a level-3-terrain cache somewhere above the tunnel. I decided to take a quick run at it. The ground was very steep and there were lots of marble-sized rocks making footing a little perilous. I was also exploring only with my mini-maglight, which added to the challenge. This point was the most haunted part of the trip for me. The GPS was jumping around like it was possessed. 30 feet this way, 60 feet that way then 90 feet back the other way. After going after a dozen phantom hiding spots all around the ridge, never getting better than 25 feet away, I decided to give up and rejoin the group before they got too worried about me.

We continued on the road until it came to another parking area. This is where Gold Camp Road becomes a hiking trail. It was late, and a promise of somewhere between 1-1/2 to 3 miles of hiking to get to the 3rd tunnel made the idea seem a bit questionable. But there was a promise of a couple of caches along the way that tipped us over the edge into making the trek.

We saw the teenagers from earlier just heading out on the trail ahead of us. We couldn’t be shown up by a group of Muggles! As we worked our way up the trail, it got darker and foggier. When we got to the spot for the cache, the GPS units were pointing at some boulders. We started searching, and as I worked my way around back, another cacher came in from the other direction and spotted it! Nice! So we passed around the log, taking turns signing before returning the cache.

As we continued up, there was another cache on the radar. But as we approached, the GPS was pointing about 200 feet up a steep hill. As it was only rated a 2 terrain, we decided we must not be on the right trail approach. Our flashlights did not show any easy trails, so we reluctantly passed on it. We were also starting to question going all the way on to the 3rd tunnel. It felt like we had been hiking quite a while. The rain was getting thicker and there were even slushy snow flurries mixed in. Some of us were seriously considering turning back. That was the point that the teenagers came back down the trail. They told us they had made it to the 3rd tunnel. Some of them looked a little out-of-sorts, like they were not sure if they were excited or scared. But it encouraged us to go on!

After about another 10 minutes, we made it up to the tunnel. The view showed us why it was no longer drivable: you can see how they closed off the tunnel from 100 feet away. There was a 20-foot tall, metal post fence covering the tunnel opening, looking like a large jail cell. Behind it there was chain-link fence that no longer blocked off the tunnel. While we were there, a person decided to climb around the fence, and check out the tunnel first hand. We turned off the lights. We didn’t see anything. The person in the tunnel made some fake blood-curdling screams.

We turned on our lights and took turns taking pictures in front of the tunnel. Later, when I checked the time stamp on the photos, it was only a couple of minutes past midnight. Which means we had our lights off at the witching hour, as the date clicked over to the 13th.

As a group, we announced: “Third tunnel, Busted!” Going back was downhill, and no caches or teenagers to distract us, we made it back to our vehicles pretty quickly. Overall, we didn’t see anything directly ghostly, but we had a grand adventure! KB was glad she decided to go along. She said this was the most daring thing she had done in a long time. I was glad to share an interesting adventure I probably would never have done if it weren’t for the cool people I’ve met because of geocaching.

– WitzAbout, Colorado Springs

photo credit: John Morgan