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Here are some of my cache hunting (or other) adventures, with a few other items scattered throughout:
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Hiking North of Washington, Utah
Saturday, 26 March 2005 6:00 PM MST
Yakkity Yak, Astounding Adventures
Another Saturday had arrived with sunny, shirt-sleeve weather, the air pleasantly cool and clear after recent stormy weather. Having had no real physical activity for two weeks, the urge to go hiking was nigh unto killing me. I made a quick call over...
Read the rest of this article... Cold Pink at a Hot Spot
Wednesday, 16 March 2005 5:55 PM MST
Astounding Adventures
 Pond by the Hot Spots cacheCache Found: Hot Spots by KLondyke and Yiners
5:55 PM Wednesday, 16 March 2005 My brother (caching handle Percible) and I felt the need to get out in them thar hills and do some exploring and cache hunting this evening, so we climbed into my old caching beast (a rattly black Chevrolet S-10 Blazer) and drove out to Apple Valley, then turned off the highway onto the dirt road that angles back westward up onto the Short Creek mesa. It's been many years since... Read the rest of this article... Concrete Arrows in Southwestern Utah
Friday, 11 March 2005 12:16 PM MST
Yakkity Yak, Astounding Adventures
On Concrete Arrows
Random Tidbits and Musings on the Historic Aviation Markers in Southwestern Utah While cache hunting (or geocaching), I've come across several large concrete arrows on the ground. At first I wondered what they were for, speculating that perhaps they were aviation markers of some sort. Later, after reading other cache hunters talk about the same arrows, and after reading a historical display in the St. George Utah Municipal Airport about the old Air Mail routes circa 1930, I learned that indeed these were indeed aviation markers, relics left over from aviation history. Apparently Western Air Express was awarded the contract for the Los Angeles to Salt Lake City "contract air mail" route, route number four, or CAM-4, and made their first flight along the 650-mile CAM-4 route in April 1926 in a Douglas M-2 airplane. I don't know when the beacons and arrows were constructed along the route. I have visited three of these arrows so far. I would like to visit more, if more exist. One is located near the Bloomington Overlook cache by Drifty. If you vist that arrow and look where it points, you will see a crooked-topped mesa near Washington, Utah called Shinob Kibe. Another arrow is located near the Shinob Kibe Cache by Astounding (That's me, of course! *smile*) atop that mesa. This particular arrow is airway beacon 37B or HO0622, part of the Los Angeles to Salt Lake City airway route, the "Contract Air Mail" route #4, or "CAM-4" route. If you visit the Shinob Kibe Cache, you can also log your visit to this arrow since it is listed as Airway Beacon Benchmark HO0622. While recently visiting the Shinob Kibe arrow, I wondered if it pointed to the next arrow in the route, and if that next arrow still existed. Sure enough, the next arrow does exist. I used the search as an excuse to place a new cache, the Quail Creek Reservoir West Overlook cache, near the rim of the hill west of Quail Creek Reservoir. I placed the cache before I found the arrow. On the way back to my vehicle, a few hundred feet from where the cache is hidden, I came across the expected arrow.  Arrow above Quail Creek ReservoirBoth the Shinob Kibe and the Quail Creek arrows show evidence that metal towers once stood above the central concrete pads. Also, both of these arrows are approximately 55 to 56 feet in length. I need to revisit the Bloomington Overlook arrow to see how long it is and whether it too shows evidence of a beacon tower.
 Airway Beacon Illustration Circa 1931 - Courtesy FAAI found a web site at the FAA that had this to say:Built at intervals of approximately 10 miles, the standard beacon tower was 51 feet high, topped with a powerful rotating light. Below the rotating light, two course lights pointed forward and back along the airway. The course lights flashed a code to identify the beacon's number.
These arrows in Southwestern Utah aren't quite 70 feet long. Since there is evidence of steel towers on at least two of these arrows, I think there is sufficent evidence that these arrows were a part of this or a similar air route beacon system.
The tower usually stood in the center of a concrete arrow 70 feet long. A generator shed, where required, stood at the "feather" end of the arrow. If there were generators at the Shinob Kibe or Quail Creek arrows, the back concrete pads of both of these are tilted quite a bit (and don't show signs of great cracking or upheaval to indicate that the tilt is due to shifts in the ground), so I wonder how it worked. Also, the only access route to the Shinob Kibe arrow is a narrow, single-file trail, so the concrete, steel, and/or any other equipment or supplies brought to that location would likely have been brought by pack animal, as is mentioned at the same FAA web page. Interesting stuff... Revisiting Shinob Kibe
Saturday, 05 March 2005 5:05 PM MST
Astounding Adventures
 Shinob Kibe PaintbrushCache Maintenance: Shinob Kibe Cache by Astounding (That's me, of course! *smile*)
Benchmark Visited: Airway Beacon 37B or HO00622 of the Los Angeles to Salt Lake City Airway route (circa 1930) (For a larger resolution version of the photo, visit my Wallpapers web site section.) Saturday, 05 March 2005 Between 4:30 PM and 6:00 PM MST (-0700) With the weather so nice (it was cloudy and overcast, but not raining, and the temperature was nice and cool), I had to get out and go hiking somewhere. But where? I recalled having read a recent cache entry mentioning that my Shinob Kibe Cache had some junk in it, so I decided to go replenish the cache -- a perfect solution to my hiking needs. On my way... Read the rest of this article... On Top of Washington Dome
Saturday, 26 February 2005 8:16 PM MST
Yakkity Yak, Astounding Adventures
You don't know how grateful I was for the telephone call from my little brother was this afternoon. The afternoon was waring on and I had not been outside once, and it was a beautiful day. I was dying for an excuse to go for a short hike, to get outdoors, to...
Read the rest of this article... The Wave - Standstone in Motion
Saturday, 01 May 2004 11:58 AM MDT
Astounding Adventures
 'The Wave' - Tuesday, 29 October 2002Virtual Cache:The Wave
The Wave is a spectacular sandstone formation on the slopes of the Coyote Buttes in the beautiful and rugged Paria Canyon - Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness Area, several miles south of U.S. Highway 89, about half-way between Kanab, Utah and Page, Arizona, located in northern Arizona near the Utah-Arizona border. Read the rest of this article... All in a Good Day's Caching - Cache Maintenance, Hunting, and Revisiting
Saturday, 10 April 2004 5:58 PM MDT
Astounding Adventures
 Approaching Mollie's Nipple from the SouthCache Maintenance: Mollie's Nipple Cache in Hurricane by Astounding (that's me) and The Desert Fox (that's my father) - Re-found at around 2:15 P.M. MDT (-0600)
New Cache Found: On the Way Home by The Bracken Family - Found at about 3:30 P.M. MDT (-0600) Revisited Cache: Three Falls Overlook by Baby Blue and the Bandit - Re-found at 4:01 P.M. MDT (-0600) Cache Hunting With: My youngest brother, Percible Saturday, 10 April 2004 - 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM MDT (-0600) When your job keeps you indoors all day, by the time the weekend comes, if you're like me, you can't wait to get out and enjoy some fresh air, sunlight, and scenery. Since came over to Hurricane, Utah to visit my family (that's where my parents live, with one of my brothers and two of my sisters), this morning I took it upon myself to convince someone to go with me on a caching adventure. Read the rest of this article... My Brother Gets a G.P.S. and the Return of the Cachemobile
Saturday, 27 March 2004 6:00 PM MST
Astounding Adventures
 We found the cache!Cache Visited: Trail of the Padres? by k-9kween
Saturday, 27 March 2004 - Late Afternoon, perhaps 5:00 or 6:00 PM MST (-0600) Congratulations, Percible! (That's my brother's Geocaching nickname.) For my brother's birthday this year, my family got together and pooled our resources to buy him a new eTrex Vista G.P.S. receiver. I think he likes it. So of course we had to try it out before the sun went down. Read the rest of this article... Canyons, Glass, and Sand
Saturday, 17 January 2004 9:01 PM MST
Astounding Adventures
1st Cache Visited: Cody's pee canyon ( AKA Dutchmans wash ) sometime after 12:00 PM MDT (-0600)
Travel Bug Picked Up: Megan's Lizard at Cody's pee canyon ( AKA Dutchmans wash ) 2nd Cache Visited: Glass Mine at 1:53 PM MDT (-0600) 3rd Cache Visited: Bigfoot Was Here! at 2:52 PM MDT (-0600) 4th Cache Visited: Fort Pierce at 3:55 PM MDT (-0600) Travel Bug Dropped Off: Megan's Lizard at the Fort Pierce cache 5th Cache Visited: BEDROCK at sometime around 4:30 PM MDT (-0600) Saturday, 17 January 2004 Ah, what a perfect Southern Utah winter day for cache hunting! The weather outside was cool, but not cold, just perfect, and the sun was shining brightly. That's what I was thinking that morning, so I called up my brother (cache nickname: Percible) in Hurricane to see if he wanted to go cache hunting with me. He did. Read the rest of this article... Curses, I missed it!
Saturday, 17 January 2004 9:27 AM MST
Astounding Adventures
Event Cache Missed: Southern Utah Meet Your Fellow Cachers by the Veltkamp Brats
Curses, foiled again by my own foolish ignorance! A week ago today, at 8:00 AM I missed out on a fun event cache, all because I haven't been visiting www.geocaching.com for some time now. It sounds like the Southern Utah Meet Your Fellow Cachers event cache was a blast! I wish I'd participated. *sigh* I'm glad it turned out so well! Hopefully I'll get a chance to meet the Veltkamp Brats and many other Southern Utah cachers (and cachers from all over the state as well) another time. -Astounding St. George, Utah
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