TheLoneGrangers Top Ten Geocaches numbers 5-10

        Everyone has favorites whether you have found 100 geocaches or 10,000.  I bet most of you could pick out your 10 favorite caches.  I share the TheLoneGrangers name with my better half, Beth...and although we have found almost 1400 caches to date, this list reflects my top ten favorites, although I'm sure it will change in the future as we continue to find amazing geocaches and locations.  From climbing desert mountains, to parking lot caches, to finding geocaches on the beaches of the Outer Banks, NC, I've come to realize, most of my favorites are traditional caches.  I've already shared one of my favorite geocaches with you The Narrows, but where is it on my top ten list?  It's time to find out.

         We need to start somewhere, so we will start at the bottom of the list with number 10.  Dawn of Aviation is a virtual cache located at the Wright Brothers National Memorial Park, on the Outer Banks. It was placed in December 2002 and has 145 favorites.  Naturally being in the Air Force as an aircraft maintainer this was a special place for me.  Orville and Wilbur changed the world forever.  We discovered this place on our second trip to OBX, and had a great time!

"They taught us to fly"

Markers

My jeep...I mean monument

The rest of our weekend...

          Number 9 on the list, Not From I-40 And Not From The BRP.  What's not to like about this traditional cache?  Hidden in March of 2009 with only 2 favorite points near Ashville, NC?  Security cameras, razor wire fences, electric gates with finger print/key pad access.  Unmarked white sedans entering and exiting from a dirt road that goes under a railroad?  This cache was awesome!  Talk about a little creepy, I was expected to get surrounded by agents in suits and automatic rifles at any second.  Luckily this cache was in a good hiding spot as I wasn't detected.  Or was I?  Satellite images do not reveal a whole lot, so don't bother I already looked.  Sorry no pictures, I didn't want to get arrested and interrogated...

          Number 8 on my list, LPC? which is archived now, but was located on a abandoned shopping center building in Camden, SC.  It was placed in January 2011, it had 9 favorites.  We were not expecting to find such a clever container in this run down shopping center, and quite frankly it was a little spooky here.  Ground zero had us two feet away from this brick building, and the only thing near was a old beat up lamp attached to the building...it looked genuine, but I unscrewed the light bulb anyway, and there it was, a fake light bulb with the log in the center.  Very clever.  This is the only one like this we have found to date. Sorry no pictures for this one...
      
          From historic significance to government conspiracies to parking lot caches, number 7 on my list is none of the above.  Fission around the Bend is a very clever geocache.  On our way to find another one of my favorites, The Narrows we had to make a slight detour in Spartenburg, South Carolina to locate this very awesome cache.  Unfortunately, we were the last group to find this cache, someone has muggled this one, and we can only hope the owner can replace it.  This cache placed in March of 2009 has 99 favorites and is one of the top favorited geocaches in South Carolina.  I will not give away any details, you will have to make the trip for yourself to find it. No pictures to share here either...

           Number 6 on my list and near 7000ft, Dome Rock is the highest cache we have found together.  It is located in Sequoia National Forest in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.  Dome Rock was hidden in August of 2001 and with only 76 finds I am surprised it only has 4 favorite points.  There is nothing special about the container, your typical container, but this place is stunning.  At 400' high and 800' across, Dome Rock is a favorite for mountain climbers.  We were also lucky enough to nap a FTF on a cache that was placed 8 months prior to us finding it! I'm guessing the winter had something to do with that!  The road is suggested for high clearance vehicles only, but we got our rental car to the parking location, we only scrapped the bottom a couple times!  Oh and please DO NOT throw anything over the side!

View near cache site

Me and My Mom near GZ

The better half of TheLoneGrangers

Not my photo but had to share

           Half way there! And number 5 on my list gets two spots! So technically you could call this my top 11 list, but considering these both required a canoe to retrieve they both share the number 5 spot.  What better weekend adventure you and your wife could have in the middle of a South Carolina August? Paddle a canoe on a three mile canoe trail through a wasp invested swamp, oh and with alligators too!  Lost In The Swamp III is just that, a three mile round trip paddle in Goodale State Park near Camden, SC.  If you want to come back drenched in sweat then this cache is for you! Or, just don't attempt in August, unless you want to punish yourself.  But really we had a blast, and a first time in a canoe for both of us!

Headed in...

Somewhere...Lost in the Swamp

Paddling in..

Near Ground Zero

        Number 5 part 2,  Island Break took a buddy and me on a 3 day, 54 mile trip down the Wateree River, we found 15 geocaches, 2 FTFs and placed 6 caches on this trip.  Why is this cache so memorable?  It was the first cache we found after tipping and almost sinking the canoe on the rapids just before this cache. Oh! You have to climb up a cliff wall and up a tree to get to this one!  Causalities on this trip: One wedding ring, a 400 dollar camera, and a muddy angry wife! A future blog post? Most Definitely.  Yeah...I destroyed my camera.

           Now that you've seen my favorite geocaches 5-10, you will have to check back sometime in the near future when I write about my top 4 favorites, and they are good ones! If you've enjoyed my story don't forget to follow me or share this post with your geocaching friends. 'Til next time...

OBX

Thanks to Geocaching...

           Thanks to Geocaching...I have a lot more hobby's to go along with the main obsession!  Not only have I found a hobby the better half and I enjoy doing together,  I have done some drastic things since we started caching.  All of which, I could write up it's own story here.  Which I will in the future! We started caching in October of 2010, and I had to get a different geomobile, so in February I traded in one sweet ride, for another sweet ride:

 

I traded in this:

For this:

 



             I've found a cache that required the exploration of some storm drains,  I've found a bunch of geocaches that required a overnight kayaking trip.  I've climbed a couple mountains, for a geocache, and hiked 15 miles on a overnight backpacking trip in the Smoky Mountains... for a virtual! 

 

             What has geocaching done for you? Already the outdoor type? Or have you gone through drastic changes like I have?  Feel free to comment below and share my blog! Thank you.

The Narrows

           If someone asked me what my favorite geocache was, I would be hard pressed for an answer.  We have found so many amazing caches, either the container itself, or the location, or the challenge to reach the cache, or any combination of the three.  It is very hard to determine what my favorite geocache is.  The Narrows a traditional 4 difficulty 4.5 terrain cache in the mountains of North Carolina definitely makes my list of top five caches, perhaps even top three.  Out of 41 finds since it was hidden in February of 2007 it has 18 favorite points.  This geocache isn't for everyone as the return trip is very tough!

           On Sept 15th 2012, some of my geocaching friends IkeHurley13, SCGeoNinja, and Team Benak, wanted to take me on a epic geocache hunt before I left on my deployment, and they didn't disappoint.  We left around 6 am from Columbia, South Carolina to start our 90 minute or so drive.  We had some geocaches to find along the way as SCGeoNinja, wanted to make The Narrows his 4500th find.  We arrived to the trail head around 915am, and so it began.

The Start

Trail

More Trail

Creek Crossing

 

           The hike in is not terrible, its relatively flat, with a couple of climbs but nothing to serious.  There is even a creek crossing on the way in.  I was feeling it today, and was lagging behind the whole time.  Word of advice: do not stay up late at Buffalo Wild Wings the night before.  Needless to say I would pay for it today.   Once we arrived at the turn to head down, you can only catch a glimpse of what is in store for you.  You can hear the sound of the water crashing on the rocks below and you barely can see through the trees what you are about to witness.  There is a price however, it includes a 300-500 foot (purely a educated guess) rope/root assisted decent down the side of the mountain.

Going Down

and Down

Down was Easy

           Once we arrived at the bottom, we were awestruck.  It was simply amazing, and we haven't even seen nothing yet! We stopped and ate lunch, roughly 700 feet from ground zero.  We stayed here awhile taking in the raw beauty of this place, and the stunning power of nature.  Once we were refueled, it was time to get to the cache, it required some minor bouldering to get to the cache, although some of these pictures required some not-so-minor-but-not-to-difficult bouldering to get into position for some good shots.  It didn't take long to find the well hidden ammo can, and we quickly signed our names and dropped some trackables.

Time to Eat

Views Near Lunch

Views Near Lunch

Views Near Lunch

Headed Towards the Cache

Close Up

           The geocache was only icing on the cake for this adventure.  We encountered some extreme kayakers hitting The Gorilla as they call it, and even got to chat with them as they portaged around the logs and rocks.  It was hard to leave this place.  Probably because we knew we had to CLIMB out of here!  This is when it got hard!  Pictures do not give it justice.  But I made it back to the geovehicle around 2pm, the last cache of the day.  If it wasn't for this crazy hobby of ours I would have never seen this place.  A big thank you to my geofriends for taking me on this adventure.

The Gorilla

One Crazy Kayaker

Going Up!

 

 

 

More Going Up!

Thanks for visiting



Geocaching on Deployment

       On October 10th, 2012 I left for my six month deployment to Afghanistan.  The only enjoyable thing out of this deployment was the opportunity to find some geocaches in other countries.  On October 11th, I did just that.  On a small air base in Manas, Kyrgyzstan I was able to log five caches.  Kyrgyzstan was part of the Soviet Union during the cold war days and today Manas serves as a transition point into Afghanistan.

        Another member from my unit  also geocaches, so after a 12+ hour flight we found our first cache.  Customs Corner is located on the edge of the compound, it was dark, and it was obvious security forces patrol this area, it was also obvious that we probably shouldn't be here!  I am glad we found this one in a hurry as it may have been tough trying to explain to security forces what we were doing back there.  We got lucky, a micro, in a wooded area, at night...not my favorite style by any means!  We did have to hide from some other service members working nearby.  Talk about getting your adrenaline pumping.

        After four hours of sleep, we woke up an hour before sunrise, we didn't have much time as our plane was leaving in six hours and had to find as many of the 13 caches here as we could find.  We took off for the running/biking trails that are on the airfield.  Lots of dirt trails in a undeveloped area, beautiful birch trees beginning to turn orange and yellow.  There was nothing special about these caches, other than 7400 miles from home! Except for one, WESTSIDE: Off the Beaten Path is on the outskirts of the installation, and we felt we really shouldn't be out this far....so wearing reflective PT gear we bushwhacked a good .2 miles to get to this cache...no security forces in sight.  Bingo! We signed the log book and headed back as fast as possible.

       A couple hours later we are on a C-17 headed to Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan.  Geocaches to find: ONE!  Yes one! SArges Fortress of solitude While places like Bagram Air Base has 40+ caches, I have 6 months to find one stinkin' cache!  Something about operational security is why there isn't any more here or why I can't place any new ones.   I found that single cache after 3 weeks and 3 tries later, with help from other finders by email.  I finally found it and signed the log book, dropped off some travel bugs, and dipped some others.

       So here I am, its January 2013, I have 4 months remaining.  What will I ever do?  I will write about my adventures!  I hope you enjoy my stories.  I will be updating this blog regularly.  Thank you for visiting.