Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site

 October 10, 2009 by NakoTacoPatrol

When we first started caching 10 months ago, we saw this challenge and thought who would be crazy enough to drive to the far reaches of the County to find 81 caches? Today we joined the ranks of those who've conquered this challenge!

Living in the far southern reaches of the County made it just a little more difficult. We managed to log more than 60 of the quads on the way out of town on road trips to Mammoth, to Yosemite, to Vegas, to softball tournaments and to Grandma's house. We spent a really nice afternoon caching up the Angeles Crest Highway and hiking in to caches hidden on lush forested hillsides. A couple of weeks later, those same hillsides and caches were decimated by the massive Station Fire. On our one quad run day shortly thereafter, we found caches in 19 quads on the north side of that fire. The sight of the giant pyrocumulonimbus cloud looming over the San Gabriels and dominating the horizon was quite sobering.

We really enjoyed visiting all parts of this huge County. We especially liked the wilderness hides, and those in the northern, more rural areas. There were some places where it seemed like we were in the Sierra foothills, the scenery was so beautiful.

Thanks, GeoCraig for the journey and the Challenge. We signed the log, took nothing, and left a Disneyland "I'm Celebrating" pin to commemorate this awesome milestone find. (#1000)

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 August 12, 2009 by benandjayme

When we decided about a month ago to focus our efforts on the Quad Challenge, we took a look at our numbers and figured we had a pretty good shot to follow in Journeymnn's footsteps and make this our 1000th. We did a lot of planning to make that happen and spent three VERY full days roaming the outer sections of the county to fill in our map. What an adventure it was to see all the corners of our incredibly diverse county! Desert, coastline, mountains, cities...we've got it all.

When we took up the challenge we'd only completed 14 quads in the course of our prior caching. Finding caches in the remaining 67 quads provided a whole bunch of great adventures, but here are just a few of the highlights (check out our photo highlights as well):

- "Piru Creek" (GC12NTR) - Anybody who has checked out the Cobblestone Mountain quad knows that this one is the only relatively easy cache in the quad. That's why we were a bit dismayed when we were still empty-handed after about 30 minutes of searching. Knowing we couldn't really give up if we wanted to complete the quad, we dug in our heels and finally moved the right rock pile.
- "Liebre Summit Cache" (GCKFA1) - It was great fun driving up the Old Ridge Route from Sandberg and imagining turn of the century folks puttering around the tight curves at 15 miles an hour on the original road. Great panoramic views just up the road from GZ, too, which we got to share with a Hasidic hippie.
- "Big Brother Is Listening" (GC1N7QV) - Of the many strange things to be seen out in the desert, one of the strangest was this little area of rock-lined lanes out in the middle of nowhere. Who built this stuff? Why?
- "Kill Bill's Church" (GC1BWC1) - A bit of cinematic caching as the last find on the first day of a full caching weekend. Followed by a unexpectedly lovely evening camping at Saddleback Butte State Park. (Ignore your guidebook when it tells you not to camp in the desert in the summer. It can be magical.)
- "Cloud Cone Christmas Cache - C4" (GC1M459 - We're definitely mountain people, so as much as we loved the desert caches we were soooooo happy to get up into the mountains again after a day and a half wandering in Antelope Valley.
- "The Bus Stop" (GC1H7N7) - Little did we know that the day we planned to get the Long Beach quad was the day of the Long Beach Jazz Festival. Needless to say, some serious stealthiness was in order due to the extreme muggle factor.
- "(Almost) Land's End" (GC10YMT) - Our unofficial 82nd quad. In a tiny little sliver of Los Angeles County that falls in the Seal Beach quad and is thus not a part of the official challenge. We decided to do it just for fun, though, and we were very glad we did because we were treated to a great sunset over Long Beach as we made the long walk out the jetty.
- "The Great Puente Hills Mall Run #12" (GC1AMTR) - Sort of an inglorious cache for our final quad (La Habra) - particularly since we were rummaging around in the mall's bushes at almost midnight - but we were insanely excited to find it and complete the journey anyway.

All told, we couldn't have picked a better challenge for our milestone cache. Huge thanks to GeoCraig for setting up the challenge and for his encouragement when we decided to give it a go. We'll be hard-pressed to find a better target for our next big milestone. And congrats to those who have completed the challenge before us. Now that we've done it ourselves, we can appreciate the magnitude of your achievement.

One last note for anybody out there thinking about doing this great challenge: we did 90% of our caches in flip flops and 100% of our driving in a Ford Taurus. In other words, don't convince yourself that you need a 4WD vehicle and tons of physical effort to do this one. All you need is a healthy dose of caching dedication and some time on your hands

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Our trusty chariot took us all over the desert. One of the many massive anthills in the desert. On the edge of Edwards AFB. One of our many planning tools. Last rays of sun on Kill Bill's church. Sunset over the Hi Vista quad. Sunrise over our campsite at Saddleback Butte. Ruins at Llano del Rio. Happy to be back in the mountains. Heading up to Kratka Ridge. Crest highway tunnel. A view over much of the Point Dume quad. A fiery sunset over Long Beach. Heading out the jetty for our "82nd quad". Finishing the final quads by the car's headlights. Our final map of smileys. Faded dreams in the Alpine Butte quad. Panoramic view near Liebre Summit Stash.