Geocaching - 8/11/10

The other night, we (my mom, dad and I) decided we would try to go cache hunting at night.  With flashlights in hand, we packed into the car and left.  By the time we made it to Red Rock, the sun had already begun to go down.  We found our first cache off the trail, in the opposite direction, but it didn't take too long.  Inside the first cache was my first geocoin! A geocoin is a coin that travels from cache to cache. After the first cache we walked back to the street and onto the trail.  After some confusion as to where we should begin, we finally started hiking into the sunset.  Before we even made it to the first of hopefully seven caches, it had already become dark.  We continued on into the dark with our flashlights, not looking back.  The first cache seemed to be down a hill that my parents couldn't get down, so I headed out alone down the hill well they followed my steps with the help of their flashlight.  After a good 10 minute hike down the hill, I made it to the bottom and it was another 10 minutes before I was near the cache.  By this time, I could hardly see anything even with the help of my light.  Once I was within 5 feet of the cache I began looking quickly because it was very creepy being so far into the mountains alone.  After finding the cache I opened it up and found another geocoin!  I quickly placed the coin in my pocket, signed the log, and headed back for mom and dad.  Once I regrouped with them, we continued our hike in the darkness.

Found my first Geocoin!

The next cache led us to a hill going straight down into some woods, yet again.  This time we all went but mom and dad left their backpack so we had to make sure to come back to this exact spot to retrieve their backpack.  Once down the hill, we were met with a wall of trees, twigs, and pokey objects.  Dad got the worst of this, with both of his legs being covered in scratches and bruises from the punishment mother nature gave us.  After a long, confusing hike in the dark, we located another cache!  Again, I quickly signed the log and left some swag, so we could leave and get back to the other backpack as soon as possible.  Thanks to my handy-dandy GPSr, we were able to locate the backpack because I marked the coordinates of its location.  After we all made it up the hill to the backpack through the bunches of trees and burrs, we took a break for five minutes, and then continued on.

The next two caches we found were  not in anywhere near the first two thankfully, so we had an easier time getting to them.  By this time it was completely dark, if our flashlights had died we would have been left in the middle of Red Rock not knowing where to go.  After we had found 5 of the 8 caches, dad called it quits and we headed back to the road..or so we thought we were.  Instead of going back to our original starting point, we walked in the wrong direction, two or three miles away from where we should have been.  After correcting our mistake we headed towards the road, and came out at the wrong spot, but we were happy walking down the street to our car rather than through the wilderness getting scared and injured every second.

Could hardly see this cache, without a light, it was impossible.

We made it back to the car after 4 1/2 hours of hiking.  We only found 5 of the 8 wanted caches, but that was enough.  We learned from this, that it is best to hike and go caching during the day, because the darkness adds a whole new level of difficulty we were not ready for.