My First 5 X 5 Cache

"Just Clowning Around"

GCPCTX


Difficulty: Terrain: (1 is
easiest, 5 is hardest)

This all started with BlazerFan saying it would be pretty cool to get the 5 X 5 cache, the only one in southern Oregon.
So on August 23, 2008 was the day.

The person who laid the cache had planned:
1. that you float down the river to get to this cache.
2. and the other way to get to this cache is to walk down the Rogue River trail about 15 miles and than swim across the river.
I believe that there as been only one person to to this swim.

The one other way to get to the cache is to drive to with in .65 of a mile.
And then walk down the hill, but the walk is a 2000 feet change in elevation in 6/10 of a mile, very steep.

So the plan was set and off we went, I pick up Blazerfan at 8 am and go to the walk off point on the hill and, started down the hill at 10 am.
The hill wasn't to bad, till we got near the river about 12 pm and the last 400 feet was the worsest because of the under brush was so thick. It took about 30 minutes to do.

We got to the cache spot about 12:30pm and spent, about 30 minutes looking for the cache and could not find it, there wasn't a lot of place to hide a bottle size cache on top of a house size rock on the river.

I had a small cache in my water pack and placed it were the GPSr zeroed out and called it good.
And so we start up the hill, it took about hour and half to go the 400 feet.
DrDan and BlazerFan, left the river about 1:00pm and start up the 2000 feet and 6/10 of a mile (total of about 7ooo feet in distance).

I run out of water near the top and left Blazerfan to get some more, I got to the car about 7 pm and than I walked back down to Blazerfan.
We left the parking area about 8 pm and got back in town 10pm.




This is from top of the rock at the cache site.

Bombs A Way

(click on picture to enlarge)

I found this information in a little park in Bly, Oregon, when I was traveling to the Steens Mt. Rang.
Its the only time, and one time, that bombs were drop in the USA by another county.
I didn't drive out to the site, there will be another trip for that.

A Day at The Lake

John did invited me to go for a boat ride, at Howard Prairie Lake.
John friend Randy, has a 19 foot Sail boat He bought last year, so he learning how to sail this boat.
I helps to have more than one person to sail with, one to steer, another to fix the sail and another to read the book on how to sail.

Its really a nice boat, not to big, but big enough to have different sails and sail set-ups.

I didn't get a picture of the out side, but here is one from the inside out.

We sailed around for about hour, and then wind just went away.

We tried different angles but there was nothing thing out there.

You no, the last time Sam and Me sail my little sail boat, (8 feet) the same thing happened to use.
Maybe I should do this, LOL

Ants every were

When drove to Portland for the dinner boat ride on the Columbia River that Randy had invited a bunch of uses to.
Thanks Randy for great boat ride and dinner.
We all got to see some real Indians working alone the bank for the river.

So the story of the Ants.
We stayed at Sam place and drove up to the boat ride from there.
The night we got there, I park in the road below Sam apartment , and I parked under a tree.


When we came out the next morning to go to REI and some other places, the tree had
drop this sticky stuff all over the car.
The windows would hardly work.
When we came back and I parked away from the sticky tree.
When we came out to leave for the dinner ride.
The car was covered in ants.
I parked next to some weeds that touch the front end of the car and so the ants came up the weed to cross over to the car.
You can see the weed in the top picture.
The Ants were eating the sticky pitch stuff off of the car.

So a hole bunch of ants went for a 60 mph ride, but by the time we got to the boat ride most of them didn't like the ride because there was none to be found.

The Day Of the 100

One of my Goals was to ride a 100 miles on my mountain bike in one day.
So on Thursday July 31, I start the riding at 7:30AM.
Because of the heat I had to break this up.
First run: 50 miles in 3.75 hours, avenge speed 13.8.
Second run: 30 miles in 2.25 hours, avenge speed 13.6
Third run: 20 mile in 1.50 hours, avenge speed 13.4

Total : 100 miles in 7.47 hours, avenge speed of 13.4 mph,
Or
starting 7:30 AM and finsh 9:30 PM.

I'll never do this again, my butt and hands were falling sleep.

Day 5 and 6 of the Steens Road Trip

On Day 5, Saturday:
Drove to camp site at Lake of the Woods and camp to do some MTB at the lake.
Found a new trail that runs between Lake of Woods and Fish lake, about 9 miles.
Lots of caches in the area.
On Day 6 Sunday:
Drove home and cleaning up cache alone the way.
This me on near the top of Steens Mt. Rang.

Grasshoppers hitting car between places.



Me at the highest cache in Oregon.
9733 feet.
One of 70 caches I found on this trip.

Day 3 and 4 of Steens Road Trip

On day 3 and 4.
I was at the base of Steens Mt. Rang.
Its a 60 mile loop up to 9700 feet.
So I drove the 3 miles in to Frenechglen to fuel up.
At only $5.00 gal. I only need about 4 gallons.
Only a 3 cache to day, but I do get a FTF on the highest cache in Oregon.

I saw this watch tower near a farm house, why?















The view from the road of the first canyon.





The great view from the rocks.















Look south at the hight point, 9733 feet.



















Wild Horses lake, there is 3 people down there.

The Road Trip to Steens Mountain Rang

I left July 22, heading out on highway 140 out of Medford going east.
I had set-up the GPSr to geocaching alone the way all the way to the Steens or as much as possible.
So I started picking up caches about Fish Lake and Lake of the Woods area, alone the road.
I pick up about 16 cache alone the way, all the way over to the other side of K-Fall pass Bonanza to a lake called Gerber Reservoir, and camped there in a nice little dry camp.
Its about 25 acer lake.
Seem to be the fishing spot for every one who was there.
There was 2 not find yet cache, but one was on and island and other was across this bay, the water was none to clean, so I passed on these as much as I hated not getting the FTF.
The smoke from the Cal. fires was blowing into this area, as you can see from the picture.
On Day II, I was up about 7:00AM because the sun was shinning on the tent, so no sleep in time and I had to make to the camp sit at the base of the Steens today.
I left the area about 8:AM or so and found some more caches, as I was leaving the area.
Heading back to highway 140 I had to cover about 30 mile of dirt road so this slow me down so till I hit 140.
I pick up 7 cache through the hole day, not to good, but no misses yet.

I push on for Lake View, not much of a town.
I had forgotten to get a tube for my MTB in Grants Pass, so I thought I would find one here, no luck at all.
Only one place had bike tubes, and there were the wrong ones.
A hardware store, and no bike shop in town.
So I fueled up, because this would be the last place to fuel till I get to Frenchglen, at the base of the Steens.
So I took the short cut to Frenchglen, and you know how short cuts work out.
I pass through one of the largest game and bird refuges.
Warner (bird) Refuge and Hart Mountain Antelope Refuges.






As you can see from the video, it is really big.
When I left Lake View, I cut up north to a little place called Plush, and that was were the pavement ended and the dirt road started.
The dirt road was under construction, so at about 25 miles from Plush I came across a flagger, who told me that she could not talk to the other end because the radios wouldn't reach that far, so go ahead and watch out for the big trucks.

So driving at the post speed limit, I drove the 65 miles of dirt, dodging big trucks and farmers and some cows.

There is a really nice place for sell out there, 420 acres with new house on the only hill out there, with lots of open space to do what ever you would like.
I got to the Page Spring camp ground about 4:30 and found a nice camp spot next the a river, the river was about 8 inches deep. LOL
I spent two night here.
Oh, the post speed was 35mph. LOL

Day 2, Alta Lake Hike

Got to the Alta lake about 4:00pm and set up camp in the same spot that Me and Ben used about 15 years ago.
This is the end you first come to when the trail ends, the camp site is way down at the other end. The camp site is at 6800 feet elevation.
The weather cools down pretty quick, I was in the tent and bag by 8:00pm because I got cold.










This the view from the camp site, in AM.


And the video is of the valley starting with Crater Lake at one end and ending at Devil's peak. This is the view I had for dinner and breakfast.

Picture to the right is of Grass Lake and Middle Lake is closes, this is looking south into California.








If you click on the picture, you can see witch is Crater Lake and Mt. Thelson.








The reflection in the lake was so nice, I had to add the picture.

And last...............

The Hike to Alta Lake

I finely started my vacation, about two weeks late, starting Thursday, NO WORK till August 4.

And guess what the first thing I did?
On Thursday morning I packed my back pack, and left for the 7 Lakes Wilderness area in the Sky Lakes Wilderness. This area is located between Crate Lake and Mt. McLoughling, and area about 15 miles wide and 50 miles long, with 100s of lake.
The trail head for Alta Lake, one of the 7 lakes, is the closes and shorts hike in.
A mirror 6 1/2 miles by the sign any ways.
Being on vacation I slept in and got a late start. So by the time got my pack set-up and found every thing, I did not get out of here till about noon.
The trail head is about 14 miles the other side of the town of Prospect.

Here I am at the trail head.

I drove into the TH, about 1:00pm, a mosquitoes go me in the first two minutes I was out of the car. So, out came the OFF stuff, the super strong stuff is the only thing that will work with these hungry bugs.
The trail is just wide enough for a unicycle, and climbs pretty good.
The first two miles, climbs from 5000 feet to 6000 feet, walking though woods and fields.















About 1 mile of open fields, as you can see in the pictures.
After 2 mile it got a interesting surprise, for the next 3 miles, I must have cross 50 of these.














As you can see that the snow is really there, in places, being up to eight feet deep. As luck would have it, it is very hard, so it made it easer to walk across, in most places.
More to come of what I saw, when I got to Alta Lake and the other 6 lakes.

More Item of Interest / Book Report

In another place in South America.
These brothers were touring the local churches, looking at the painting and art work that was done on the buildings.
So the early Spanish missionaries, were working on converting the locals to there way of thinking and so.
They needed a painting of the Last Supper, so the missionaries commissioned a local painter to paint this piece.
When it was done, it was found that the artiest had add to the plates of food, the type of food that only royal persons were aloud to eat in the painter's country.
On the table was found the bread and wine, and in front of Jesus was a plate of roasted guinea pig.
Weird.

On Easter Island, the place with the big statues all over it.
The statues were cut into the images of the chiefs, of the 18 tribes.
Most of these statues, had been turned over because of the 18 waring tribes, on the island.
The archaeologists put the statues back up, and never finished the job.
The statues, had eye ball, and now there is no eye ball in the statues.
There must of be short sighted archaeologists, haha.
The first eye balls were made of wood.
Interesting.

I have finished book so no more stuff to add at this time.
But there is others stuff to read about when you pick-up the book to read it.
The Sparks guy has wrote 9 other books as will, and two were made into moves,
"The Notebook" and "Message in a Bottle"

The story of going around the world is pretty cool, only for rich any ways.
I checked the web site of the travel agency, 55k to 65k.

The name of the company goes by TCS check out the link.

Interesting Points, Three Weeks with My Brother

I pick-up this book at a book Geocahes, over the week end at the coast.
It had to be good one because its on the New Yorks best sellers list.LOL

Three Weeks with My Brother by Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks.

So these brothers, Nicky and Micah, start out in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
First stop was in Yaxha' and Tikal, Guatemala.

So there walking down this path, following there guide as He is talking about Yaxha' temples and building, pointing this way and that way and saying this building was used for this and so and so was done here.
And the last time some one lived here was about 900 A.D., that was over a 1000 years ago.
The two brother were looking at each other, thinking WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT, all they could see, was lots and lots of trees, brush and vines every were.
So the guide explained that the trees and vines drop there leave, 3 times a year, it turns out that it is really is 3,000 years of drop leave and it turns into lots of dirt and more trees and vines, grow on top of this and so on..........
The Guide went on to say:
One of the Stone Temples was on earthed about 80 years ago, they run out of money to finish the job.
It is right over there, that big mountain of trees and dirt and that is only 240 dropping of leaves, and there nothing to see.

What is it ??

As I was going into one of my shops the other morning this monster was parked next to the entry door.
Pretty scary!

I really like the pattern on the wings.

And if you look closely it looks like a face of come kind.
Looking back at you. LOL

Spent some time looking around to ID the little guy.

Grammia parthenice, or better know as a
Tiger Moth.

Check out the link.

Normally not from this area.

The Night Hike On The Table

For Rochelle's B-Day, she wanted to hike Upper Table Rock at night.
So we drove over and made the hike.
As you can see the 2 baby made the hike as will.
The hike was great at this time of night, not to hot.
We started about 10pm and got back to the cars about 12am.

List L to R: Robyn, Alex, Paul, Serena, Daniel, Ben, Felipe, Randy, Pat, Molly, Dominic and (Rochelle, John and Dan not in picture).

Log Cabin

Caching south of Applegate Lake and came across the two story log cabin.
It was in pretty good shape, I would say it is about 50 years old.
It looks like someone was or is trying to restore it, a little at a time.
Even comes with a star gazing rock on the other side of the house.
The drive to town would be a little much, about 50 miles to the nearest story, one way. LOL
A way cool creek running near by as will.

Lost Creek Lake Bike Trail

Looking for a Mountain biking trail to ride Saturday and found a really nice ride at Lost Creek Lake off of Highway 62 that goes to Crater Lake.
The trail starts on the north side near the boat launch.
X 's marks the beginning of ride, the trail I have mark in orange color.
I started late, about 1:00pm, the air temp was about 65 degrees and about half clouds and blue sky's.
It was a single track about 24 inch to 6 feet wide in places.
The trail was not to bad, I did cross over about 37 bridges, the bridges had numbers on them.
This as much like driving the road to Hana, on the island of Maui, I thinks there was about 65 bridges to cross.
It was 12.5 miles one way, from the boat launch to the big bridge on the east end of the lake.
It did not rain a drop the hole tripe to the bridge.
But about the time I turned around to head back, the clouds just opended up and start pouring, I mean it came on so fast that the rain was falling out of a blue sky, the clouds had not had a chances to move above me as of yet.
Then the thunder started booming about a mile or so away, and the rain stopped.
The thunder followed me all the most of the way back a started to gain about 4 miles from the car.
I was thinking maybe the thunder like aluminum bikes that I was riding on. LOL
All in all it was 25 miles in about 3 hour and 40 minutes.
Only bad thing was there was poison oak across the trail at times, so I had to ride through it.
John and Paul, will like this trail, it is a lot like the Applegate lake trail.

The Fly Boys

I was driving up to Applegate Lake area to do some geocaching, and these hang glider were flying just out side of Rush. They take off from a place called Bishop Creek.

Book Report Time, Gentleman of the Road

Gentleman of the Road, by Michael Chabon.
The story takes place in the land of Khazaria near the Caspian Sea.
The time period betweem 600 and 1000 AD.
Zelikman is a jewish doctor who has left is home land and wonders the county side with and huge Africa, by the name of Amran who carries a Viking ax by the name of Defiler of Your Mother.
They come across a prince by the name Filaq, who's family had been killed by the next ruling Bek(king).
They travel the roads of Khazaria till they come across an army from the capital city, and they take over the army and headed back to the city of Atil to take back the Prince family king seat.
A good story and with lots of funny things happing to them all the time.

A Ride Around Applegat Lake

Ben, John, Paul and myself(Dan), made the trip up to Applegate Lake and road the mountain bikes around the lake.
We parked by the dam, and unloaded the bikes there and road across the dam for about 1.3 miles till we came to the little parking lot and the trail head started right there, how could you get lost.
Whooo, what a get trail, about 12 to 18 inches wide in most places ha ha.
So at about 1.5 miles into the trail, we came to this fork, and someone had made the decision to go right, so up the hill we went, down the other side, then we started side hilling in this little ditch of a trail and then it ended at this steel cable?
Bikes on our shoulders, and up the hill we went, till we came to a really nice trail that went no place, so we turn and went the other direction and came out at were we started, in the first place, LOL,
What a great day, air temp was about 65 degrees, and some clouds, snow cap mountain in the distances.
Fish jumping in the water and people trying to cache them, and boats on the lake. Most of the trail was in the shade of the trees, so we really only go hot near the end of the trail.
The lake was empty in October 07 when I was geocaching near here.
Its completely full now, right up to the top.
The ride lasted 3 hours and we coved 18 miles. A really great ride, and it was easy till you get to the last 1/2 mile and I pushed my bike up that hill .