Erie AZ Traditional Cache
Hidden : 6/16/2007
Difficulty:
1 out of 5
Terrain:
3 out of 5

Size: Size: small (small)

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Geocache Description:

A Benchmark Cache

While up on Badger Mountain we were searching for the Erie benchmark. The coordinates for the benchmark and its companion Badger benchmark place them inside the fence around the tower and the ground is covered by river rock.

Are they there under the river rock or have they been destroyed?

Erie Reference Mark A (RMA) can be found easily nearby and also provides the evidence that the two benchmarks are gone. How? Well the description says that RMA is 10 feet below the benchmark. The location the GPS points to then should be higher than RMA but is instead about 5 feet lower, probably from them leveling the large area for tower.

So the benchmark is gone but RMA can be found. How about the Azimuth mark? These are usually harder to find because the description is never as detailed as the description on how to find the benchmark. For this mark the 1956 report just says that:
THE AZIMUTH MARK IS A STANDARD DISK STAMPED ERIE 1947 SET IN A DRILL HOLE IN A BURIED BOULDER WHICH PROJECTS ABOUT 1 INCH. IT IS LOCATED ABOUT 0.1 MILE EAST OF THE STATION ON A POINT OF THE RIDGE WHICH IS ABOUT 100 FEET LOWER THAN THE STATION.
and the 1971 report says that:
IT IS 21 FEET NORTH OF THE APPROXIMATE CENTER OF THE TRACK ROAD.
The survey control box says that the azimuth mark is at an 099° 10' 18.1 angle from the benchmark. So now what to do?

I leave the GPS set to the Erie benchmark and start walking at at a bearing of 261° (360°-99°). I get a tenth of a mile away from Erie but do not see any disk. Of course looking for a round disk in the cheat grass may not be easy. Then I look ahead and about another tenth of a mile ahead I see an orange post that usually mark benchmarks. Getting to it I did not see any benchmark.

I read the description again and see that it says the disk should be 21 feet north of the dirt road. I am at least 50 feet from the road, so I start walking to the road and, sure enough, there is the disk! This disk cannot be logged on GC.com like RMA can, but it is still a challenge that was fun to find.

Now that I have done all that work, a cache would be a good thing to plant nearby. Find the cache and for fun find the azimuth mark.
Remember - "you are the search engine"


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