Champagne

06/16/2019 By TTO2
First I need to apologize for the long log, but I have had people from all over the world tell me that they would like to have seen more in our logs, not only about their cache specifically but more on the amazing journeys that we take and haven't documented well in the past. Now, if you would like to skip to information that is specific to the cache, please skip to the bottom to see there is anything helpful. Only 25% of the time do we provide something that we either didn't read in another log or something that we felt needed to be added for clarity or a nudge in the right direction.

This geocaching trip was two weeks and designed to make up for the six months that we gave up dreaming, wishing, designing, and building the GPS Adventures Maze Exhibit. TTO1 and I are two of the 4 "Builders" of the GPS Maze Adventures Exhibit, and Kiecker the third. All three of us cache together a lot, and this trip was no different. Kiecker didn't get the entire two weeks in with us but was with us a majority. It was extremely helpful to productivity on several caches that he had already found in some of the areas that we visited.

We started north from Dallas to Oklahoma, and the trip would find us at the end finding caches in nine States. Near the beginning, we had to stop for a daughter's college graduation in Denver. Boy, I despised that stop as I had to abandon my geocaching accoutre for something professional and "suitable," my wife demanded. So, the next day, I got her back taking her on caching excursion to the tree and snow line that started with a 22-mile dirt road trek. Sure glad we had the right vehicle for this portion of the trip. The rest of the trip we could have done fine with just a two-wheel drive.

One of the more memorable stops was again in South Dakota. We stayed up too late and had a great visit with not only the Famous SoDakZak but also with a group of cachers that we had just seen at the Maze. Just a great group of folks.

Several of the days we spent threading the proverbial storm needle. Unlike the other group, we were able to circumnavigate all the inclement weather. Just know, this was not by design. We have all the wet weather gear one could put on thinking that we would have to do most of this trip in torrential downpours. As luck would have it, just the vehicle got the brunt of the pounding rain on a couple of the longer driving leg of our sojourn.

Another new thing we tried this trip was to do like we see a lot of folks are doing with videotaping. We love the longer hikes, extremely lonely caches, and higher rated caches. Adrenaline junkies, we aren't, as we carry a lot of safety gear just in case, but in the end, we found that we suck at it. We are hoping to find someone that will join us on our trips that is a good videographer and doesn't mind the >10Km hikes with 1200 ft elevation change and being 65-100 feet up in a tree. Till then we will just take and post pictures.

We would be remiss if we didn't thank all the geocachers that in some way added to this game/sport/hobby/obsession with their individual hides and varying levels of effort that they put into their geocaches. We don't award a lot of favorite points but this trip had inordinate amount given compared to previous trips. We also ended up on this trip making two remarkable achievements of our own - even if we do say so our selves. 25k finds and 2nd Original Fizzy Loop. We did have ambitions to beat our old record of counties in a day but the weather and flooding were not going to allow that to happen.

Here below is the aforementioned area where we provide relevant information specific to this cache:

Joining me finding this oldie was jherber, who found it several years ago. He couldn't remember the area but it didn't take long for us to find it, actually him tucked away in its hidey spot. It was great to see all the old log entries as well.

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03/27/2019 By R&B CO
Signed 5-4-18 and finally qualified
R&B CO has used Project-GC Challenges/GC2ERDP/20330 "Project-GC Challenge Checker to see if they qualified for this challenge and they did. Thanks for the challenge. We’ve been working on our fizzy and meeting this challenge shows us we’re making progress.

01/01/2019 By psych01
TFTC, SL. still need a few more squares for the "full fizzy" my profile is public & I will post screen shot verifying my qualification for this challenge

11/10/2018 By Kerewin0430
Love this area, and this spot is quite the hidden gem! I had looked for this one very briefly a while ago, but returned today with plenty more time. (Didn't need it, as it was in the first spot I looked today!) Everything is dry and in pristine condition. Thank you for bringing me to this little part of the world. My qualifying stats are public.

01/24/2018 By LLYN-lhvwn50
There are some great old trees back here. Thanks for the challenge and cache. Here is the list, with the nine cache types.

1/1…..GC6DPR3…GCCO Presents: Geocaching 101…Event
1/2…..GC15P73…222 Geocache Lane…30Aug16
1/3…..GC7C8…Deer Creek Canyon Cache…02Oct16…Traditional
1/4…..GC1FW9D…Flat Road Up a Steep Hill…16Dec16
1/5…..GC6ZQCC…Monument Lake Kayak #1…25May17
2/1…..GC37PAB…Woods Lake- A Neighborhood Kettle Lake…14Sep16…Earthcache
2/2…..GCGPVJ…Nine Mile Canyon Petroglyphs…16Jun17…Virtual
2/3…..GC2Y4E4…Emerald Valley Cache…09Sep16
2/4…..GC1RKCV…Good Morning Colorado!!…15Aug16
2/5…..GC6ZQDJ…Monument Lake Kayak #2…25May17
3/1…..GC6FD3…South Park City…15Aug16…Multi
3/2…..GC64R11…Cabin Fire…16Apr17
3/3…..GC6GMJX…Castlewood Canyon Cleanup!…28May16…CITO
3/4…..GC5C5E…EdFredO SO.CO Cache…30Jul16
3/5…..GC52WTH…Quick Pinball: AKA: Old Bright Eyes 4 Challenge…17Jun17
4/1…..GCA4C4…Ghostcam Cache…27Apr16…Webcam
4/2…..GC34G69…Checkmate!…01Aug16…Letterbox Hybrid
4/3…..GC458G4…10 years in a single day Challenge Cache…23Oct16
4/4…..GC2JEYE…What A View…07Feb17
4/5…..GC52WMJ…Zillions of Most Popular Geocaches Challenge…17Jun17
5/1…..GC30XFW…Colorado Alphanumeric Challenge…21Dec16
5/2…..GC439GV…B*I*N*G*O Challenge Cache…02Jun17
5/3…..GC55X6Q…Oz…05Dec16
5/4…..GC4MPK3…Well Rounded Cache Type Day Challenge…30Dec16
5/5…..GCWXFK…Colorado DeLorme Challenge…18Oct16…Unknown

12/23/2017 By jasperdakota
Thanks for the challenge! Found on a nice hike with geodog Dakota on this beautiful sunny day. SL. My profile page shows that I meet this challenge.

12/15/2017 By ColoradoSmith
While I am still far from logging a smiley for this one, I found and signed the log; I hope to be able to log this one day

08/13/2017 By Spooty
Found it at 1632.
Boy, I sure took the hard way to get there, bushwhacking over 500 feet; luckily I found the easy way back to my geo-vehicle when I was done. Even at GZ, it took me about 5 minutes to spot the cache container, and I was a bit worried because a little thunder and lightning was happening in the distance. I finally TNLNSL and skedaddled out of there.

I only qualified for this challenge earlier this year. Here's my list of qualifiers; note that all the required cache types are covered:

D1/T1 GC6EQHT "Holiday Park Cito" - 7/5/2016 - Cache In Trash Out Event
D2/T1 GCPX9C "Layton Hills Webcam Cache" - 5/13/2015 - Webcam Cache
D3/T1 GC2CP1C "Mr. Nice Guy" - 10/3/2012 - Traditional Cache
D4/T1 GCJYDA "DOGONIT!" - 3/8/2006 - Traditional Cache
D5/T1 GC52A3P "Walking in Memfis: Lonely Cache Challenge" - 5/6/2014 - Unknown Cache

D1/T2 GC5315 "Little Arch" - 2/28/2017 - Virtual Cache
D2/T2 GC473XM "TRAVEL BUG HOTEL" - 5/15/2015 - Letterbox Hybrid
D3/T2 GC9987 "The Old Vaquero" - 5/3/2013 - Virtual Cache
D4/T2 GC2KFX7 "PEANUT BUTTER" - 5/8/2016 - Traditional Cache
D5/T2 GCD8A6 "the kids' place" - 9/13/2004 - Traditional Cache

D1/T3 GC1EYHH "A Big Pile of..." - 5/15/2015 - Earthcache
D2/T3 GC78 "Firestone" - 5/19/2014 - Traditional Cache
D3/T3 GC5TB3P "A Hike to Windy Mountain" - 7/25/2015 - Event Cache
D4/T3 GCBFBF "Micro Dilemma" - 4/21/2005 - Multicache
D5/T3 GC3YENW "OCCT - OCCT Challenge" - 2/14/2017 - Unknown Cache

D1/T4 GC148ZY "Raton Rimrock" - 6/20/2013 - Traditional Cache
D2/T4 GCYHKB "C 4 Miles" - 8/3/2013 - Traditional Cache
D3/T4 GCZ8V5 "Muskrat Sam" - 12/6/2014 - Traditional Cache
D4/T4 GC4G09P "The Blue Coy Cache" - 10/30/2014 - Traditional Cache
D5/T4 GC3YEC4 "OCCT - A Difficulty Day - Challenge" - 5/13/2016 - Unknown Cache

D1/T5 GC4226M "OCCT - Swim, Boat, Wade, or Float Challenge" - 2/14/2017 - Unknown Cache
D2/T5 GC3TTQ6 "007 ICS - Animal Crackers Challenge" - 5/21/2015 - Unknown Cache
D3/T5 GC3HQT5 "WAG Tribute - Jake81499" - 10/31/2016 - Traditional Cache
D4/T5 GC5Q628 "THeSKuLL Turns 45!!" - 2/28/2017 - Traditional Cache
D5/T5 GC6ZF7T "Pond Monsters" - 2/18/2017 - Wherigo Cache

I'll give this cache a Favorite point for the quality hunt and hide, and the challenging-ness of the challenge. TFTC!

07/26/2017 By gampa&gamma
We were in the area enjoying a hike and grabbing a couple of mystery caches and knew we qualified for this-----finally! Great hide! SL. Replaced as found. Qualifiers are in the attached screen shots. Thanks for this challenge cache!
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07/17/2017 By SeekDaCache
We were suppose to cache around the Colorado Springs area back in June during the Amazing Geocache Race III Event: Unfortunately Mrs. SDC took a tumble the night before we were suppose to leave and was bedridden for 3 days Frown . We were finally able to get down to this area and do the majority of caches that we had compiled for that weekend. We had a few DNF's and did some maintenance on quite a few caches. It appears that there has been a lot of rain down here as we replaced a lot of soggy logs. The weather was hot but we got a reprieve Monday night with a nice cool shower just as we stopped for the day and went for some dinner. I really enjoyed the walk to GZ, a lot of great views. Took a minute or two to finally nab this one. Very nice hide

We also had a goal to find as many of KJKlock's caches, as we've heard that they will be leaving us soon and might be archiving their caches.

SL, TFTC, TNLN

Thank you chefstern for placing this cache for our enjoyment.

View from Champagne Looking South

View from Champagne

Qualifications

11/05/2016 By k9jayhawk
Found today...TFTC SL

08/06/2016 By RBMAN
Foundit! Pretty rugged area, but got lucky and made the find. Attachment shows my qualifiers.
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08/06/2016 By peteach!
Rbman and I are in town for our great nephews baptism. We are from Lincoln NE. TFTC Quite a hike for me.

07/03/2016 By DrPowercat
came up lame while hiking out to this cache, I was leaning into a hill with my leg fully extended when I felt a pop in my calf muscle, I initially thought I had been bit by a snake, but it turned out to just be a bad muscle tear, managed to make it over to GZ and find the cache after a short search, signed the log and replaced as found before limping back towards the car, see attached image for my qualifiers
DrPowercat's qualifiers