" We Stick Together "

11/25/2019 By Denali41
I had a fun morning of hiking and caching. It began with the CITO event in Loveland, a special variation of the Weekly Monday morning meet up event. I hadn’t attended one for several weeks. The 6:30 am meet ups are tough when I live 45 minutes to the north. After the CITO, I met a muggle and we drove to the gravel pit trailhead for Crosier. We hoped to get to the summit of 7420 and back down before the forecasted major winter storm began. We were successful! I then talked my friend into a detour to the Sullivan Gulch area, hoping that on this second attempt at We stick Together I’d have a relatively quick find. After my first attempt, which was a DNF, Tahosa and Sons did some corrective modifications. This time things went smoothly, and I found the lovely container after a short search and inked my name as STF. Thanks for a great triangulation experience! Soon after this find it began snowing. As I write this, there are about 6 inches on the ground with a forecast of perhaps another 10 inches before the storm moves out of the area tomorrow afternoon! So I’m pleased to have found this great cache before all this happened. Thanks, Joe!

11/13/2019 By icezebra11
Well, I got some redemption on this cache today. I saw the notification last night that it was re-enabled but didn't have time to look at what changes Tahosa might have made. This morning I took care of my normal morning tasks, one of which is taking Angel for the first of her twice daily 2.2 mile walks. Walking nearly 4.5 miles a day doesn't to phase her a bit! In fact, her internal alarm clock goes off at about 8 am and 7 pm every day and she proceeds to get in my face and exhibit her impatience with me.

After we returned from the "poop loop" I was surprised to see that no one had logged a find on the cache yet. I thought surely Path Pacer would have snatched it up by then but the cache page still wasn't showing a Found It. I pulled up the cache page and noted several changes from the original version, which I had on my computer desk from my first attempt over three weeks ago. I re-worked all of the numbers and then set about doing the intersections using the three waypoints I marked the first go-around. This time I still came up with three different points but they were all very close. I chalked that up to the signal bounce I experienced when I originally marked the waypoints. So with a set of coordinates I was confident in, Angel and I hopped in the truck and headed up the highway toward Estes Park.

We arrived at the place I had parked before and got out to began the search. As Tahosa said in his Enabled Log, it was much easier this time around. I found the container and opened the log sheet, fully expecting to see a signature on it, but no! The log was blank so I happily signed it in the {FTF} position.

After I replaced the log, I turned around to see two hunters walking toward the other truck that was parked near mine. One of the guys had an elk permit for the area and they had been up high looking for a bull. We had a nice conversation and then I wished them luck before Angel and I headed home.

The Sullivan boys were truly a band of brothers and how sad that they all lost their lives together. Quite the tragic tale. Thanks Tahosa and Sons for placing this nice cache in their memory!!!

10/17/2019 By Denali41
I didn't expect to find this cache today after the reports by Pathpacer and icezebra11 in their DNF logs. But I decided to give it a solid try, and I did! They searched for a total of 3 person-hours, and I added another 2 hours today. There is obviously a problem with the cache bearings as generated by each of us in accordance with the instructions in the easy cache puzzle. The three intersections occur at very different locations instead of at a single spot. For example, the intersection of the bearings from the stop sign and the western-most mileage marker is 140 feet from the intersection of the lines from the two mileage markers--and the intersection of the stop sign bearing from the eastern-most mileage marker is 184 feet from the intersection of the two lines from the mileage markers. So it appears that Tahosa might need to spend some more time on this one so the cache puzzle can be revised.

On the other hand, my puppies Orizaba and Chimborazo enjoyed the 2 hours of close-in roaming and sniffing while I made my careful search!

I do enjoy the puzzle, and it was very interesting to learn details of the tragic fate of the five Sullivan brothers in 1942.

10/16/2019 By Path Pacer
It's probably redundant for me to log my DNF as icezebra pretty much covered it all, but I'll add my 2c anyway.

I arrived some time before he did and had already been up to the ridge and back down, but went up again when he called me. I had three intersections that formed a search triangle, but most of it was on the side of a very steep and scree-covered slope. For anyone else trying to find this one, be very careful; it's quite dangerous.

10/16/2019 By icezebra11
Well pathpacer and I stuck together for quite awhile and we struck out. I stopped at the three waypoints and they were very close to the coordinates I had plotted out last night from Google Earth. Then I went to the parking spot where I saw pathpacer's car already there. Angel and I headed up the hill to start our search and soon saw pathpacer searching below us. A problem I had (and pathpacer confirmed she was getting pretty close to the same results) was that the three bearings did not intersect for me and that made it a pretty sizable search triangle. To top it off, there were many, many hiding possibilities in the area. We each checked out the various rock formations and trees in the area for at least an hour and a half. Finally threw in the towel for today but I will be back.