Las Cruces is a wonderful city. A pleasant climate, a vibrant community and access to great mountains and wilderness areas year round. It also happens to be where I cut my teeth on this geocaching thing... and now 7 years after my first geocache find here on A mountain, I will be back in the land of goat-heads and thorns, ready to find just one more cache... and I might just revisit that first cache, GC205KT.
Come join me Saturday morning 9:00-10:00 for a casual meet-up at the trailhead shelter at A-mountain. I'll bring some breakfasty things, maybe donuts and coffee. I'd love to meet some of the new cachers in the area, and revisit with those I knew from my years geocaching here (2011-2014).
Since it's been a while since I cached in the area and many of you probably don't know me, here's a little geocaching bio:
I started geocaching in 2011 after buying a GPSr to use on a volunteer search and rescue team. I figured I should learn how to use the device, and there was a promotional flyer that came with the device advertising geocaching. I checked out geocaching.com, saw there were a few caches in my neighborhood park and went after them. I immediately was skunked, I couldn't find a darn thing even after trying multiple different caches in the park. Not to be deterred, I decide to try a cache a little less urban but also close by, GC205KT. This one I was successful at finding, and it started me down the rabbit hole that is geocaching. I was very much into rock climbing then, and many of my early finds were high up in the Organ mountains. I was delighted to see that almost all the peaks had geocaches on them, and made it my goal to find them all. I may have hid a few up there as well (see Organ Saint series).
High terrain geocaches still are my favorite, but I don't shy away from other types of geocaching. I try my hand at puzzle solving whenever I have some free time to do so, and quite enjoy the creativity that can go into a great puzzle cache. I've also simply used geocaching as a means to explore near and far, whether finding an urban P&G while doing errands, or getting "lost" way out in middle-of-nowhere deserts.
My family moved away from Las Cruces in 2014, first to Tennessee and then to Santa Fe where I am currently living. Each time I've found the local geocaching community to be a place for instant friendships. And the hobby itself a great way to learn a new area, and find those hidden gems that only the locals know about.
I very much look forward to being back in my old geocaching stomping grounds. To see what's changed, and what is utterly timeless. See y'all there!