113-100703 CMIYC -- GZH Reflections

The First Cache Me If You Can has come and gone and boy was it awesome! I can honestly say it turned out better than I expected. We had three teams-- Ground Zero Heroes w/ me as captain, Cachetastrophy with Lori as captain, and Dharma/LOST with Paul as captain. Here's my narration of the day from the perspective of the Ground Zero Heroes:

The crew from Maywood was late because we were waiting for Andrew's friend Lauren to arrive from Connecticut. No harm done, but it did make for a rushed morning. I arrived at the Anthony Wayne parking area to find Jay and Paul looking perplexed with the status of Paul's GPS. Lori, Jay, and I had met the previous afternoon to load all the caches to each GPS and to hit some local caches to 'train' Jay since no one on their team had ever been caching before. It seems all of the caches we loaded were gone (though a few from Bergen County remained, very odd). As a last ditch effort to save the event, Jay and Paul manually entered the lat/long for ten caches as waypoints. In the meantime we finalized teams, distributed scoresheets, and reviewed the rules.

My team consisted of myself, George, and Neal. Cachetastrophy included Lori, Andrew, Lauren, and Laura. Finally, Getti joined Paul and Jay to form an as of yet unnamed team. On the trail they decided to adopt anything related to "LOST" based on the state of their progress.

I had planned out a strategy for the GZH ahead of time-- We'd head to Silvermine where there was a large concentration of caches in a small area first, With time remaining we'd head to the finish line so we'd be close by when the end time was drawing near. There were a few more caches right there in the parking lot we would look for with time remaining.

Once the starting bell rang, we were off! --but in the wrong direction. Neal then directed us to turn around so we could get on the Pal Parkway North. We quickly arrived at Silvermine and took off south on Menomine towards William Brien Shelter. On the trail I began to explain more about caching, the GPS, and trackables to my team. Neal had found a geocache once on a trip with us, earning him the Treasure Hunter homework assignment. When we arrived at the first GZ it was George who quickly found the first cache under a boulder. We dropped off a geocoin and he earned the Treasure Hunter.

Next we made our one major error for the day. We debated whether to continue around the lake to get two caches on Silvermine Ski Road or to head back to the parking lot and in the direction of Stockbridge where there were a few more caches. First we opted to continue, then we opted to take the tiny remnants of the incomplete ski road to try and cut out the triangle of Menomine and AT that goes to William Brien. It worked well for a few hundred yards. Then Neal realized he had dropped a two-way radio. Again we debated turning back, but Neal was satisfied with forging ahead. Soon we found ourselves chest-high in rhododendron and mountain laurel; our progress slowed to a crawl. By now we were committed because it seemed like only a short distance left and a waste to turn back and go all the way around. We made it out with cuts and scrapes and about 20 minutes of lost time.

We finally got to the ski road. Neal found the next cache a few tenths of a mile into the woods. We turned north and I found my first cache of the day by the southern shore of the lake. We caught a major break next-- The water in the lake was low enough for us to walk across the dam and take a shortcut back to the parking lot, rather than walk the ski road to its terminus and hike Seven Lakes Drive all thew way back. We hopped in the car with three caches under our belts and headed back to Anthony Wayne.

We quickly made a break for what seemed to be the closest cache. We tried to go straight to it, but the wall of barberry between the picnic area and Beechy Bottom Road stopped us and we had to go the long way around. We headed first for a cache called Ye Old Bike Trail, which as it turns out, all three of the teams stopped at and eventually found. It took us a while, but we found it with the help of the clues we were getting from the geocaching.com app on my Droid. Phone service in the area was terrible, but we got just enough. After that cache we headed North were we got a mini-cache (film canister) in a log. It would have been very hard without the hints, but the clue made it easy. Once I read it, I saw the cache immediately.

I was wondering if five caches would be enough to win. Really I expected Lori's team to have six or seven based on the fact that we had wasted time bushwhacking and the fact that I deduced from questions she asked me about the map that her strategy was to get caches near the road. We started walking to the next closest cache, just across the Pal Parkway. We were almost out of time. Once we got onto the bridge over the highway we could see that the GZ was at least 1000 feet of walking through trail-less woods. With only seven minutes left to get to the GZ, find the cache, and walk back we decided it was just not enough time and it would be better to go home with five caches than get DQ'd. Our team was dragging a bit too. I didn't know it yet, but we had walked almost five and a half miles (which ended up being the longest of the three teams).

We had all agreed a certain dumpster was the finish line and the finish time was 1:00PM. As we walked to the dumpster, I was surprised no one else was there. With about 4 minutes left we saw Darma/LOST coming out of the woods. With only two minutes left we all stood at the dumpster watching Paul's watch. Where was the last team? Paul was adamant that we hold the time limit to the very second, and rightly so. He was especially concerned because he thought his only way of coming in second was if the third team was DQ'd. One o'clock passed with no sign of Cachetastrophy. At about one minute after we saw Lori get in her car on the far side of the parking lot and a few people pile in. When they arrived at the dumpster it was one minute and forty seconds past 1:00PM. Paul's team made sure everyone knew who was late.

My team finished the day with five caches, as did Cachetastrophy. Paul's team ended with three. GZH was the only team with no DNFs. Our name held true, we got the job done at every GZ we stopped at. In the end it was enough for an unexpected win! I was pretty happy that everyone on my team found at least one cache and Neal and George both had a great time. From what I could tell, it seemed all of the rookie cachers had fun, especially Paul who has already said he is hooked. The Harrimaniacs also dropped a total of ten trackable items off in the park.

We wrapped it all up with a great BBQ as everyone shared stories from the day about caches found and missed, anecdotes from the trail, and other interesting events from the day. Cache Me If You Can was a wild success and a bunch of people specifically asked when the next one would be. With this kind of response we'll shoot for the next one in the fall before it gets too cold. More on that later, but for now I am just enjoying the success of this whole thing.

--Dan

CMIYC Predictions

It looks like a dream I have had for several years is finally becoming a reality with our first ever Cache Me If You Can geocaching race. My hope is that many people will get excited, complete the Treasure Hunter homework assignment, and maybe begin their own interest in caching.

Because of the large percentage of rookie hikers and cachers involved with the exercise, I have begun to sort of plan out the teams ahead of time in order to assure there is an even spread of Harriman and geocaching knowledge on each team. I'll be leading a team with a bunch of rookies. My strategy is simple, but I won't divulge it here. Lori is captain of team #2 with Andrew to assist with Harriman direction-finding. Lori is the most experienced cacher. Team #3 is headed up by Paul with Rob to assist with Harriman trail knowledge. This team will have the least caching experience but Rob probably has the most off-hand knowledge of trails after myself. The personalities on this team might give them a competitive edge.

I won't predict a winner, but I will predict that the winning team has seven or fewer caches--remember we'll have under four hours to grab our caches. I wouldn't even be surprised if the winners had only four or five caches.

Less than a week to go. We have a captains meeting on Thursday night to load caches, go over protocol, and hammer out the details. Things are getting exciting...

--Dan

CoR Bald Rocks 6/18

Andrew and I took our father up to Bald Rocks for a Father's Day camping trip. To the best of my knowledge it is the first Clan of Rob trip that legitimately could have counted as a valid trip if it were 'reported.' The only rule it violated was the unwritten 'open invite' rule. At any rate, the invite was closed and the intention was simply to enjoy the weekend with our father.

The hike up was pretty standard, with stops at the usual viewpoints and typical recollections of the first time this or that happened. My father was interested to know what stories he had heard had occurred on this stretch of trail. There were no cars on Rt. 106, but when we arrived at the shelter there were two guys already there. They were middle-aged brothers from NYC and they had all the gear and experience of well-traveled campers. One of them mentioned it was his first time over-nighting in Harriman in over a decade.

My brother, father, and I immediately set to work building a fire to cook our burgers in armor. Andrew almost stepped on a fawn on the way down the hill from the shelter. It was easily the smallest deer I had ever seen-- barely larger than a beagle. We set up our gear on the rocks while the food cooked. We each had a different foil-application technique and we compared the quality of our cooking. My father's 6-layer method had be best combination of adequate heat without burning.

The Whip-poor-wills showed up right on time and put on a great display. One in particular perched repeatedly very close by and flew around our heads. It didn't seem to mind having a flashlight on it, which enables me to get some grainy pictures. From a birding perspective, it was awesome to see all of white markings on the birds. Later we turned to stargazing. I was navigating using Google Sky Map on my Droid while the guys from NYC were using the the analogous app on the iPhone. The Google product proved superior-- Despite it being after 9PM, the iPhone believed it was daytime, that we were in Southern California, and that North was East. Meanwhile the Droid knew what time it was, where we were, and what direction it was facing. Venus, Mars, and Saturn were all out along with a number of prominent constellations and stars.

It was a hot buggy night for my father and I who did not have the benefit of a bivy like Andrew did, thought I will say my new sleeping pad was excellent. The following morning the guys from NYC left early. Our trio headed out to the North after enjoying the fire for a while. Lots of birds were singing and four woodpecker species were heard, including a pair of Pileated. We swung west on Dunning and took White Bar and Nurian back to Black Rock. Back on R-D, Andrew and I tried for a cache to the East of the trail with no luck.

All in all it was a fun weekend with dad. We hadn't been camping together in at least ten years, maybe fifteen. It brought back some memories of Webelos camping trips long ago. Maybe an extensive father/son outing is in order for the future...

--Dan

Live Fire: Cache Me If You Can

We're really trying to amp up this event for July 3, the first ever competitive Harrimaniacs event-- Cache Me If You Can. We're calling our competitive event series 'Live Fire,' as in it's the real deal.

Cache Me If You Can is a geocaching race in which teams will try to find the most caches in Harriman in a certain amount of time. Many of the participants will be new to geocaching, so don't be shy if this is your first time. Each team will have a GPS and will come ready with Harriman's caches preloaded. We'll meet in the park at a designated area TBA to form teams and briefly go over rules. Then each team will have several hours to find and photograph as many caches as possible. We'll all return to the finish line by an assigned time and see who won.

Once the winners are crowned we'll end with a huge BBQ! What a great way to celebrate Independence Day weekend. If you are interested please RSVP to the facebook.com event that will be posted in a few days (will be linked here) or contact me. Anyone is welcome to come late for just the BBQ as well. More details as they unfold...

Feeds for Harrimaniacs.com

We are working on integrating a feed from this blog into the Harrimaniacs.com website. Back when we were on Myspace, a blog entry would be posted for every trip. The practice was abandoned when we got our own domain name and URL because it was simply to complex to add to the fledgling website. It seems possible now, however, with all of the new technology and easy-to-use feed resources to re-institute this old practice with a new spin.

Our blog can be viewed directly at harrimaniacs.blogger.com already. There isn't much there yet and its basically just a sandbox to test stuff out. The goal is to get a bunch of different Harrimaniacs to post their experiences as they happen. If you have a gmail or google account, you already have a Blogger.com account. Go to blogger, get set up, and the Harrimaniacs Webmaster can give you the required permissions to be a 'contributer' to our blog. This will give you permission to post reports on trips or discussions of anything Harrimaniacal. The blog is public, which means anyone can read it. The content, however, is strictly monitored to make it strictly for us Harrimaniacs.

Go ahead and post stuff-- this is a great place to birth new trip plans, discuss new Homework Assignments, debate the rules of the charter, or just trash talk. Give it a shot.

--the webmaster

10th Year

As of June 1st we entered into our tenth year of the Harrimaniacs! Next June will be the tenth anniversary. If anyone has ideas for a major tenth Aniversary Event, let me know.

104-100202 Slippery 'the Situation' Overnight

I was shocked and amazed this past week when none other than Pete walked into my school and announced that he was in NJ for 3 days. He arrived at my school at just the right time after organizing this with Lori--It was absolutely the best gift she ever gave me.

Anyway, standing in the 800 wing of IHHS it was clear that a camping trip was in order. We decided we'd leave the next night, about 30 hours away. Pete had no gear with him, on leave from CA/Oki, so he would scrounge for his brother's left over gear and borrow the rest from me. I quickly analyzed Pete's stats and determined the best new shelter for him to visit would be Stone Memorial. We didn't plan much except to meet at his parents house the next day at 6PM. It was just like the old days--meet at Pete's with no particular plan.

When I arrived, I presented Pete with his Harrimaniacs "WEAK" sweatshirt. Getti and Andrew tagged along to say hi, but they had to return to their working lives. I had called out, knowing I would pay the price in work load for being truant. We grabbed some paella and pasta, then headed out to the supermarket. We arrived at the Sebago Boat Launch Parking area around 7:30PM via Rt. 59 and Seven Lakes. Snow showers were predicted and no sooner did we hit the first hill on Seven Hills than a few flakes started to fall.

To preserve the nostalgic feel of the trip I decided to run the GPS but not consult it for directions. We just used a good old fashion map. A few times we overshot or missed intended turns and we simply kept going and changed our route. We passed Monitor Rock, visited the incinerator, and headed southeast past the lakes to Pine Meadow via Conklin's Crossing. The snow was becoming steady by the time we arrived at the abandoned cabin on Pine Meadow, with temps in the mid-twenties.

As we ascended the final hill to Stone Memorial I got a chance to break out my Kahtoola 'snow chains' on 2 long stretched of ice. They get 2 thumbs up. A thin coating of snow rested on the ground when Pete and I finally arrived at the shelter. We started looking for wood and started a fire. Pete took his obligatory fall of the trip trying to come up the hill from the stream while carrying a ton of wood.

Next we got a message (late) from Rob around 9:45 that he was finally in the parking lot. He was the only one able to squeeze in a random, mid-week trip besides myself. He arrived at the shelter a little before midnight.

The next day we awoke late to about 3/4 to an inch of snow. We departed the shelter at 9:30 to very slippery conditions and by the time we arrived at the Egg I put my spikes back on. Pete and Rob had to fend for themselves. The morning was filled with Fight Club quotes and commentary about the Jersey Shore. We explored Conkin Cemetery and also realized "Poached Egg" is a trail, not a scenic element. We headed South on Poached and then Raccoon Brook.

Back at Pete's house I had suggested we try to head south to the Ramapo Torne for the great view of NJ that Pete had never seen. We intended, however, to be back around lunch so I could finish the inordinate amount of work I had to do. After getting a late start it was apparent we would not be able to do both. Pete and Rob both wanted to try for the Torne and I felt like, "What's 3 hours? I won't see Pete for months. I'll just stay up late and hate myself tomorrow." As expected, we continued South.

We consumed most of a bag of trail mix on the way as we hit a number of trails that none of us had ever hiked. There were many great viewpoints near Pulpit and we had good views of the Russian Bear and the Torne on the way. It was great to have Pete again after being absent for 18 months and 30 trips. Not only that, it was exciting to once again be exploring a new area in Harriman with Pete just like things were when we started all of this years ago. What I like most about camping, especially with Pete and Rob, is the incredibly flexible 'we can do it' attitude that we take on. We miss a trail, take a wrong turn, take too long, encounter a setback? No problem. Whatever comes our way we can and will overcome. To me that's one of the foundational parts of ToD.

We finally arrived at the Torne, freezing from the wind, overheated and sweating, hungry, tired, and feet worn. We stopped for a while to rest and regroup. I changed the batteries in the GPS and dropped my spikes because the final stretch of HTS coming into the Torne was mostly clear of snow. When we finally got going again we had a hard time finding the steep part of HTS that descends the Torne to the west.

Most of the way down the hill we encountered a steep woods road on the shadowed and snow-covered west side of the hill. While trying to 'run it out' I found myself going too fast with too much snow-slip to stop or turn. Eventually my feet found a patch of ice while running nearly full-bore and immediately I came down hard, barely steering myself to the left of a bowling-ball sized rock on the edge of the trail. Rob, doing the same about 20 feet behind me, was not so lucky. The rock stopped his ice-driven, sliding crash. Of course Pete took the oppertunity to take photos of us on the ground.

We traveled through easier terrain now as the snow was just starting to melt a bit. After reaching the visitor's center we headed north and paralleled the stream all the way to the end of Stony Brook Trail. We hiked the final stretch of Seven Lakes Drive and arrived at the parking area at 3:50PM. We made good time, especially considering the type of topography and trail conditions.

There will be more blog entries spurred by this trip. I'm going to need to post something of an expose about the other philosophical and nostalgic aspects of the trip and Pete put me in contact with Brian, a One-Night-Wonder from trip #4 from whom I am seeking an account of that early trip. But for now, let me wrap this one up by saying this was an excellent trip. The scenery was awesome, the weather and snow perfect, the distance (14.5mi) and difficulty were there, and of course having Pete in town is always priceless. This will be without question the highlight of the winter ToD season for me, if not the highlight of the entire year.