Rattlesnake season arrives

Well, I guess its that time of the year, it's RATTLESNAKE season.  There was a nice little article in this morning's Sacramento Bee this morning that serves as a nice little reminder for me (http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/823340.html).

I must have run into 2-3 rattlesnakes while out geocaching last year, that was 2-3 too many in my eyes.  There was a veteran geocacher last year who got bit (on the hand, I think) by a rattler out by Folsom Lake last year and it was pretty serious, he spent several days in the ICU.  In reading the logs of the geocache where he got bit, the snake came out of nowhere and got him, the snake didn't rattle or anything. Yikes...

I think, in general, geocachers are aware of their surroundings and are careful out there.  BUT, we are also playing this game in snake territory and geocaches are hidden in the very places where snakes live (ie., off the trail, often hidden in spaces beneath rocks, in holes of trees, etc.) so while most geocachers aren't stupid, our chances of being bitten are probably a lot higher than a jogger/biker who stays on the bike trail.  

There are a few things that we can do to avoid encountering snakes: make lots of noise so the snakes aren't surprised or startled, I always take my walking stick (if I'm gonna poke around some rocks, I'm poking w/a stick and not my hand), carry a cell phone, and leave the dogs at home!  With that said, I guess its time for me to give up on all those geocaches out by the river that I've been itching to get and I'll start leaving the dogs at home (they hate walking through those dry stickers anyway!).  I really learned to appreciate geocaching in the winter this past year, even though I often had to put up with a wet trail, its much easier to geocache when you don't have to trudge through dry grass and stickers and have to worry about rattlesnakes.  

This is the time of the year when I guess those "urban" geocaches start being a little more appealing.  Less risk of injury lifting up a lampost skirt, or reaching for a magnetic keyholder or altoid tin under a bench/table! :-)

Be careful out there!

Caching restriction

I decided to put myself on "caching restriction" for a while...well, that's the deal until I get my tax return done. For various reasons, this is the first year I haven't gotten my taxes filed right away after receiving all my W-2, 1099's, etc. The closer it gets to April, the less motivated I am to just get it out of the way, ugh.

Since I've gotten back from Peru, I've been itching to go out hiking because I want to keep it up while I still have the energy. The Sunday after I got back (last week), I took the dogs out to Folsom Lake and hiked a few miles, it felt like it was nothing! I know I will lose all this good conditioning if I don't continue to exercise, but the household chores are sure hanging over my head. So, this afternoon I worked on taxes...yuck! I still need to finish, but at least I've started it...

Machu Picchu

Yay! My first geocache found in a foreign country - Peru! In March 2008, I took the trip of a lifetime (for me, anyways!) to Peru with my cousin. We completed an amazing 4-day hike along the Inca Trail which ended at Machu Picchu. It was a breathtaking place, made all the more special because of the hike.

I took my GPS on the hike mostly to keep track of how far we hiked and thought it would be fun to track our altitude gains. Of course, before leaving, I did my research and found that there was a geocache hidden in Machu Picchu. Actually, there was another geocache in Machu Picchu somewhere, but it had gotten muggled, so I didn't bother looking for that one.

I didn't want to pressure myself to find the cache as I wasn't sure if we would have time to look for it depending on what our schedule was like. The last day of our hike started in the dark at 5am, and we arrived in Machu Picchu at around 8am. Our guide gave us a tour of Machu Picchu for a couple of hours after we arrived and then we had the rest of the day free to explore it on our own before catching the bus to Aguas Calientes where we would be staying for the night. Woohoo, I had time to look for it!

Without any maps loaded on my GPS (Garmin doesn't make maps for South America), I had no idea where it was, but was able to tell how far away it was, in feet. I figured it wouldn't actually be INSIDE of Machu Picchu, but somewhere close. We headed to the entrance and my GPS told me I was closer (~300 feet). As we got to the main entrance, the arrow on my GPS pointed towards a trail of steps going downhill. As I followed the trail, I was definitely getting closer to the cache, although I had to keep climbing down trail quite a bit. Finally, I reached a little hut (see picture) that I remember seeing on the cache description, so I knew I was close. I also remembered seeing a "spoiler" picture on the cache page so I kinda knew what I was looking for. It still took me several minutes to find and was a bit off the trail. But finally I found the "tube" (like a drainage tube) in the spoiler picture and found the cache shortly after that. It was then that I realized I didn't have a pen to sign the log, RATS! I also heard some hikers coming up the trail, so I put the container back in its place rather quickly since I couldn't sign the log anyways.

After I got home, I saw that someone had actually dropped a geocoin in the cache. Darn, I would have taken it if I wasn't so rushed. Bummer...

I was totally stoked that I had found the cache, my first one outside the US. My adrenaline was going when I was climbing down the trail to find it. The climb back up the stairs was hard as my legs were hurting a bit from the past four days of hiking, but I didn't care, it was worth it to find the cache. By the time I reached the top of the trail, the others in our group were there as this was where we would catch the bus to Aguas Calientes, where a hotel and a hot shower were awaiting us. I was sweating like a pig on the bus ride into town, but excited that I had found the geocache!

Tough dog

Well, two days after our long hike, Zuleika is showing no signs of a limp, phew!  I kept her quiet all day, well most of the day, she got to play with Skipper and Hope in the morning when Skipper's puppy raiser came to pick up her pet dog Maddy who I was watching for the week while she was on vacation.  She's a tough dog, no signs of any permanent damage from all that hiking.  The bad part is that I'm going to have to hike that hill again to get that other cache I wanted. The cache is part of the Snookered series where you have to find something like 60 caches in order to get the coordinates for finding the final cache.  I was thinking it would be fun to get that one for my 1,000th find.  It may have to wait til next year...there's no way I'm going to do that hike when the weather starts getting warmer.

Don't tell Zucchini, but I took Hope to Folsom Lake in the afternoon after finishing up some chores.  I had actually scoped out a place to hide a cache, but drats, it was too close to another cache that is already hidden.  One of the rules of geocaching.com is that a cache can't hidden closer than .10 miles of another cache.  Rats!  We only hiked a couple of miles yesterday, because actually my ankles were still sore from walking on that rocky trail on Saturday.

Benchmark

I forgot to add in my last post that we also passed up a "benchmark" today. These are geological survey markers that are everywhere. I'm not exactly sure what they are used for, but some of them you can log on the geocaching website. I've run into a few of these while out geocaching, but never expected to see one out here! Unfortunately, I was unable to find this on the geocaching website so I couldn't log it.

10 miles for a cache?

Well, I only found one geocache today, but boy did we (as in me and Zuleika) ever work for this one! This one was called "The Outing of Patrick Star" (GC189K3), it is what is called a Mystery Cache. You have to solve a puzzle in order to get the coordinates to where the cache is located. This one involved answering some questions about Patrick Star from the Spongebob cartoon series in order to get the coordinates. The frustrating thing about these types of caches are that you solve the puzzle and figure out the wrong coordinates and you never find the cache...I would have been disappointed if I couldn't find this one! This cache was rated 3.5/4.5; meaning 3.5 out of 5 for difficulty and 4.5 out of 5 for terrain. I certainly agree with the terrain rating, it was a long, uphill hike to the top of a hill, Flagstaff Hill, according to the topo map on my GPS. This was in the Salmon Falls area; this week there were no cows/bulls blocking our way. This was up the trail where we wanted to go a few weeks ago.

Here's a pic of Z near the start of the trail:

About halfway there! This was before the trail got really rocky and steep. I let Zucchini off leash for most of the hike up/down the hill as nobody was around. She actually managed to stay right next to me or behind me; I thought for sure the little wigglebutt would go running off, but she behaved herself the whole time and didn't run off even once. I was very proud of her.
Here's a pic of Z with the cache itself....as you can see, it had Patrick Star themed stuff in it. Zucchini thought we found a container of dog toys!

There was one other cache I wanted to look for today which was only(!) 1/2 mile further at the top of the hill from the one we found; well that 1/2 mile was steep and rocky. This was a multi-cache, meaning it had a few stages that gave you coordinates to the next stage, before you could find the final cache. I found the first stage, but Zucchini kept holding her front paw up in the air when we stopped. I looked at it and didn't see any cuts or anything and pressed it all over and she didn't seem bothered, but she was definitely limping the more we walked. Since we were already 5 miles out on top of the hill, I figured it was best to get us back down the hill before she got any worse. Heck, even my feet are killing me, most of the trail was really broken up rock so you really had to walk carefully or else you could easily twist an ankle or something. This was what the view was like from the top of the hill, you could actually see Folsom Lake on one side, the river on the other.

According to my GPS, we hiked a total of 10.1 miles in 4 hours 29 minutes, climbed a total of 1,860 feet to a maximum elevation of 1,398. Whew, its no wonder I'm tired and Zucchini was limping! That terrain rating of 4.5 was certainly earned. Here's a picture of Zucchini with the hill we climbed behind her with still another mile to go before we got to the car. She's holding up her right paw, but still managing to smile anyway!
Her paw seems to be ok tonight...I put her in the crate to nap when we got home (because Hope was trying to play with her, poor girl didn't get a walk today!) and she's no longer holding it up like she was doing out there today. I left the crate door open for her (she likes to nap in it) and she hasn't moved, so hopefully she will be ok tomorrow. Heck, the way my feet feel tonight, I can't blame her for limping...walking on that rough trail was tough on my feet and I had hiking boots on!