Note the high tech backpacks. I’m bringing up the rear on the right.

In those days we made our backpacks from army surplus pack frames with an open top 5 gallon tin for a container. With no hip strap and very little padding I’m not sure how we managed. Didn’t have a light-weight down sleeping bag either.

Fishing, our favorite pastime

Our catch

Nothing better than a fresh fish dinner from an outdoor grill

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Self-portrait blocking the scenic mountains

The temperature was nice (in the low 60’s) and sunny in the morning. By mid-afternoon the clouds were building and I was afraid I might get a little rain shower. The road was clean and dry except for where repair work was being done and they had scraped debris out of the edge of the road onto the road surface and were scooping it up with a skip-loader. I had about 2 miles of this and luckily didn’t pick up any sharp objects in the tires. Other than the road crews and a ranger patrol I only met 2 other cyclists.

I wish I was stronger. I’d love to be able to get to Olmsted Point. After the climb out of Yosemite Creek canyon it would be fairly level with really magnificent views. Unfortunately, after I crested the ridge at 8300 ft just before the descent to Yosemite Creek (which gives up about 900 ft), I could tell I needed to turn around. As it was, I logged 32 miles and 3300 ft of climbing.

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Learning a new programming language on a new OS is not something I can do in snatches of time. I’ve tried, and become terribly frustrated. So, I’ve been devoting concentrated effort on learning Python (2.7.2) on OSX (at the terminal obviously, no fancy GUI stuff yet). I started with figuring out how to read stuff from a file, do something with it, and print some things. That introduced me to strings, lists, iterators, and files. Somewhere during looking stuff up on the web I ran across a reference to Project Euler, a programming challenge website.

Then I found Python-coded solutions to the first 50 problems, so using that as my crib sheet, I started writing my own solutions to these problems. This has been a steep learning curve for a couple of reasons. First, lots of Python constructs look like greek to me, and it takes me quite a while to figure out what they do and how I can apply them. Second, some of the problems require math concepts that I may have once known about back in college, but having never used them, I’m now learning them again.

Python is very interesting and powerful. It generally doesn’t take very many lines of code to do some very useful stuff. For instance, one of the problems was to find the left-most 10 digits of the sum of one-hundred 50-digit numbers. Since Python has long (really long…) integers, the program is almost trivial.

    big_numbers =(int(x) for x in data.problemx.strip().splitlines())  
    return int(str(sum(big_numbers))[:10])

I’ve completed 15 of the problems, but they are getting harder, so I may stop and see if I can get some simple cipher tools developed.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

This series, appearing on the map as a funny looking tomahawk, is designed as a so-called “power-caching trail,” with caches placed roughly 0.1 miles apart. I think a series like this is generally done by a team that uses a strategy that enables them to go really fast in finding the caches. I was curious how fast I could find them going solo.

Here’s how I worked it out:

• drive to next cache fast, monitoring GPS for where to stop
• slam on brakes, letting anti-lock brakes do their thing, leave engine running
• open door leaving it open, follow GPS arrow to correct side of car
• search for footprints to follow, or small pile of rocks next to a bush
• grab container, typically a film cannister, pop top off, unroll log, scribble facsimile of geocaching name, place log back in cache, pop top on, replace with rocks on top to keep the desert wind from blowing it away
• record find on GPS, select next closest, while walking back to car
• jump back in car, leaving seat belt off
• put in gear, floorboard accelerator, monitor roughness of road to determine max speed
• repeat, dozens of times

Philatsea, Rumrunner1, Cap'n Finder, Sweet Marie

If I had wanted to be a die-hard, I could have continued after dark, but I called it a day, headed to the motel in Barstow, and had a nice dinner at DiNapoli’s Firehouse. As much as possible, I got organized to leave the motel early in the morning, and in fact I did manage that.

I started caching again about 7 am and finished about 11 am, finding another 92 caches. Somewhere along there I passed the 4,000 total finds milestone.

I ended this caching series with 250 finds, no DNFs (thanks, I think, to the Canadian caching crew who went just before me and replaced all the missing ones), and one very dusty truck (the result of slamming to a stop in a cloud of dust and leaving the door open).

Garnet Peak with the Salton Sea way off in the distance

My trip planning research had revealed a large concentration of caches on the PCT near Mount Laguna in the Cleveland National Forest (south of Julian, if that rings a bell). Then my GBA friends mentioned Phil’s Memorial Cache (the oldest active cache in California) was in the same area. So, I decided I really wanted to spend the day hiking, not driving.

I left the motel in Borrego Springs about 8 am and drove south with a stop in Julian for a coffee and then on to the trailhead at Penney Pines. Now there used to be pines here, but a fire a few years ago took most of them. In no time, I was hiking north on the PCT and finding caches. The trail is an easy hike, but just to the east is a dramatic drop off, so the views east to the desert and the Salton Sea are great. And, from one of the high points, I could see the Pacific Ocean (or a fog bank) to the west. Unfortunately, it was fairly hazy.

After a 4 mile hike that I turned into a loop by hiking back along the road, I drove to another trailhead and began a hike out to Big Laguna Lake. This trail was another fairly level one through pine and oak forest. It was a very enjoyable area, and I found several caches on the way to the lake. This hike was 4.8 miles.

Stats for the day: 8.9 miles, 1100 ft of climbing, and 28 caches.

I drove back to Borrego Springs, thinking that I might meet up with my friends for dinner, but when I got there they were just getting dinner in El Centro. After dinner, I drove back to Palm Springs for the night.

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Ocotillo Wells SVRA

Since activities began at 7 am, we agreed to get an early start from our motel in Borrego Springs—6 am. We arrived at the meeting place early and were first in line to pick up the CD containing the GPS coordinates. It took us a few minutes to get the .gpx file loaded onto our GPSr, and then we were off. Notably, what we were given appeared on on GPSr as waypoints, not geocaches, which meant we needed to depend on a paper record to record our finds.

Up and down, follow the twisty trail

Given that I was unsure what the 4×4 trails would be like, I elected to ride along—in fact, we split our group of eight into two vehicles. In retrospect, I’m glad I did this. While I’m confident I could have taken the Ridgeline on many of the sandy trails, some of the badlands trails we did were too tough. On a couple of occasions I was anxious as a passenger, let alone as the driver.

Our strategy was to head north clear across the SVRA in order to avoid congestion. This worked, but took us into a badlands area of narrow, twisty washes, and tough, steep climbs out of and into the washes. I think we kind of got lost in the twisty maze, and burned a lot of time driving around without finding any caches.

The pumpkin patch

I finished the day with 44 cache finds.

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Peering down in the slot canyon

The landscape is desolate and rugged. It is heavily eroded, with the washes having near vertical sides a hundred feet high. Ladder canyon (so named because of the 3 or 4 aluminum ladders required to get past the dryfalls) is a true slot canyon, 3 or 4 feet wide at the base. After climbing out at the top of ladder canyon, the trail continues on among the ocotillo until it drops back down into a large dry wash which I followed back to the trailhead.

Since it was mid-afternoon, I headed for Borrego Springs where I intended to meet up with my friends from the Geocachers of the Bay Area (GBA). I pulled over for a break at the service station at the intersection of Highway 86 and S22 and spotted a familiar looking vehicle with a familiar face peering out at me. So I met up with my friends earlier than expected.

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Caches on PCT section C starting at Cottonwood Canyon trailhead

I got to the trailhead later than I intended because it seems I always underestimate how long it will take me to get organized, have breakfast, and drive. It also took me longer to find some of the caches than I estimated. I got close; I could see the Whitewater River and hear the water, but I adhered to my turn-around schedule and made it back to the trailhead just after sundown.

It was a nice day, in the high 70’s, and just a light breeze. The first caches weren’t too difficult, but after cresting the pass and starting down into the Whitewater drainage, a different cacher was hiding the caches and chose to make them more difficult.

Elevation graph: 2500 ft in 13 miles

Back at the motel, I was too tired to invest much energy in finding a restaurant, so I just went to a nearby mom and pop Greek restaurant (Nina’s Pita and Pizza) that only had 3 tables and ordered takeout. The Yelp reviews were good, and my gyros plate was very good.

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My route took me into the dreaded (for me, at least) southland freeway system (the 5, 210, 10), but since I passed through during mid-day, the traffic wasn’t bad. When I got to Redlands I headed south-east on San Timoteo Canyon Road. This route included a short power-caching run with the caches named after auto raceways (start here). Power-caching trails like this are meant to be done by teams, but I wanted to see what it was like. The experience wasn’t enjoyable. The small, country road had a considerable amount of traffic and I could barely get off the road for parking. At times it felt unsafe, so I did a few and skipped a few.

Next, I navigated across Highway 60, intending to pick up a number of caches along the Jack Rabbit Trail. I was immediately put off by a large sign saying it was a private road and trespassers would be subject to arrest. After the fact investigation suggests an over-aggressive landowner, and that it really is an unmaintained county road.

I went on to Sunset Avenue in Banning and found a few as the sun was going down. This was a nice little excursion, worth finding more, but I ran out of daylight.

With that, it was time to head to Palm Springs and check in to the motel, eat, and get ready for a big hiking day tomorrow.