ADVENTURES IN CACHING

One Cache Loop (with Four Stops)

Sam Houston National Forest

Montgomery, Texas

On the Houston Geocaching Society Forums, the owner of a cache called One Cache Loop (with four stops) announced that he was planning on visiting his cache to do some maintenance, and asked if anyone was interested in coming along. This cache, like its predecessor, the Four Cache Loop, which I have written about, is best done with company. If you remember (or read), the Four Cache Loop is close to a twelve mile hike (with the stops for additional caches along the trail) in the forests near New Waverly. The hike to this cache, the One Cache Loop, is approximately seven miles long.

In both caches, one has to find three different redirectors (like the decon container pictured on right) at waypoints within the forest to be able to get to the final location, at which awaits an ammo box filled with fun stuff. The reward at the end of this journey is a pathtag, which is a little collectable (untrackable on gc.com) coin that many geocachers like to collect. There is also the intangible reward of accomplishing the hike and making all the finds.

I saw the posting on the forums and was undecided on going, until my friend Elisa, aka "Georeynozos", wrote me personally inviting me along. She even offered to pick me up. It is close to an hour drive out to the parking area for the beginning of the journey. This time, I did not get lost. In fact, I showed Elisa a shortcut on how to get out there. The parking area is not far from where my best friend J lives (and now that I know there are more caches out this way, you better bet I'll be dragging J out there with me).

Elisa sweetly even bought me breakfast, and we had a nice little drive out to the parking area, where we met up with GGMorton, Kirbydox, Fendmar, Eric of FiskFamily5, and eventually the cache owner and his wife. It was a brisk Texas winter morning, with the temperature around thirty five degrees at 9:30 ish when we all started to collect in the parking lot. We took a group shot before heading out along the trail, which was marked with colored metal tags. During the hike, we changed trails once, and briefly went along another color, so the color of the tags was important to us.

There are 128 miles of trails in the Lone Star Trail System. The loop we followed is known as the Richards Loop to hikers. Part of it was the Little Lake Creek Loop, and the picture of the White Jeep on the top of this entry is from what I assume is the "little lake". It is a good stop for a brief break.

During the hiking of the Four Cache Loop, I had felt a little "out of the loop" so to speak about how we knew where we were going. I didn't understand how to follow the trail markers or guide myself from waypoint to waypoint very well. This time, I decided I was going to make sure I understood it all, so I led the party to the first waypoint. I looked for the markers during the hike, and tried to find every redirector myself, instead of blindly following the others and letting them lead.

I had lots of energy for about the first half of the hike. I talked with the cachers as we walked, although to the first waypoint, we were almost hiking just fast enough to not be able to talk as much. During the hike, I learned that Larry, aka "HoustonControl", set up the cache in the opposite order as the Four Cache Loop in terms of how the redirectors were placed. In each of the two caches, one of the waypoints is up on a tree that has to be climbed by the use of pegs. Fendmar climbed that tree for us. Another redirector is placed so that it has to be lowered with the use of a rope, and another is simply hidden in/on a tree.

The terrain was somewhat varied, although not as much as the 4CL. There were three water crossings, compared to the, I don't know, 30 of so on the 4CL. I forgot my hiking stick and Elisa let me borrow one, which was greatly helpful in keeping a pace and my balance. This picture on the right is one of the water crossings. Elisa, who is known for falling down when caching, only fell down one time, which I totally missed and perhaps they were only teasing her about that after all.

We saw no wild animals, although we saw scat from a carnivore, possibly wild hog, and deer and horse. Even though the signs along the way marked the trail as off limits to horses (and cars, which we thought was funny, the idea someone might try that), we did see two sets of trail riders when we made it back to the parking lot. I think some of the trails are for equestrians and some are for hikers, but horses had gone our way before us for sure, although some time in the past.

In the end, I decided that long hikes like this are a bit like sex. It always starts out as something that seems like a good idea and exactly what you wanted, but by the end of it, I am just ready to get it over and done with. The last mile was probably the least enjoyable. By then, the spot on my toe that bothers me on long walks was just starting to hurt, and I was just about done with the scenery.

I did end up leaving one of my coveted White Jeeps in the final. I thought it would make a fun thing for someone else to find, a great reward for making the long trek. Also, having that awesome icon next to the cache name is a good lure for some folks like me who love that kind of stuff, and will go find caches just to be able to move that Jeep themselves.

I kind of got caught up at the final. I had this idea that I could make it out of the brush and back to the trail a different way than the rest of the group took. Halfway in, I realized they were getting further away, and frantically I went back the direction they were instead of the way I was going. It is hard to explain what I did, but I still think my way would have hit the trail later, only I didn't want to chance it. This little adventure of mine put me way behind the others at the end, and although I was the first one out the gate, I was the last one to go back through it.

When I got home later and posted on Facebook where I had been, some non-geocaching friends expressed an interest in going hiking. I am going to plan an all-inclusive hike for people like me and my friends, who just want to get out and get some exercise, enjoying nature while doing so.

This next time, though, I am thinking about keeping it to around five miles. I think that sounds better!

I had a really nice time with this group. Eight is a perfect number for a hike like this. We made the whole trek in about three hours. At the end, Kirbydox pulled out a wonderful snack she had prepared for us all of toasted english muffins with chicken salad (with cranberries, golden raisins, and celery) and chips. It was really awesome of her, above and beyond. I also got to catch up with Elisa on the ride there and back, and somewhat along the trail as well. My friends I have met through this activity are just really good and interesting people.

Here is us at the end, just after finding the ammo can. Happiness is only a quarter of a mile away now (the end of the hike, our cars, and refreshments!).

ADVENTURES IN CACHING
FOUR CACHE LOOP
Sam Houston National Forest
New Waverly, Texas
It was a brisk fall Saturday. I rose before the sunrise and was on my way shortly after six to meet with some friends from the Houston Geocaching Society (HGCS) Forums. We had planned a group run at a cache called Four Cache Loop, a four part multi in the Sam Houston National Forest that required a ten mile hike through the woods.
In geocacing speak, we would say, "and all that for one smiley!" When we log our finds online, there is a smiley next to our "found it" logs. Some smileys are easier to obtain that others. This one was reputed to be the most difficult smiley to obtain in the greater Houston area (albeit pretty far from Houston itself). Last year, it was voted "Most Physically Challenging" and "Best Multi-Cache" in the Cacher's Choice aspect of HGCS's first Annual Geocaching Awards. It is a rite of passage for cachers in this area, an epic find that is best done with a group. Upon completing the journey, the final waypoint includes patches that say "I Conquered Four Cache Loop".
Once I left the house, I had a "duh" moment when I realized I was leaving two hours before the meeting time, to get to a place that was an hour away. I decided I would just get there early and sleep until the rest of the group got there, but as it turns out, I needed that extra time because I got lost. I took a very odd way there, basically chucking out the directions I had in order to go "the scenic route", which ended with me getting lost on the backroads of New Waverly. I was fine with it, really, because it gave me time to drive around the farmlands of this tiny town and try to imagine where William Burroughs lived during his time here. Burroughs was a "Beat", a friend of Jack Kerouac's, and his family had purchased a farm out here to keep him out of trouble. As it turns out, he turned it into a marijuana farm and his wife was addicted to Benzedrine during this time, so I am not sure it turned out the way his family wanted. I try to imagine Burroughs, always dressed finely in his nice suit, out here tilling the earth and blending in with the farmers at the feed store.
Finally I ended up at the dirt road that lead to the Hunter's Camp parking area, and got there at the exact time we were due to meet, meeting one carload of three by about fifteen minutes.
Our group this morning consisted of seven people, five men and two women. One was a cacher, HoustonControl, who had done this cache before, three times. He acted as our guide, and kept us on the trail, marked by little tags on the trees.
Originally, we had wanted to do this hike during October, before hunting season started, but the forest was closed due to damage by Hurricane Ike. As we hiked, we saw evidence of Ike's damage in uprooted trees and fallen logs that had been cut and moved off the trail. The trail itself was not that easily visible, and a few times we found ourselves looking for markers because the trail itself was unclear.
One of the hazards of the trail were the many water crossings. We probably crossed creeks about thirty times during the course of our hike, and joked about what number we were probably on in the later ones. I didn't get my shoes wet, nor did I fall down during any of this, and I am pretty proud about that because there were times I thought I might do either.
I did trip a lot, and stumble over sticks and roots in the path. I have about three scratches on my legs now, midway up, from branches that broke under my feet and came back up and grabbed my legs. My long pants seemed to be catching on everything.
It was about 45 degrees when we started, and as the sun rose, it might have gotten into the seventies. It was a nice cool day, which helped about halfway through when our sweat just lifted off of us. The first waypoint wasn't too hard to get to, even though it is off the trail aways. It would have been hard to find this one on my own. I got to open it because I was on the right side of the creek. I read the next set of coordinates off the laminated card for the others to input into their GPS unit.
I was really impressed with the unit Freysman carried. It was a Garmin Nuvi, a driving unit to mount on your console, but also portable and accurate on the trail He said that the only drawback he found was that the battery has to recharged, not replaced, and the life seems to be only about five and a half hours. That is how long our hike took, and he mentioned that he was wondering if it would make it the whole way, so he was turning it off when he could. I forgot to ask him when we finished if it was still running or not.
The pace early on was medium to fast, with Sky Rookie primarily leading the group. We were all able to talk with a minimal amount of exertion on this part of the journey. Midway through the trip to the second waypoint, I was begining to feel how long this journey would be. HoustonControl (Larry) said something like "It's only two miles," and I felt relieved actually we had gone that far, only then to feel disheartened by him finish with, "to the next waypoint."
The second waypoint was a quick dash and grab, with SkyRookie doing the honors this time. A hunter was walking down our trail, and had stopped to talk to Larry, who was standing at the edge of the trail waiting for us to come back. I walked over and was intrigued by the man's compound bow. He was telling Larry to make sure we were wearing lots of "hunter orange", because he didn't trust "those yo-hos from Houston". We chuckled about this later.
We had our GPS units re-set for the third waypoint now, 1.92 miles away. There was little talking and a fast pace now. I starting stumbling more than usual now, and reached into my pack as we walked for a snack and some water. Once my blood sugar started coming back up, I was able to be less clumsy.
We stopped about 0.40 from the third waypoint for lunch. Before we ate, though the six of us that had not been on this journey before had to walk 0.30 mile down the trail to find the final waypoint of a puzzle cache called D.B. Cooper Jr. The cache itself was great. If you know the story of D.B. Cooper, just think about how it probably ended....and you get the picture.
We sat down in the middle of the old dirt road and ate our lunch. Freysman had an MRE he was excited about, which got us on the subject of Hurricane Ike. HoustonControl talked about a WhereIGo cache he was working on developing.
After lunch, we shortly reached the third waypoint. During our half day journey, we all discussed various geocaches, found and unfound, puzzles we were having a hard time with, waypoints to multis that had stumped us. We picked each other's brains about equipment and hints to solving projections and puzzles. Voodoo Chicken and I talked about the strugggle for women to keep their identity when they become mothers. Larry told us stories of entertaining himself while growing up in an isolated rural area. We got to know each other's history, little bits like where people went to school and what they studied, heard their lost dreams. Freysman, I'll always think of you as the monk on the mountain ;)
After the third waypoint was found, read, and the final coords loaded into our units, we were off again for this last 1.26 miles (I think) stretch. We were hoofing it pretty fast and finally HoustonControl asked SkyRookie to stop for a few and let us take a break. I was walking in the rear of the line now, with (Mr) MTCachers and freysman, whose leg was giving him some trouble. VoodooChicken walked with us until we reached the waypoints, when she gleefully ran ahead to try to beat Sky Rookie to the find. HoustonControl rotated between bringing up the rear, riding it out on the middle, or loping along in front with Sky Rookie, with JimJoCourt on his heels. It was a good group to be with.
Finally we found the fourth and final waypoint, at which lay an ammo can with some Jeep travel bugs, another regular travel bug, the patches, and some swag and pins. We all signed the logbook and took this group photo. Great fun!
In the end, it turns out the whole loop plus the side journey to DB Cooper brings it to an 11.5 mile hike through varied terrain. The parking lot was only about 0.30 miles from the final, which was about the worse part of the journey for me. I had a blister on my toe and the back of my heel, and was bringing up the rear by that point.
I actually managed to do another geocache on the way home that was about 500 painful feet from the car, and then meet some old friends for a late lunch. But boy was I sore that night!

GHOST HUNTING in AMERICA

Spring Texas

My friends were interested in haunted places, and asked if I would plan something that involved a little supernatural. They knew that I, (as a geocacher), know where all the haunted graveyards are.

One of the girls had gone with me before to find "Ectoman" off FM 1960, but we weren't too successful. This time we headed out to Tomball, Texas, and Salem Lutheran Cemetary. We were headed to try to make contact with "Mike". For good footage of Mike, go here:http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/01/ghost/video.html.

Walking in to the graveyard, I got chills. I am usually not scared of graveyards but I had a little of the spook in me here. I was headed straight for the back of the cemetary, where the geocache hidden there was supposed to be hidden. Becky was walking near me, and Lara and Jinny were scouting good recording sites. We started moving past a tree and I was suddenly very cold, then I heard a squeak. Becky says, "Be careful around that tree, those are bats".

She didn't even need to tell me because I really didn't want to get close to there. It was creeping me out.

We established that the tree the geocache was in was cut down recently, probably a victim of Ike. It made a good place to rest Lara's laptop and recording equipment for a while. Jinny and Becky went close to the bat tree, recordng, and then got really freaked out about something and came swiftly back. Lara recorded them talking about their experience, which I will post when she sends it to me.

In all the pictures I took, there is this "orb" right behind Lara. We had an period of recording near a "hot spot" that Becky found, and her cell phone had gone off strangely when she walked into it. There wasn't a ton of supernatural activity, though. After about an hour of recording audio, video, and digital camera footage, we had a spotlight on us. The cops had shown up, which probably should have been anticipated with the dog barking at us the whole time. He didn't seem too concerned with us, but also did need us to wrap it up and leave.

After this, we had to formulate the rest of our plan. We were still into what we were doing, but didn't want to attract any more police attention.

We headed to Bonin Cemetary in Spring, near The Woodlands, off Gosling Road. Now, there was no reported ghost activity, that we were aware of here, and truly nobody seemed to have much of a feeling here. However, the recording activity was higher on some equipment. Jinny told a ghost story for the camcorder again.

I was quietly freaking out about the neighbors. That was the scariest part of this cemetary to me. Their house was right next to the cemetary and the TV was playing. Lara and Becky went up to ask them permission to record, and no one answered the door. The door, however, was cracked open. Jinny and Lara then went to ask another neighbor, whom they kind of knew, while I recorded with the camcorder. During this time, the cracked door opened almost all the way. Door wide open, TV on, and no one seen. I kept imagining them coming out with a gun, or sneaking up on us. The weirdness in people is scarier to me than ghosts or vampires are.

After this, we met up with some of the spouses of the girls in our group at a restaurant for a late dinner and coffee, then went back out to explore Old Town Spring. This area is supposed to be haunted in several locations. There is even a "Ghost Tour" that takes you on an hour and a half stroll through these areas. We did our own mini-tour, the six of us, with Jinny as the leader. She took us to Doering Court, where a ghost named Sarah inhabits this window and plays with Beanie Babies at night. We walked over to the Wunsche Bros. Cafe, where we saw only a person moving around in the second floor. We decided it was a real person, and it seemed like a couple of places around had real people in them. We stopped at Puffabelly’s Depot, where we recorded a bunch of these orbs dancing with Becky. This was the spot with the most action this night.

We had Old Town Spring all to ourselves this night, just the six of us strolling down the darkened lanes,by cute little shops, looking into the windows. We ended our tour at Whitehall, which is a now a bridal shoppe and hosts weddings. There was something spooky and yet charming about this house, which has gone through several stages in the past. In the sign in the picture, it states that in the sixties, it was even a hippie commune!

It was a great night, with no amazing pyrotechnics or ghosts frights, but a good time with girlfriends having fun. Who knows what the recordings might reveal?

Oh, and by the way, the picture at the top - lights inside a wedding dress at Whitehall gives an ethereal touch.