Pursuit of a Lonely Cache

On Saturdays I usually spend some time with my "Little" from the Big Brothers, Big Sisters Program. I've been introducing her to geocaching and I think she has been enjoying it so far. It was only slightly above freezing this Saturday so we found one geocache together before we decided to move inside to somewhere warm. We opted to head to the library where I showed her how to sign into geocaching.com and log her finds on the computer. I brought her to my area's holiday party a few weeks ago and she even won some prizes! Here's the group photo from our holiday party, GC654F2.

2015 GeoRoc Holiday Party and Family Event

After I dropped her off, I headed back out into the cold to find some geocaches on my own. First, I wanted to attempt a new multi that came out a few weeks ago. It was put out by an Eagle Scout who, along with some other boys, were creating trails in the area for their final project. They had also placed multiple benches and made bird and owls houses for the area. I had no idea these trails had been put in here until I was searching for this cache. That's one of the things I love about geocaching; it brings me to places I would have otherwise never discovered. The final container also looked like a wrapped Christmas present, ribbon and all. Check out the cache page here: GC67J2J

A Geocache Present!

After almost freezing my face off finding the multi, I headed over to a section of trails known as the Ontario Pathways. It once was a railway but since it was abandoned, it has been converted into quite a long section of continuous section of trail. It's a very popular trail for geocaches in my area.

There is one geocache along the trail that I attempted to find last winter, but DNF'ed because of the snow. Quite a few cachers have also not been able to find it, so I reached out to a fellow cacher who had found it in 2013 and they were able to give me a hint.

Lots of DNFs..

I wasn't sure what to expect, but after over 30 minutes of searching in the cold, I found the cache! It hadn't been found in over a year and in fact I had found it on it's 14 month anniversary of being lonely. Check out this cache page here: GC3PV71

Last find 10/19/14

Today my boyfriend, McDoogins, and I had his family Christmas party to attend but luckily there were a few geocaches and quite a few Munzees nearby. We were able to sneak away to find two caches and I was able to capture quite a few virtual Munzees.

Geocaching Ornaments

A local cacher in my area puts out a cache every year that contains geocaching themed ornaments that he makes himself. This year McDoogins and I were able to get there in time to get some for ourselves. They are now proudly displayed on our Christmas tree!

9th Annual GeoRoc Holiday Event

This year my local geocaching group needed a new volunteer to host our annual holiday party. I've hosted quite a few events before so it was suggested to me that I should host this year. I decided to buck up and do it. We had it at a fire department's pavilion. From my best estimate we had about 75 people attend. We had a lot of food, games and fun. So far there's been 54 attendee logs. I had a fantastic time and here's some photos from the event.

Our log "book" made of snowflakes

Starting the raffle

JAKSolantern also put out a puzzle cache that was themed around Christmas movies and it was right near the event. Many cachers solved the puzzle at the party and went out in search of it. The container was a fantastic birdhouse and a smaller decon container and log were Velcro-ed inside it. Really amazing. It got a favorite point from me.

Huge birdhouse!

A present inside! A hand painted decon coantiner

See JAKSolantern's newest cache here GC67QBY

2015 Rochester Geocaching Holiday Party

Watch my new video "2015 Rochester Geocaching Holiday Party" on YouTube here: http://youtu.be/RBywy8259h0
via CHANNEL TITLE

NY Amish Geotrail Rewards

Today, in the mail, I got the rewards I earned for completed Parts 1 and 2 of the New York Amish Geo Trail last week. I received 21 magnetic buttons with different scenes depicted on them, one for each cache that I found.

I also received two trackable geocoins, one for each section of the trail that I completed. You can view their trackable pages here: TB6TFRB & TB5F37F

Powder Mills Park Caching

This Sunday, McDoogins, geopup Rogue and I spent the afternoon in Powder Mills Park in Victor, NY. We found 4 caches in the park, including a puzzle that had previously stumped us. Powder Mills Park is very hilly and we stumbled upon a section with lots of gigantic pine trees. I think this is becoming my favorite types of places.

A group of cachers in Rochester set up a Christmas tree in Webster Park with a geocache under it. Over the years cachers have placed their own ornaments with their names on the tree. Each year a new tree is selected and the ornaments are placed on it. This cache was published while we were out so we meet up with JAKSolantern to head over for it. Since we were already out and were so far from home sadly we didn't have ornaments of our own to add to the tree. Maybe next time.

A little Charlie Brown tree GC67HV4

Black Friday Caching at Zoar Valley

This Black Friday I decided to #OptOutside and tag along with a group of 12 cachers from the Rochester area on the annual caching trip. This year the location was Zoar Valley Multiple Use Area in Erie and Cattaraugus Counties.

The initial goal for our group was a 4 stage multi "PurpleHawks finds 10,000 - Zoar Valley Multi" (GC48PZT). We parked very near the first waypoint and were able to figure out the trick fairly quickly. We proceeded through the hills and slopes of the park finding the next two waypoints. We found 3 other caches along the way. The view of the valley was breath taking.

On the way to GC29AR2

View from GC4NAFZ

We finally made it back to the final of the epic multi and it had coordinates for a bonus cache in it. Overall a great time at Zoar Valley.

After that our group split up and JAKSolantern, SpadeNya and I headed off in search of caches for the New York Amish Geotrail.

There are two parts of the geotrail. For each cache there is a keyword listed that you write down and send in. For each one you find, you get a Amish Geo Trail button. If you find 10 of the caches for either geotrail you get a trackable geocoin.

All the caches were ammo cans and were hidden at local shops or historic places. We ended up finding 20 out of the current 23 caches in about 6 hours. Check out the NY Amish Geo Trail here

GC34HJC

GCP4Y1

Overall a fantastic day with 38 total finds and got to experience a beautiful new area with great friends! 

Find the details about the NY Amish GeoTrail at http://amishtrail.com/geotrail.

Finding a Geocache on Thankgiving - My First Periscope

I needed to find a cache today to fill it on my finds calendar. McDoogins, Rogue and I stopped for this cache today before heading to our Thanksgiving day family activities. I recorded my first Periscope. Which wasn't very long and I struggled a little figuring it out. I'm going on a caching trip tomorrow with a big group from Rochester to Zoar Valley. Maybe I'll do another Periscope then?

Homemade Geocaching Swag

I found a cool idea on Pinterest for some geocaching swag. You only need a few things and it's pretty inexpensive too. You need some Mod Podge, some vase gems with one flat side and some printed images of whatever geocaching related items you want. I got 1" diameter gems and printed pictures of Signal, the geocaching symbol and some other small items. Just cut out the shapes and put them on the flat side of the gems so that you can see the image through the gem. Brush on some Mod Podge with a paint brush or sponge and let them dry. Mine are all clear stones but you could do this with other colors too as long as you can see through them. Here's how mine turned out

Towering Pines and The Fox Sisters

The Towering Pines

Yesterday was a bit chilly here, but my boyfriend and I didn't have any plans so we decided to take our geopup Rogue and find some caches. We went north to Blue Cut Nature Center. We found all 3 of the caches here. The last one took us about 45 minutes to find, although I'm really not sure why. Turns out I was looking on the complete wrong side of the trail the whole time. All 3 caches were great and the Nature Center was really beautiful. There were dozens of really tall pine trees that were amazing.

McDoogins and Rogue in the pine tunnel

We also found a really fun gadget cache called The fox Sisters. It tells the story f two sisters who started hearing rapping noises from their bedroom. They soon were able to communicate with whoever this spirit was by snapping their fingers and they would receive a series of knocks in response. They found out it was a man who was murdered in the house and was buried behind a false wall in the basement. This cache brings you to a park that had been made at the location of their childhood home. The cache container has a lock and you have to "communicate with the spirits" in order to figure out the word that will open the lock. The story and theme were great and it clearly took a lot of work for the CO to put together. Check it out here GC5WJW2

The original Fox House

November Cache Crate

Yesterday, I received my monthly Cache Crate from Cache Advance for the month of November. The Cache Crate is a monthly subscription service that delivers a box full of geocaching and outdoor goodies directly to your door. This months box included:

A magnifying glass with built in tweezers. Perfect for removing splinters or ticks.

A 2 pack of flexible utility ties. You could use them for hanging bison tubes in pine trees!

A make-your-own para cord bracelet kit with instructions. You could put it in a cache as swag or keep it for yourself.

A smiley luggage tag. Keep track of your luggage at the airport with this stylish tag.

You can also choose to add on a trackable to your crate. There's multiple options available. It's "just like finding an awesome regular sized cache filled with amazing swag." You can check it out here.

Simple Geocaching Sunday

Today was a simple but exciting day. McDoogins, Rogue and I set off to hide my first size large cache and my first letterbox hide. It is a 5 gallon bucket that I painted camouflage myself. I also hand carved the stamp myself.

We also found a cache that hadn't even found since April, which is exciting. A slow but exciting geocaching day.

Geocaching.com Announces 2 New Souvenirs

Today, Geocaching HQ announced that there will be an opportunity to earn two new souvenirs during the New Years holiday. You can earn the Goodbye 2015 souvenir by finding a geocache or attending an event on December 31, 2015 and earn the Hello 2016 souvenir by finding a geocache or attending an event on January 1, 2016. Find out the full details here.

I personally really like souvenirs. The designs are usually really well done and interesting. They're basically electronic stickers for your profile and who doesn't like stickers? Not to mention that there are challenge caches for earning a certain number of souvenirs.

Thinking of hosting a New Years event? Check out some suggestions here.

GIFF Weekend

From November 5-8, geocachers have the opportunity to attend a Geocaching International Film Festival event where the short films of the 16 finalists would be showed. The event for my area was held on November 5th, GC63BAM. The event had a great turn out and about 50 people attended. The films were all very creative and I could tell a lot of hard work went into creating them. It was nice to see entries from so many different countries.

I also got a new GPS that I ordered on Thursday. I got the Garmin eTrex 30x after listening to the recent GPSr Picking episode of the GeoGearHeads podcast. So far I really like it. I'm excited to use it for many adventures to come.

My first puzzle FTF

Tuesday night was not out of the ordinary, until I got an email that a new cache had been published. It was a new puzzle cache by JAKSolantern featuring the band Social Distortion. I had done a similar puzzle of his before so I knew exactly how it worked. I opened up my trusty friend Google and got to work. I had the answers within a few minutes and the geochecker confirmed my solution, but another cacher had solved it before me. The cache was over 20 minutes from my house and it was already dark out but I decided to go anyway.

After making a few wrong turns and navigating to the posted coordinates instead of the actual ones, I pulled into the area where the cache was. I didn't see any other cars around; was I the first one here? Fearing that neighbors or police would see me I turned off my headlights and fumbled to GZ in the dark. I turned on my flashlight and there it was, the cache! I opened it anxiously and the log was blank! I was first to find! I signed in quickly and headed back to my car before anyone knew I was there.

This was my first ever FTF on a puzzle cache. Thanks to JAKSolantern for putting out this fun puzzle. Check it out at www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC666FG

Halloween Weekend Geocaching

On Saturday, McDoogins, Rogue and I met up with JAKSolantern for some geocaching in Genesee Valley Park. He had previously found some caches in the park but we did end up finding a few that he hadn't found, including an earthcache, "What is this Rock?" (GC5TDBK). This focus of the earthcache was a large piece of Lockport Dolomite that workers had to clear through to build the nearby Erie Canal. The earthcache required that we determine what type of sedimentary rock this one was based on three that were described on the cache page. Our group also found a cache that had previously stumped us all.

Today I attended a local breakfast event. It was good to see familiar faces and meet some new cachers in the area. I had also heard about a cache that was posted yesterday. McDoogins and I went to check it out. "Tazutopia #3: Trick or Treat?, (GX6641H). It was perfect for this time of year. I could tell that a lot of time and effort went into this cache and its setup.

Before we went home, we stopped at a parking area that had a very scenic view and a cache!