Devil To Pay (Maritime History Series)

06/30/2017 By RPieperCO
Thanks for the great series of caches! I've been working on this series for probably 2 years. Finally was able to make it up this way for the final! Holy Scrub Oak Batman! Crumbcrunchers and I wanted to make it here for our Friday hike. A fun climb up and several caches before hand. But man... Looking at the sea of scrub was almost too much! We decided to just plow through. After a bit we managed to find a few "clearings" that made traversing the slope easier. Once at the GZ we circled for a bit then went back to where I has zero'd out. I had overlooked it the first time. The coordinates are dead on here! Signed and stamped the log book and read the stories of previous finders. Again, great series and amazing final cache! Took in the views and snapped some pictures. Then back up through that sea of scratches and back to the car. Great day! Nearly 4 miles and 4 caches!

06/30/2017 By YamaGypsy
Definitely the devil to pay today! After getting a nearby cache RPieperco and I stood on a rock and looked out at a sea of scrub oak. Alas, we are cachers, is there really any question whether we'd go wherever to sign a cache? Swimming through scrub oak in shorts to a sweet victory with a smiley on this cache. Well worth the adventure and all the caches gotten before hand to gather the necessary pieces to get this one. Very well done! Thanks!

09/19/2014 By SnailMan1
I found my 1st puzzle piece in 2010. Due to my slow pace of finding the other puzzle pieced I did not have them all in my hand until last year. After that it was just a matter of solving the puzzle which took me quite a bit of time. By time I arrive here I was pretty tired and I did not find the cache right away. I began to get concerned that perhaps I put in the wrong coordinates in my GPS. After a fairly long search and before I tried to call home to verify the coordinates I spotted the container. Thanks for the challenge and the hike!

08/14/2013 By Tom.dog
At long last... I began working on this series in January of 2011 with Crow's Nest, and then picked up the pace throughout the earlier parts of this year. My goal was to get Devil to Pay before school started up again. Got it a week before.
The trailhead that I was originally heading for was closed off, so I had to divert and add another 1.5 miles on. Thought I could make it all before dark, but instead I hit some intense bushwhacking over the last quarter mile that took an hour to get through. It ranks as one of the most difficult scrambles that I have ever taken on.
Found the final quickly and, as I signed the log and took some photos, the idea comes to my head that it is getting dark, and quickly at that. Luckily there is great phone reception at the final, so I called in for a pick-up so that I didn't have to take my route back down. My route to the pick-up point was hard enough though, with a bunch of off-trail work done to make it in time.
All-in-all, it was a spectacular way to finish off the series. I've enjoyed every cache along the way and all of the places that they brought me to. Thanks for all of the work that you did to organize this.
Traded out all trackables for a red Jeep TB, will move the other 4 on to a cache of equal challenge.
Thanks for the cache!

10/15/2011 By 3 Williams Kidz
Forgot to mention that I retrieved the Loki Lokomotive TB that was in the cache. Choo-choo !!!

10/15/2011 By 3 Williams Kidz
AWESOME series! Found the final today, after being turned back last week by the remnants of the freak snowstorm we had, which prevented the approach by covering the roads with snow and ice -- not a chance, even in the Jeep. Really wanted to find the Maritime History final on Columbus Day, but no matter -- FOUND IT today! BigSmile Hats off to climbstuff/cirrus for the 9 traditional caches, this final, the puzzle, the maritime terms, and an incredible view from the final. I stocked the cache with trackables: a new geocoin of ours very appropriate for this cache: Atlantis
And also dropped off FOUR JEEP TBs -- one of each color. Next finder -- PLEASE keep the 4 Jeeps together, DO NOT BREAK UP THE SET; and please put them in an equally challenging cache, to preserve the importance and relevance of finding all four at once, and hopefully prevent them from being muggled.
SL, and was on my way.
Thanks again! From a retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander
Oh, and a well deserved favorite point, to be sure ToungeOut

02/06/2011 By estes01
I thought I'd already paid the devil with some of the hikes I'd done in the past, but today was particularly grueling – and fittingly so! After all, a series of caches as challenging as the ones in Devil to Pay (and an equally challenging puzzle), deserve a worthy finish. What better way to do it than in snowshoes through two feet of snow! Both WingsandTales and Ernie66 liked this series so much that they've been encouraging me to do it for almost a year now. In fact, one or the other has been with me on each of the 9 adventures. Today, it was Ernie. Thank goodness he likes to hike just for the fresh air and exercise, because we got plenty of both. Without his encouragement and his ability to find the cache (the second time for him, but this time under a lot of snow), I wouldn't have been able to do it – at least not today. Yup, today I paid the devil. But it really wasn't all that unpleasant. Thank you for all the work you put into this series and for 10 fun adventures. Swapped trackables.

Devil to Pay final1

10/11/2010 By vorticity
I started this incredible Journey just about 3 years ago (2 years 11 months and an 17 days, but who's counting?). I have had is solved since March 2010. Last night I saw the weather report calling for possible snow in the foothills on Tuesday. Time to get the lead out. What a super caching experience all around. Steep slopes, some amazing locations, and one in particular that had me in snow up to my waist, but every step along the way was a great time. Hats off. This is one of the best caches in the world. Vort.

Just Chillin'

With a few shots you can triangulate on the final.

09/26/2010 By jsarche
Well, this journey started way back in May 2009 with a 50-degree scramble straight up a hill to Sea Chanties. At the time, I was thinking "No way will I be able to get the rest of these." Well, persistence, stubbornness and a great appreciation of how much thought went into all the cache placements and the puzzles brought me to today, when my two sons and I made the pilgrimage to this cache. I feel like with this find, I join two elite clubs: one of only 12 people to have logged a find on this cache in the three years it's been active, and what I'm going to call the four-digit cache club. It feels like a great accomplishment, especially with the difficulty of this series. I was saving this one for my big 1,000-cache milestone. Thanks to cirrus for one of the most physically demanding, rewarding, and fun series of caches I believe I'll ever find. Based on his log, I believe I found the same way in as ernie66 used. We left some decent swag, including a baseball pinball game, a nontrackable USAFA coin and some other stuff. I didn't have any trackables with me, but I took pity on one that's been in the cache for nine months so it could get back on its merry way. I feel like I want to say more about finding this cache, but I'm too tired. BigSmile

This entry was edited by jsarche on Monday, 27 September 2010 at 05:36:46.

This entry was edited by jsarche on Saturday, 23 October 2010 at 19:33:24.
Paying my due

my partners

01/09/2010 By kwbforest
I started this long and adventurous journey back on 10/28/2007 with Horse Latitudes. That was my first puzzle piece and through the next several months I planned on getting more, but I always ended up hiking a different hill that day either by myself or with friends. So whenever I was near another puzzle piece, I would grab it.I had 2 in 2007, 3 in 2008, and 4 in 2009. Those last four were close together, because I made it my New Years resolution to finish this new by New Years. As you can see I was 9 days short, but I did it today. Every location you took me was a new adventure, some of them I paid for later. I decided today I would concentrate on this cache only. After solving the puzzle and seeing what I had to do, I knew I might pay for this one as well, but it wasn't as bad I thought it would be. Even with the snow on the ground, the hike was tiring but I kept going, sometimes 2 steps forward and 3 back, but I finally made it to the top. I sat at the cache location to enjoy todays sun and take in the view. Now I needed to figure out if I could take an easier way down, but in the end I went right back down the way I came up. So it took 1.5 hours up, but only 30 minutes back down. This will be one of my best caches ever. Thanks for the adventure, too bad it ended today. TFTC SL.

I made it!!!

I have to climb that!!!