GCA744 Hard as Hell
Type: Virtual | Size: Other | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: treemoss2@aol.com @ | Hide Date: 11/11/2002 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N39° 25.750 W105° 05.117 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 9

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This is a hard as hell 3 checkpoint virtual cache. DO NOT undertake this unless you are up for a challenge. This is for geocachers that are out of the ordinary. I expect that no more than 2 cachers will ever get this.
I am posting it for those of you who look for the caches that present a physical challenge. Note that you can use either lat/lon only to two decimals or UTM coordinates.
Get the Trails Illustrated map.
DO NOT POST THE PASSWORDS HERE. E-mail whichever ones you do get.

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The coordinates above listed are for the first checkpoint.
What to expect. This to be a strenuous course, even more so if there is snow. Be prepared, leave early. Be prepared to bushwhack.
If you complete this course, consider yourself pretty good with navigation, routefinding, and perserverance.

I set this course in a RT time of 6:01 counting the stops at each checkpoint to set it up and record it.

They are all located on the Trails Illustrated Map #135, Deckers/Rampart Range. The flip side shows Roxborough Park. Start at the park. It opens at 0800.
CP A is at the trail junction just before Carpenter peak (square #23). The codeword is on a piece of blue plastic on the back of the sign. Please use the park trail to reach this point. Do not cut the trail. It is thick heavy bush and will be much slower. You will have plenty of time for that later. I would advise maybe going up to the Peak to get a view out over the terrain.
39 25.750N
105 05.117W
elevation 7128

CP 2 is in square # 10. It is 1 cm NW of the number 10 on the map and if you stay on the "trail" you will find it.
CP 2 is a teepee made of several cut down small pinetrees. One of the pines has a blue piece of plastic nailed to it with the PW.
39 27.433N
105 06.192W

elevation 6977

CP 3 is in square # 16. It is near the northernmost high point in that square. It is just down from that highpoint at a LONE tree that is two trees in one. It is banded all around in blue/ silver with the PW.
39 26.812N
105 06.947

elevation 6866

Questions?

07/22/2018 By AJperla
TFTC WITH TC

07/21/2018 By tc54915
Caching trip with AJ Perla out west in Colorado.. managed to.get my triple jasmer, hike up mountains that I never imagined I would do. I am truely a flatlander...Tftc. and
the adventures..

11/12/2017 By COpackrat
Yes, that was a toughie, OK...Even though I was able to find some animal trails here and there, the scrub oak certainly tenderized me with all the thrashing. I had put this off for long enough – I saw it when it first came out and was not very excited about the scrub oak bushwhacking, and it turns out I should have done it then when I was younger... :-) Thanks for the torture, er, hike and cache! Requested information on the way.

11/04/2017 By COpackrat
NOTE: CP2 is no longer at the coordinates listed in the cache description. See prior logs by Youkfish and Vorticity - coordinates are roughly N39 27.442 W105 06.194. These log entries have migrated far enough down in the list of logs to be easily missed.

03/22/2017 By Back Country Horsemen
Hiked to the top of Carpenter Peak for the 1st time. Would really like to finish this virtual but will need a hiking partner I'm sure.

11/23/2016 By RPieperCO
Made it to the first stage today, but since we were caching the whole way up and the snowy and icy trail decided this will have to wait for a warmer day to complete. Can't wait!

11/22/2016 By billkat
Waypoint one has been replaced by billkat and WingsandTales.

10/28/2016 By WingsAndTales
Very few caches live up to the hype surrounding them. This one does in so many ways. Billkat and I were at the gate about 20 min before they opened and hit the trail at 8:15. We knew we were going to be pushing closing time so we didn't do any of the other caches except the two very close to stops 2 and 3. We didn't even go up to the top of Carpenter Peak. We did the stops in order and made it to the second before 11. It's just over a mile as the crow flies from there to the third stop. How hard could it be? Two and a half hours later we knew the answer to that question. Hell was one of the milder words running through my head.

Now we just had to get back to the trail. We could see it about a half mile away and I thought I had a good route planned. It worked out but I got us off track once. The stream I was following split and I didn't catch that we were on the wrong branch for a bit. It slowed us down some but we still made it out in time. I'm not sure how the same trail can feel so much longer on the way down. We got to the car at 5:35 so it was 9 hours and 20 min to go 14+ miles and 3600 feet of elevation gain. I have my doubts that I'll be able to talk billkat into hiking with me again.

Thanks to previous logs I had long pants and sleeves and gloves. But even with that I still manged to get scratched up especially on my shins. Read the logs, plan your route and don't try this on a hot day.

I want to rename the park Roxbear State Park. I saw more bear scat on this one hike than I have seen on all my other hikes combined.

10/28/2016 By billkat
OMG! Did this aptly named virtual with WingsandTales today and I am positive I never would have done this without her encouragement and patience along the way.
I left some DNA in several areas. Never saw a bear but saw evidence of one.
I am pretty exhausted and I bet I will sleep good tonight
TFTC! Proof sent to cache owner.

08/17/2016 By Denali41
Thanks for that reminder, Vort. In high probability, all the information then exits at each of the CPs and this great Virtual Cache is totally functional in its original layout!