Granby Ranch #3

09/28/2019 By Scaber
Thank you for placing this cache and helping to keep our recreation going.

09/28/2019 By kdrturbo3
Found it kept looking at small trees

09/28/2019 By blueskiescindy
Got it... you have to have very long legs to go after this in the winter LOL

09/25/2019 By Hofstad

USA 2019: Las Vegas - Chicago

Sep 17 - 30, 2019

What was originally a several-week long plan for a geocaching road trip in the US last year, was eventually split in two parts. The first part, from Seattle to Las Vegas, was completed together with akmokk in 2018. The second part, scheduled for this year and starting off in Las Vegas, was originally planned after Mingo, the world's oldest active geocache, but eventually got expanded all the way to Chicago. We did, as well, become a team of 7 Norwegians for this trip: Piraten, Ingridsp, LB8QC, Ireenee, Psyduck 54, akmokk and Hofstad; the first five spending a few initial days in Seattle at the expense of departing from Denver.

The major focus of this trip was the impressive scenery in Utah and Colorado, by visiting several of the National Parks: Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands, Mesa Verde and Rocky Mountain. Other scenic or otherwise special areas would be Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, Four Corners, Independence Pass, Pikes Peak, the geographical center of the 48 states, Iowa State Capitol and Frank Lloyd Wright's Wingspread house.

In terms of geocaching, our most important goal was of course Mingo. We planned for several other top 10 oldest caches as well. Lots of caches had altitudes above 3,000 m/10,000 ft, the most extreme being Pikes Peak at more than 4,300 m/13,000 ft. And, as always, making sure at least one cache is found in every new state visited. This trip would tick 8 new states off my map.

Judging by our destinations, they clearly draw lots of zigzags and even loops on the map. Fortunately, there exists a tool that makes the planning and management of such a trip both efficient, reliable and, not the least, fun! Our daily leg printouts from cachetur.no never left us in doubt about where to go next, and how to stay on schedule. And just as important, keeping track of answers that had to be provided to the cache owners.

Due to the focus on National Parks, our plan was heavily skewed towards Earthcaches and Virtuals. I had visited some of the destinations back in 2012 and had, thus, logged some of the caches that were visited this year. However, I still managed to rack up 180 finds over our 14 day trip.

A more detailed day-by-day log is available as a note in three parts: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Here is the log for the current day:

Wed 25th: Idaho Springs - Manitou Springs, CO via Rocky Mountain NP and Guanella Pass
We're going in circles! Indeed, today's leg brought us into the scenic Rocky Mountain NP after securing a few lucky FTFs outside of Granby. The road through the park took us through much higher elevation than anticipated, across a ridge at ~12,000 ft/3,700 m, before arriving in Estes Park for dinner. A winding, scenic route took us back to where we started, Idaho Springs, but we soon turned off the highway and continued south across the Guanella Pass. The Sun had set as we arrived at Tarryall, the oldest geocache in Colorado, before making our final drive to Manitou Springs.
24 caches found this day.

Greetings from Norway, and a great many thanks to all cache owners who, through their caches, let us perform our favorite hobby and could teach us about the places we visited!

On this cache:

[FTF] BigSmile

One of us was observant enough to spot two caches that had no found logs yet, and that were very close to our route. So we quickly made the decision to see if we could get a few FTFs Smile

With a crew of 7, it didn't take us too long to locate the cache, even though we spent some more time looking around for this one than the previous one. The log was indeed empty!

#10125

09/25/2019 By Ireenee
This years big trip was planned to be from Sept 16. to Sept 29. together with Ingridsp, Piraten, LB8QC and Psyduck54. First we flew from Norway to Seattle. I was the only one that have'nt been to the HQ before, so we had to make a visit there. After that we visited the APE cache of course!
The next day we flew to Las Vegas and spent the night there with an event and finding some caches. From Las Vegas we also travelled together with Akmokk and Hofstad.
After Las Vegas we drove around the next 10 days. We visitted some nice nationalparks, such as Zion, Bryce and Arches. We also had a walk in the Antilope canyon, wow!
We have been down in Death Valley and on the top of Pikes Peak.
The last day we found Mingo :)
We started almost every morning early, to get the most out of the days. We really saw a lot of nice places!

All the earthcaches are answered by Piraten and all the Virtuels are answered by me.

Thank you for all the caches! Greetings from Norway :)

Two unlogged caches, we had to go an see if we could find them! 7 Norwegians was all over the place and after a while we found both of them. (FTF) :D