Dizzo's Peak

09/01/2018 By THeSKuLL
SOLO in COLO ROAD TRIP

I took a trip to the Southwest, all alone.

I had a few caches targeted and some counties I can reach while down in the corner.

One is Tarryall. I've lived here for almost 6 years, driven passed it within 10 miles several times. I figure it was time to make the find. My truck made easy work of that road and a nice short walk to GZ.

Another is the loneliest puzzle cache. It has not been found for many years. I was the last to attempt it 4 years ago. Time to try again. The puzzle is so hard, I don't even remember how I solved it. I found it after some major help from the CO and then a co-FTF on his latest cache.

The third is the loneliest virtual. While it isn't that lonely, it goes the longest without folks visiting because of where it is.

THis cache was my favorite of the entire trip. As I drove closer and closer, I was glad to finally have the vehicle that could take me into the real backwoods and uphills of Colorado. I got as close as possible. I may have been able to take it up the switchbacks as well, but with the rocks looking as loose as they are and not being sure of the turns for the long wheelbase of my truck, I decided to park at the bottom of them (N 37° 25.656 W 108° 06.971). So, I was only about .5mi straight line to the cache, which is about 1.5mi up the switchbacks and to the peak.

Thunder and some light rain finally caught me when I parked and I decided I might nap through it, hoping it would leave me enough time to get to the top and back down before dark. Once I heard the rain stop on the roof of my truck, I got out to see if I could see a clearing in the clouds. It was lighter and I decided to head up the road, thinking I would turn back and try again in the morning if the drizzle didn't quit by the time I was halfway. Thankfully I only caught a few more drops and a couple graupel bits here and there. It was sunny by the time I reached the ridge.

I'm getting much better at the uphill hiking and it only took me about an hour and a half to get there, but I was stopping to enjoy the view. To my surprise, I had a fairly good signal and even went Live on FB a few times to share the views. What an amazing sight to the East when you get to the ridge above the switchbacks!!

I snapped the pics at the top and headed back down as I could see another wall of rain headed towards me. On the way down I pass a couple who asked if I went to the Horse Memorial. I did not know Dizzo was a horse. Interesting what you learn on a mountaintop. hehe... I made it back to the truck in 38 minutes.

So glad to have had the opportunity to get to this one. I've been looking at it for some time!!

Of course, while I appreciate the other caches, the rest were just fillers to reach the 4500-cache milestone or random caches at places near where I stopped along with a few added to the trip to grab the last few counties in South and West Colorado

Thanks for the fun and the loneliest adventure!!

07/20/2018 By Denali41
Vorticity's "Found it" log demonstrates how ridiculous the claimed January 2018 find was--especially considering that that cacher claimed finds the same day separated by long distances involving more than a single state. An approach in January to Dizzo's would have required a long over-snow approach and an overnight or a long backpack. The Cache Owner should delete that false find to keep the playing field level and fair to those who have made the actual effort to reach this marvelous Virtual location. Consider it, RShepHorse, because it's a CO's responsibility to validate every Found it log.

07/18/2018 By vorticity
I had this idea a decade ago that I would find and log all the virtual geocaches in Colorado. That was a really cool idea until I moved away from Colorado. And, Dizzo's Peak remains about as far away as a cache can get from Georgia. Nevertheless I drove it. I was turned back by snow drifts years ago. Cachers be warned: You either walk a long way, or you drive in a cachemobile that has true 4WD capability. The road is no joke. I had read some of the other recent logs. I managed to make it to 0.68 miles from the Peak, but that became a 3.1 mile hike. Slow drive back to civilization hoping I'd not break my Lexus. All in all, it was an amazing experience, but I am very glad it's all behind me. Vort.
Photo

Bean, the cache hound

Photo

01/30/2018 By BrokenPenSoul
Thank you for placing this cache so everyone can enjoy this wonderful game!

08/03/2017 By Denali41
I made some mistakes on this hike! First, I parked much lower than I needed to. I could have easily driven much higher. Second, I did not look at the spoiler photo of the route, so anticipated an easier hike. Because early this morning I made the challenging hike to the summit of Lone Cone, I was a bit fatigued and the hike to the rock structure took longer than expected, especially because of my low starting point. Third, and most importantly, when I arrived at the rock "shelter" I inadvertently deleted my GPS track! I knew I would be descending a portion of the route in the dark, and the trail gets "light" or non-existent through the meadow area just below gaining the ridge so I was counting on my track to keep me on route. It was gone! Sure enough, I could not find the trail at one point and ended up bushwhacking down steep terrain in the light of my headlamp, eventually intersecting the road. Thinking I was still above my SUV I started hiking DOWN the road. Eventually I got to a landmark I recognized as having driven past, so I reversed and had a long uphill hike to my vehicle! When I first realized I had deleted my track I thought about an adventure a good friend of mine once had on Hesperus--that mountain seems so close to Dizzo's! He got off-trail and spent the night on the mountain, being helped down the next morning by search and rescue folks. I didn't want that to happen to me on Dizzo's. It didn't!

Despite having made some judgment errors, this was a great hike to a marvelous virtual. Thanks for it, RShepHorse! Our Virtual caches are real treasures, and we can't afford to have more of them archived. Thanks so much for keeping this one active!! I will attach some pictures.
On The Way Up

Final Uphill To Rock Shelter

The Larger Shelter

What Views!

07/26/2014 By westgrimes
What a drive, what a hike, what a view! Finally got up to claim this one. TFTC

07/17/2014 By afudc
Spent a beautiful day traveling from Dolores Colorado to Zuni Mountain in New Mexico, caching along the way. This was one of my main goals for the day. I drove as far as I could then made the walk up the rest of the way. It was nice and calm in the early (7:30 ish) morning. A great way to start a birthday! I seem to have had a problem with my camera so only the photo of the shelter turned out. Thanks for getting me up here.

rock shelter at top

06/28/2014 By SnailMan1
My sister (non-geocacher) and I headed up to Dizzo's Peak today. We parking the car at N 37° 25.343 W 108° 07.900 which put us 2 miles from the cache as the crow flies. We could have driven down the road perhaps a little further, but there was no way we could have driven up to the mine in our vehicle. Turned out that this made for a nice 6.3 mile round trip hike. We just followed the road as it made switchback after switchback. Once the road ended we probably only had a few hundred feet left to go to get to the top of the ridge. There was a nice trail to follow at this point. Once we gained the top of the ridge my GPS said that we were still 0.4 miles away. About 3/4 of that was relatively flat which left us with one more final uphill portion of the hike As we gain altitude the temperature dropped and the wind was horrific. It must of been blowing 50mph. We saw plenty of beautiful scenery, flowers and even a flock of sheep which luckily were gone once we made the summit (we where a little worried about sheep dogs). Thanks for the very nice and challenging hike.

Mining Seperator (GC7EB9)

Another 1000 ft... Up (GC7EB9)

SnailMan1 @Dizzo's Peak (GC7EB9)

Sister at the top (GC7EB9)

Dizzo's Peak (GC7EB9)

Dizzo's Peak Route (GC7EB9)

06/08/2013 By A Chuckler
Three people and two small dogs helped me get to ground zero on the summit. From Echo Basin we took a 4-wheeler to the trail head and had to maneuver through, over and around snow on the way. From the trail head we hiked through some patches of snow . The temperature was nice and the sky clear, but the wind was pretty strong.
TFTC!

05/20/2013 By vorticity
I really wanted to get this one ... had the right kind of vehicle, but late-season snow thwarted my efforts. I got within 2 miles (Crow Flies) but could not get by the deep snow remaining on the road. I didn't have time to make the hike from there. Another time. Vort.

05/28/2012 By budbon
Got to this one while riding ATV's with friends. I'm now looking for more information on the stone cabin and abandon mine.