The time has come, and the Geocaching Road Trip '15 has started. The first of the souvenirs launched on Friday June 19th, and the mission theme was "Fun with Favorites"! I actually really enjoy the different things that geocaching.com has planned as the goals to earn the various souvenirs that they are offering. Last year's "7 Souvenirs of August" was a big step in the right direction after the the previous "31 day of August" by offering a smaller amount of souvenirs with one that is a special reward for completing the collection.
The Road Trip '15 plays on the same theme, however they only become available on specific dates throughout the summer but are collectible after that date right up until September 2nd. That in it's own is a huge improvement in that we have more time to get the reward instead of a single day like the past two years.
The dates and categories that are included in this challenge are as follows:
Jun 19 - Sept 02 - Find a geocache with 10+ favorite points
July 03 - Sept 02 - Attend a geocaching event
July 17 - Sept 02 - Find a D5 or T5 cache
July 31 - Sept 02 - Find an Earthcache or attend a CITO
Aug 14 - Sept 02 - Find a mystery cache
Aug 14 - Sept 02 - (Special Reward) Collect all other Souvenirs before Sept 2nd
As I said the first of them went live with "Fun with Favorites". And this particular souvenir gave me
an excellent reason to go after a particular mystery cache that I had solved 2 years ago. I know that there is the one in August for mystery caches, but I have a small surplus of solved mysteries that I can call upon for that one. But as I said this one gave me a reason as it had 10 favorite points to qualify for the reward.
We had what I would call an epic day going after this cache, and due to that I wrote a lengthy log already on geocaching.com! I figure instead of writing it all out again I could just share the log here.
So here is my log for "For Valour - GC1N6J8":
"Well now, what an epic 2 years in the making.
I remember solving this in the spring of 2013 and getting my confirmation email from ikster in May of that same year (so technically still spring). Over the last two years I have planned to go for this with quite a few people, but nothing ever came of it ever. However this year (spring) I was talking with a few people and formed a tentative group with the A Team & G Force.
While planing a tentative date to go geocaching.com presented the Geocaching 15 Road Trip and announced that there would be a souvenir for finding a cache with 10 favorite points. Well this cache has 10 favs, so we planned to go the day after the souvenir went live and kick off this Geocaching 15 Road Trip with a bang! Getting closer to the date I found us another solver to join our merry band of cachers, and so Tadrew joined the team.
On the day of the trek we made the walk to the cache nice and easy, and armed with reading a lot of the previous finders logs we felt confident we knew what we were in for. Boy were we wrong!!
We spied what we thought might be the spot via images from the website, but we just were not sure so we relied on a PAF to our caching friends Stellalabella. She confirmed our worst fears, and so we gave it a valiant try. However the A team didn't quite feel comfortable with the location after making a very scary crossing. Tadrew who stayed behind with her dog Sunnie explored a bit back down the
When we all made it safely back to the trail Tadrew pointed out her proposed location, and sure enough all our GPSr's pointed in same direction. We had made a bad choice, and wait, what is that, OH MY LORD, the cache was visible from our vantage point!!! Mrs GO Team and I started to head over, but my knee started to misbehave (I have a diagnosed problem) and I had to back out. So Mrs GO Team, A Team, and G Force continued forward.
Well I tell ya, I have one brave little wife! She decided to give the attempt all on her own, and up and over she went with a little assistance from G Force. A Team decided to attempt the climb to the cache too, and that is when the scariest moment in my caching career happened.... A TEAM FELL!! A yelp of disbelief came from group, and him tumbling down played in our eyes in slow motion. And when his fall came to an end, he got back up and exclaimed he was ok!
Mrs GO Team quickly finished with the log signing and slowly made her way back down the cliff, and was safely assisted by A Team & G Force to steady ground. They slowly made their way back to the main trail, and when they returned my wife being the nurse she is gave A Team a look over. He really was ok, and only sustained a few scrapes. However I am sure he will have a bit of bruising and will be a bit sore tomorrow!
After a round of high-fives we started our return trek and grabbed a few more caches along the way!
Thanks ikster for the fun mystery and for the epic adventure!!!!
Find number: 5400
SL TFTC!!"
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Our weekend didn't end there however. There was another cache I had planned to do that was a rare 1D/4.5T rating. While this one too was a cache with 10 favorite points, it was a back up in case the day before was a bust. But since it wasn't a bust it was going to be another amazing adventure with even more people who were relying on a cool cache for the souvenir.
The cache planned was "Stairway to Nowhere - GC1ZP2F", and it is really only approachable by boat. So naturally it took a little extra planning. Like the cache the day before I wrote a lengthy found it log on the cache page, so instead of writing it all out again I will just share it here:
"What a great adventure!
We found this with WestCoastNavigator (WCN), A Team, G Force, Tadrew, Neltra, Poarchlizard, and SoobaxM on this beautiful Father's Day!
Several months ago while on Facebook I did a general question of who had a boat that could assist in me getting to this cache. It was on my personal Facebook and not the GCGV side, but thankfully I have cacher friends on that side and WestCoastNavigator (formerly of Moss Troopers) said she may be able to help out. There was some general discussion between her and I, as well as a few people tossing it out there that they would interested too. But nothing much came of that then, as it was still winter and a long way from a plannable time.
Time went on and WestCoastNavigator contacted me and said she had a boat lined up and asked if I had an idea of when I thought I would like to make this happen. I mentioned June, and she agreed and said the boat she had lined up could take up to 10 passengers. So concluding that end of the idea I proceeded to send invites to my good caching friends who I knew would appreciate the invite. Of course there were a ton of people I would have loved to invited, but there was only so many spaces... So I am sorry to anyone who may feel left out!
The morning of the trip Mrs GO Team and I got up nice and early and got our gear together, and were soon on the road to Brentwood Bay to meet up with our team. We arrived to find Porchlizard already on the scene who gave us some parking instructions for the area. As we began to search we saw A Team and G Force arrive, followed by the rest shortly after. Once we were all together we headed down to the docks and met our Captain and boarded his boat the "Knotty One".
When we started to leave the docks you could feel the excitement of the team buzzing in the air and it
Once we were all there it was a matter of figuring out the best way to approach the stairs, so we all climbed up a short embankment to a dirt road that seemed to head in the general direction of the cache. And then after a small little scurry down a hill we were all on the stairs.
The cache was in plain sight when we arrived, so that made short work of that. And of course when we were done signing we made sure to cover it up a bit better so that it wont be exposed to the wrong people in the future. Of course what kind of group outing would this have been if we didn't take a few group shots, and pictures of the surrounding area. But sadly too soon the time to leave came upon us, and we all made the trek back to the beach and again 2 at time were rowed back to the "Knotty One".
Thanks you to my entire team, I had a fantastic day with you all and enjoyed every moment of it. Thank you to WestCoastNavigator for arranging the transportation, and of course A SUPER HUGE THANK YOU to our Captain for taking a group of strangers onto your boat and giving us the means to make this all happen!!! Thank you Kiwibirdman for placing the cache, without your contribution the adventure would never have happened at all! Of course this gets a favorite point from us!!!
Find number: 5405
SL TFTC!!
~The GO! Team~"
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