7 FTF's!

A few days ago, dalls called to inform me that he has placed new caches off Deep Gap road in a Tennessee Wildlife Resource Area. I told him that I was pleased and especially pleased to hear most were regular size caches. I told him that I would look at my schedule and determine when I would go after the new caches.

I emailed pcsenn of the new caches and after looking at my schedule, I saw I could go after the caches on Friday, where I would work part of the day and take annual leave the rest of the day. Met with pcsenn that morning and he rode with me as I conducted a visit at a contract agency. After the visit, we headed towards the new caches. The caches had been published a few days and since there were no new logs, we figured we had the chance for the First to Find.

South Fork Haunted Hollow, a multi was our first. When we found the finally, we noticed that no one else had attempted the caches and we should have FTF on all the caches. Next was Raccoon Hideout. Took a bit to ind and retrieve the cache. Then we went after Deer Trail, a micro in the woods, but was an easy find. We ventured to the outskirts of the TWRA land and found Turkey Crossing. The best and my favorite was Bobcat Hangout. At this point I was very thankful I wore my Goretex waterproof boots. Even though I was not used to the extra weight of the boots and took a toll on my knee, I really didn't wet feet. I made the climb to the cache and found my boots are slick. So I crawled up the tree. Signed the log and headed back down.

Pcsenn told me at one point to jump, but remembering my ankle injury I suffered last year, I decided to take my time and come down the safer way. Pcsenn was happy to color in another difficult/terrain grid on this cache on his way to the Well Rounded Cacher. Our last find in the area was Possum Hollow. Cache was easy to find, but retrieving cache was very difficult. We headed to Over the Deer V.2 and wanted pcsenn to log that find. However, he was nervous about it and he decided not to attempt it.

On the way out of the woods, we met with Abiecto who was going after the FTF's. He reported that he drove up and saw a truck in the parking lot with a geocaching decal on the windshield and Operation Iraqi Freedom tags and knew it was me.

After caching south of Jackson, we ate a late lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. This was his first visit to this establishment. I told pcsenn of a few events that were held at this location.

On the way back home, we grabbed the last cache, another FTF at White City-Friends Welcome-Strangers Too.

Concluded the day with seven First to Finds, the most I have ever accomplished.

Caching with GEO.JOE

Typically, I have something to do on New Year's Eve Day, but this year I had no plans to reign in the new year and thought it would be nice to make a cache run. GEO.JOE placed several new caches in the Shawnee National Forest and offered to head up a cache run. I posted on the RVG page on Facebook that I was interested. Being the meeting was at 10 am in Paducah, I knocked out It's on Track! Are You?. It's a really difficult hide and worked a while to find it. Two muggles noticed my struggle and after I took their pictures at the locomotive, they assisted in finding the cache. From there, I met the crew at the Pilot Truck Stop located off I-24. GEO.JOE offered me a ride, in which, I gladly accepted. We drove onto the forest and met scoutpaddle and Bubba95 who had camped at the parking area.

First cache was: Splatterstone Falls, probably my favorite of the day, very nice waterfall. Coordinates were way off and GEO.JOE adjusted the coordinates while we were there. We stopped to take a few pictures. Mine are posted on my Facebook profile.
We found more caches in the canyon, another one of my favorites was Heart Arch. By this time in the run, I began to get ahead of the group. I found the cache and in the time it took for the rest of the crew to arrive I ate my lunch. After Heart Arch, next stop was Above the Boulders, again, I had left the group and made a beeline towards the cache. Nearing the listed coordinates, I began to worry that the cache would be located on top of the ridge line and would be embarrassed to see the rest of the crew on top of the ridge and me below. I persisted and went to the listed coordinates and climbed onto the rocks. Thankfully, the cache was not on the ridge top. Coordinates were about 30 feet off but my geo-mojo found the cache. I waited another 20 minutes for the crew to arrive once again. This time, I had the cache signed and replaced.
I took the time to rest and drink lots of water while the others looked for the cache. We headed off for the next cache, Filmy Fern Cave. Getting to this cache was hazardous by climbing over and through rocks. After this find, we headed to the last cache, Go With the Flow. This time, the crew had thinned down and two of us signed the log. Regnad's son was with us, the others left the trail, one had twisted a knee.
Was one of the best adventures of geo-year 2011 and what a way to end the year with a hard hike with friends.

Crew consisted of:
GEO.JOE and his wife Fairy Flirt
Adventuretrekker
Regnad and his family
scoutpaddle and his son Bubba95

Ashland City Trail

In 2006, Pharmd93, brickbat66 and myself cleared the caches on that trail while on bikes while I was on a warpath to reach the 1K. I have wanted to return to the trail.

While attending the 1K event for Sunshinegirl42017 in Murray, KY, dhrnrcpa mentioned about hitting the long trail where over 50 caches were placed prior to tax season where his employment as an accountant will slow down his caching. After some weeks of preparation, a group gathered Paris and Clarksville and I hit the trail once again. I decided not to bring my bike along since there were cachers placed nearly 528 feet from each other and getting on and off the bike were become tiresome. There were too many caches to keep count and all of us ended up setting new daily find records. I managed to knock out 57 finds. My GSAK stats noted 58 finds, but after further research, I had double-logged a find and that has been corrected.

It was a great day of caching and on the way back home we stopped to eat in Clarksville where I purchased the meal for Chicontater and his son since we took his truck from Dresden.

All who made the hike were:

Chicontater & son

pcsenn

brickbat66

scoutpaddle

Orion_13 and his family

and the one who got the cache run going, dhrnrcpa

Record Breaking Year

Had a record breaking geo-year in 2011. A year that had me find caches in new states and a district: Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. for a total of 23 US souvenirs. The biggest highlight was completion of the Well Rounded Cacher and finding two Fizzy Challenge caches related to the WRC. Completion of the WRC placed me in elite company, where around 14 cachers in Tennessee have completed the 81 category grid.

Had 738 finds, out doing what I did in 2006, which was 640. Found 738 finds over 167 cache days, marking 13 consecutive months with double-digit cache days. With the high number of finds, I also increased my terrain rating from 1.64 to 1.71. Increased my regular (ammo can) find rate from 24% to 26%.

Hiked many miles of trails over the year to include over 50 finds on a trail outside of Ashland City, TN. Also visited a new area for me, the Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois where some extreme hiking was conducted. Completed a few kayak adventures, one in Clarksville, TN and another in Mississippi.

Another recent completion was the Finds by Each Day of the Year. I set a goal to complete 95% of the grid by the end of 2011. Thankfully, caches were placed near my home area. I was able to complete the challenge despite some stressful days in May.

What will geo-year 2012 bring? What are some goals?

With completion of the WRC and other challenges, I want to keep the game interesting for me. Numbers are nice, but I feel numbers bring burn out, which I believe resulted with some friends giving up the game. Therefore, to keep the game interesting for me, I have the below.

I plan to revisit the Shawnee National Forest.

Make an attempt for the Mississippi Fizzy Challenge cache.

Hit the north end of the Land Between the Lakes.

Attend Geo-Woodstock X in Sellersburg, Indiana.

Uphold the above 25% find rate of regular (ammo can) size caches.

Attempt to make more kayak runs.