GC5BBHE CofM #17
Type: Multi | Size: Micro | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: kekj @ | Hide Date: 08/19/2014 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N38° 43.890 W108° 04.260 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0

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City of Murals: Delta, CO #17
 

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You may have noticed there is no CofM #1 cache.  This is actually the first Delta mural site.  In 1986 W.R. Doherty painted a mural depicting area wildlife on this power plant water tank.  Since he included both the male and female of each species, it was dubbed “Delta County Ark”.  By 2011 this mural on a south facing wall had become so badly faded, it needed to be replaced.  In the December 20 Delta City Council meeting a proposed solution was presented.  It was explained that City Culture and Recreation staff had been working with Dick Doherty who was the artist of the mural needing replaced.  Mr. Doherty had drawn “Gateways to the Canyons” depicting Dominguez and Escalante expedition meeting the Utes in 1776 when they explored the canyons that now bear their names.  Due to Mr. Doherty’s health he would be unable to paint the mural on the water tanks. Staff requested that he recommend an artist to complete the new mural. He agreed and recommended Seth Weber.

It was reported that City Culture and Recreation staff had also been dialoguing with BLM regarding the plans to recognize public lands in mural form.  The long range vision is to take the east half of the water tank for a mural of the Gunnison Gorge.  Delta area is the only location that has three National Conservation Area and Wilderness lands within a 60 mile radius.  At the time of placing this cache, the eastern half of the tank mural had not yet materialized

 For more information/photographs of murals and artists see:

Delta County Independent online archives: “City’s first mural to be replaced” http://issuu.com/deltacountyindependent/docs/dci_issue2012-02 page A9; “Father of Murals”, http://issuu.com/deltacountyindependent/docs/dci_issue2012-04 Back page

Also available are City Council minutes of December 20, 2011 at http://www.delta-co.gov/documents/agendas%20and%20minutes/minutes/2011/ccminutes12202011.pdf  page 2

The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition was conducted in 1776 to find an overland route from Santa Fe, New Mexico to their Catholic mission in Monterey. Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, Franciscan priests, and Don Bernardo Miera y Pacheco, a cartographer, traveled with eight men from Santa Fe through present day western Colorado to Utah Valley, now in the state of Utah. Along the journey they were aided by three Timpanog Ute guides. Due to hardships experienced during travel, the group did not reach Las Californias, but returned to Santa Fe through Arizona. The maps and documentation of their expedition aided future travelers. Their route became part of the Old Spanish Trail (GC1HE95) from Santa Fe.  For more information on expedition see http://www.desertusa.com/desert-people/fr-silvestre-velez-de-escalante.html

For second stage coordinates:

If mural was completed in May 2013, N=38 46.490

If mural completion was March 2012, N=38 48.390

If mural completed May 2012, N=38 47.290

If mural depicts a majority of those involved in the expedition, W=108 12.376

If mural shows only expedition leader Francisco Dominguez, W=108 14.476

If mural shows both Franciscan priests who headed expedition, W=108 16.576

Yes, it is a bit of a drive to the second stage, but all good roads.  Happy Caching!

WooHoo! Good going on the FTF, Silverheels!

Additional Waypoints

03/06/2019 By kekj
Not having a maintenance log on it, we were reviewing some of our cache logs and just realized that this cache was likely missing so went to check on it today and found we had to replace it. Done, good to go

10/09/2018 By ARK GOOSE
Missing?

10/09/2018 By Hives
This morning's mission was to do all of the mural caches in Delta (plus any others we encountered along the way). We had a great time and really enjoyed the murals even though we had a couple of DNFs. This one was out there a ways but in the spirit of trying to pursue all of the murals we decided to go for it. Once at GZ we scoured the indicated beacon, many times, and expanded our search radius quite a bit. We even looked "down stream" in the hopes of finding a container but came up empty. This one was quite disappointing.

09/29/2018 By kekj
Fresh in from California with a whole passel of new Trackables (21) that we found in a TB hotel out there. ALL had been cooped up for a minimum of 62 days, some for 83, and a half dozen for more than 110 days! A number of them are of international origin! We promised the cache CO and the TB owners that we would travel them around a bit before dropping them in local caches - showing them the sites in the surrounding area of the Rocky Mountains and also to give them a taste of the history/geology and local geocaching. This is one of those Historical caches that we are way-pointing them too.

05/26/2018 By kekj
Folks in town, showing them around - history and all. part of that was showing and explaining all the murals as well as the history of Dominguez and Escalante. Will be hitting Escalante Canyon (near the end point of this cache) in the a.m. so visiting some Tbugs here to get them back into town after trip to Teluride.

05/20/2018 By LolosDream
Found a string of multi caches today, based out in Delta, Colorado. Wonderful multi's based on the murals in town. After work we popped up to Delta to log all the finals. Fun tour of town. SL. TFTC! Found with Pathfinder33.

05/20/2018 By Pathfinder33
Quick and easy today. I solved all of these multis except one from google maps street view. So today we came up after work to find all of them. They were all pretty straight forward. Cache was in good shape. TFTC.

03/26/2018 By KirkNSpock
On a mission for the Planetary Pursuit souvenirs. We passed it the first time and had to go back! Log was pretty full so did not sign. Thanks!
- KNS

02/25/2018 By CacheKings007
Went to Delta last August and collected all of the City of Murals caches but did not head for second stage of any of the caches. Today we were in the area for where we figured second stage of #17 to be and there it was! have to get the rest of the second stage of all of these. Bonus #4 was our favorite! TFTC!