Table of Contents

Cover Page

A Preface to this Issue

Lizard Toad Challenge
The Posts That Started It All

Lizard Toad Challenge
A Chronology of Sorts

Regular Features

Chuckles

Credits

Editor's Note:

This article combines stories related after the fact by UtahJean and MOCKBA with forum posts by several of the participants using aliases. I've extracted the part of each story that pertains to a particular day in the Challenge and mixed it in with the forum posts made on those days. I sincerely hope this will not be too confusing but will add to the overall experience.

Forum posts (denoted by a date/time signature) were extracted from the following UTAG Forum Threads:

http://www.utahgeocachers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=853
http://www.utahgeocachers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=855
http://www.utahgeocachers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=860

MOCKBA's Prefacing Remarks

I am trying to balance feeding everybody's curiosity against providing dead giveaways.

Just as a preface to my side of the Lizard Toads Challenge story, my greatest challenge was an amazing lack of reading comprehension. For whatever reason I concluded that each of the roughly 10 game goals will be a multi-cache of sorts, i.e. only the final find in each series will matter. And the intermediate steps are just that, intermediate steps. I also thought that each of the 10 series will be announced separately, staggered in time through October. Until Jean disabused me of this notion, i.e. not until day #3, I was playing accordingly. No particular rush, no photo documentation. Then it all changed!

As the game start approached, I still fretted about participating. Where to get the gear? Can I put enough time into this (of course I fully expected the hunt to go on for weeks)? Do I really want to face the pressure of going to a far far away location and looking for a well-hidden object with just one pair eyes? No, ain't gonna do it alone!

So whatever you may think of this, I posted a personal ad of sorts. BunkerDave responded quickly, and soon the Yellowback nom-de-guerre was born. He would't be able to join the fray before day 3 of the game though. So in the meantime, I had to test the waters alone - and still undecided about playing it for real.

Day 1 - Saturday, September 4, 2004

UtahJean:

My resolve not to play this game lasted every bit of five minutes after the game started Saturday morning. I couldn’t seem to help myself. There I was at the computer taking one tiny peek. You guessed it—I was hooked instantly. I just couldn’t be left out of this kind of action! After a futile search in the wrong place for the first pill bottle with MailboxMan, I had a pretty good idea of what we’d be up against and knew I for sure needed a teammate or two, especially someone with sophisticated software and the brains and know-how to figure projections, azimuth, and stuff like that. I called a couple of people who weren’t available, and later Aim High called and suddenly a team was in the making.

The first thing Aim High did was patiently explain to me the right way to make a projection on my Magellan platinum. We couldn’t use all the decimal points, but I felt confident we could find the first couple of objectives. We chose the name PsiGuys to bring the “force” concept into play and adopted a mascot, a beanie baby skeleton guy named DeathWarmedOver, who would help us remain incognito. I emailed Mockba to see if he was on a team yet.

MOCKBA:

My best guess was Wendover area and simple UTM projection without accounting for grid inclination. This wouldn't be that hard to calculate in the field. So I prepared for desert camping, and also packed a calculator & printouts of the area caches. Then the first assignment was posted, and to my surprise, it was the ***** and a hill in Traverse mountains. Well, I could make it to ****** after my daughter wakes up, she likes that spot. So in a few minutes we were speeding West on I-215 with Jasmine.

I haven't been up on Traverse Mtns before, and always wanted to go. So far so good. Parked by a jeep trail shown at the topo Rammed my way through the oak, checked the other side of this clump of oaks. Zilch. No cachers there either. None on the road to the site either. So I was starting to think that I made some terrible miscalculation. What to do, it's go back home now.

After breakfast, we headed with my daughter to the farmer's market, grabbed the badges at the ***** on the way home. Still puzzled by the Traverse Mtn fiasco, so I asked Cach-U-Nuts if it was even the right general area. Not only it was, but one of my sets of coords was right on. So Georgia concluded that it's gone MIA, and that I shouldn't even bother double-checking it. Craig was up in the Uintas and Georgia didn't have all the info from the 1st bottle, but she gave me the coords for the Mirror Lake Highway washer. Of course later at night, Craig confirmed that the 1st bottle is safe and sound, so I had to go there again to get the bearing numbers.

Day 2 - Sunday, September 5, 2004

UtahJean:

By Sunday afternoon Aim High and I headed out to the initial location to pick up four game pins. Piece of cake. Then we headed south for the first objective, a viewpoint I just LOVE. Aim High actually made a drive-up out of this one, getting past an awful spot in the road with his truck and parking within feet of point zero. Great. We were gratified to find the cairn approximately 60 feet from our Magellan projection. Yesssss! We can do this! There was the first pill bottle and a paper with instructions for two objectives for finding the next pill bottle—Yea!! We took lots of pictures including one of “Death Warmed Over” claiming the find. We were in the game, and the LizardToads had made a great start on taking us to wow locations.

Mockba emailed that night saying he and Bunker Dave had teamed up as the Yellowbacks, and yes, they would love to team up with us. BunkerDave was working all weekend, but Mockba had already duplicated our first finds. He said he would run get one of the items the next morning up a nearby canyon and would wait for us to find a far away metal disk to make a projection for the next pill bottle location. It was nice to be able to communicate by cell phone while driving to different locations. By the next morning we had our team all squared away, combining the two team names into one—The PsyGuys/Yellowback Team. We would be one killer team.

MOCKBA:

Out to the Uintas, and not about to miss another tricky hide. Need more eyes, maybe! So I got two carloads of friends and family, we hunted for mushrooms and berries along Provo river, found the disk, and then had a great picnic by Moosehorn Lake.

Once back home, I received welcome news. UtahJean wanted to join our nascent team! I asked BunkerDave to OK the team expansion (but UJ wouldn't get his OK for a few more hours, with the great consequences for our future teamwork).

Now I needed the bearing from Traverse Mountains, so we headed there with Jasmine again. The Sun was already down as we rushed to the familiar site in twilight, crushed our way back and forth through the oaks, and still found nothing. In desperation, I ***** ***** ****** and there it was. I guess my team mates can now appreciate why I didn't have such an absolute faith in my numbers later on!

What a view from up here after dark! Beats Squaw Peak Overlook hands down. Now back to re-unite with the friends and family to celebrate our success!

Forum Post by: GeoEric, 9/5/2004, 1:26 PM

The SciCal team has not yet found the first real cache but we had a great time searching and hiking. My mis-calculation put the location in private property but near a hilltop cemetary so we searched around the cemetary for a few minutes until I realized that I needed to account for a compass starting 0 degrees at the top instead of the right of the circle.

At that point we were 4 miles away so we drove and then hiked to the new coordinates. We couldn't see a rock cairn anywhere so we kept hiking all the way to the very top while searching along the way and then back along another ridge to the truck, a round trip of about 5 miles.

I understand now that my coordinates were nearly 1000 feet off and I don't yet understand why. It is a rather simple calculation so there must be something more complicated that I don't know about. I have done rather well with other similar bearing/distance cache finds, so who knows. I'll just keep trying. We have a better idea where to look for the cache now that others have found it without meeting us on the trail.

While hiking, we saw many interesting animals such as a large elk and a coyote. There were horned toads (horned lizards) everywhere ranging in every size, tiny to huge. On the way back we saw a small snake, about the diameter of a pencil, trying choke down one of those horned toads that was about twice the diameter of the snakes head. When we got too close, the snake slithered away with amazing speed considering half of the lizard was still hanging out of its mouth.

I have never before seen such a variety or quantity of animals while hiking in one day so that made the extra effort worth while.

Forum Post by: GeoEric, 9/5/2004, 5:25 PM

Yay, the SciCal team finally got it. Nordic8 went up with his family to search for the first cache while I sat back at the computer trying to find a better location. After some trial and error we found the way to calculate the coordinates and found the cache. While up there they met up with someone who seemed to be out for the cache too. Whoever that was.

Forum Post by: PsiGuys, 9/5/2004, 9:59 PM

Team PsiGuys out for the hunt! Good luck to all and be safe out there.

Day 3 - Monday, September 6, 2004 (Labor Day)

Forum Post by: Team Yellowback, 9/6/2004, 3:28 PM

The Lizard Toad game is going full speed and we don't see much info from the players.
Just thought to get the braggin' fest going.

This thread is our progress report. We think everybody should start their own progress threads!

We are a part of a larger PsiGuys operation. We are working on goal #3. It's a pity they haven't got names, only numbers. It's been all amazing views and not extremely challenging hides thus far.

Tested the projection methods on goal #1, after a while figured which one works the best. But it took more than one trip! It looks like the projected coordinates aren't as precise as we are used to expect. So we had to get used to this new reality. The night view from the goal #1 area was just unbelievably awesome! Thanks Lizard Toads!

1st part of goal #2 .... just been there barely two weeks ago ... went with two carloads of non-cachers, it helps! Last part of goal #2, wow, we thought one can't beat the view from the 1st part, that's until we reached the final one. But somebody's been here ahead of us!

Goal #3 ... yes, think "the view" again ... that's if we got everything solved right. The "Psi" part of the Combined Team is working on it now.

Now how about you, guys? Somebody must have more victories to brag about, right?

Forum Post by: lookinunderthesagebrush, 9/6/2004, 5:01 PM

We've lived up to our name today. Looked under some sagebrush, and done a 9 mile RT hike to a peak. We have a team member en route to our 3rd location TODAY, and may be able to squeeze in a 4th.

We've had to go back twice when our projections were off a few hundred feet, but we're getting better. We're lovin' it!!

UtahJean:

Early the next morning, Aim High and I headed east to get the pill bottle at ------ on the ------- Highway in the ------. This was another extremely scenic location and drive. The recent snow had melted, although frost and ice decorated some fields along the way. After stopping to let a cow moose and her calf cross the highway, we were surprised when the young moose began frolicking around and around a clump of small trees, each time butting his mother as he passed by. He was playing. What a delight to watch. The pine scented fresh air up on top was wonderful. It was easy to find this washer and again we took the required photos and headed back to Mockba’s house. He had already taken our two sets of info and projected the next goal—a spot in the desert south of ----- where we would be required to “Walk a Straight Line”. It was another long drive, but this was a fun one which Aim High and I quickly accomplished.

All right, back to Mockba by phone. He quickly projected the next point atop a mountain on the south end of the ------ range near --------. I was kicking myself for not having coords for the geocaches up that road, because I don’t know if I’ll ever, ever go up there again. I looked for the 5/5 star cache on top, but without coords couldn’t find it. The road up was a horror, a mess of short switchbacks climbing a very steep ridge. The road/track got narrower and narrower until it was back-up time if we happened to meet someone, which we did many times that day. I would really have freaked out if we’d had to back up, but each time the other vehicle did. It was Labor Day and lots of people were on that road with tense looks on their faces as we passed. A couple of times we were tilted so far over when passing that the vehicles almost kissed tops. Aim High said his big truck wouldn’t have fit, so I’m glad we were in my Ford Explorer. I gladly let Aim High do the driving. The road and mountain had me petrified and at the same time awed. At least I managed not to hide my eyes and cringe on the floor. We had to do two-point turns on many of the switchbacks. Thank goodness, we didn’t have to contend with rocky ledges like the jeep trails in Moab.

Near the top we abandoned the car and started climbing on foot, ~.3 mile almost straight up a 4-wheeler track. We watched one of those buggies zip up that track, and I was amazed it could keep going on something so steep and rough. I expected to see it flip backwards at any moment, but it didn’t, so up we went after it. At the top we were treated to astounding views. Hang gliders were taking off somewhere way below us, riding the thermals up and waving to us as they glided by. Wow, what a feeling that must be. The little cairn wasn’t hard to find—Mockba’s coords were once again smack on. (At least I call 2 feet smack on.) We were able to feed the info back to Mockba and once again he figured out the next objective and passed it along to Bunker Dave. We reluctantly turned and made our way back down. I was congratulating myself for not slipping when about 20 feet from the car down I went. Duh! no damage done. The down-go in the Explorer was just as scary as the up-go, except that most everybody had gone home, and we only had to pass one 4-wheeler. Whew! Was I glad to get down from there. I’m not nuts about being in a vehicle on high exposed roads like that. Aim High was loving it. It’s a guy thing, I guess. We had a very successful day, especially knowing that Bunker Dave was on his way to get another metal disk way to the north. Late that night after he reported back, I learned our next destination. Even though we were ill-prepared, Mockba and I decided to go for it the next morning. The other guys had to work.

MOCKBA:

It was wee hours of the morning and I was in pretty bad shape when our celebration was over. It seemed that I just closed my eyes ... when the phone rang. It was 7 in the morning already! And there was UtahJean on the phone, with a revised plan. - How about including Aim High on the team? - Sounds pretty good but I guess we need BD's OK yet again? With this, I crawled back under the blanket. But I couldn't sleep with the new waypoint still unprojected. Once that was done ... gee, what a familiar place! All right, I told Princess Jasmine to get her tail off my pillow and we ran up and down *******, and then I went to sleep again. I should also mention that I was still not taking proper photographs, since I still believed that we are hunting a multi-step goal #1.

It seemed that I just closed my eyes ... when the phone rang again. It was UtahJean with Aim High, waking me up for the second time this holiday morning! They couldn't wait to see action and they weren't sure yet if they can join the expanded team (which has just been rechristened by Aim High!). So they took off and by mid-morning, already grabbed the Traverse Mountain and the Mirror Lake Hwy locations (and covered for my lack of photos!). I just asked them to drop to my place. Had about 10 minutes to swipe the kitchen floor and move the dirty dishes before they showed up. We projected the 3 new waypoints and chatted things. My misunderstanding of the game was finally shattered. We also predicted that there would be goals to find in . Not too bad a guess, huh?

So UJ and AH drove off to Tooele and I was trying to guess the number they were about to find by taking projection after projection. Butterfield locations didn't seem to work, so I kept increasing the unknown number. Just when I was plugging in the data for the ******** location, the guys called again. It was this very number I was playing with! So against the odds, they got UJ's Explorer almost to the top, and hiked right into the stash. All right, let them figure out how to get out of there safely. I now had more numbers to play with, and soon it spelled *-*-*.... A night hunt near Wyo state line? Sounds like something BunkerDave was asking for? And soon he was off to his first find in this game!

(By the way I'd stop at Lotty's while in Evanston. Prime rib buffet, check my Royal Treasure logs! And they sell alcohol around the corner there. Last time I stopped by, I talked them into selling me Pilsner Urquell for 1.20 a bottle, just gotta patronize this place!)

Forum Post by: Team Yellowback, 9/6/2004, 6:11 PM

The other part of our PsiGuys team reported completion of goal #3. Armed with their numbers (which we can't completely grasp yet), we are out to get #4.1 Lizard Toads, there was a three-digital number without decimal point and we can't get its meaning. Also the degrees sign was in the middle of the bearing value (not in the end), and so we aren't certain yet if the data were in decimal degrees, or in degrees-minutes-seconds. Of course we may yet clear the confusion on our own, once the Guys are back at their computer terminals later tonight

Forum Post by: Lizard Toads, 9/6/2004, 9:00 PM

If things are not quite clear then it may be necessary to figure them a couple of different ways and see which one makes more sense.

Day 4 - Tuesday, September 7, 2004

Forum Post by: PsiGuys, 9/7/2004, 11:54 AM

Our team had a great time on Labor Day with the game. Besides going to some fantastic locations, one of the highlights of the day was when we came to a dead stop on a road to let a cow moose and her calf meander in front of us to the other side of the road. The mother continued non-chalantly eating without a care. But, the calf just went into a very playful mode. The hair on the calf's back and neck was standing straight up and he just kept running in circles around a nest of pine trees. Never seen anything like it before. So, we just sat in awe for a few minutes watching this little guy romping around the forest.

For those of you cachers out there that want to learn a heck of alot more about that little box you carry around, this for sure is the activity to get involved in. We've projected waypoints to within about 60 ft accuracy to as little as 2 ft! The 2 footer came from some input from a team member on a computer back home. It really is a team concept here that makes it work.

So, come join us crazy hunters out there. We know that everyone isn't going to get the main prize or one of the raffle prizes. But, we're already seeing that it's not about what you're going to win. But, like so many have posted before, "it's about the adventure" of the hunt, not the end game. But, hey Team Yellowback/PsiGuys are going to make a run for the big bucks!! Cache us if you can!!!!

UtahJean:

So now we had to find a pill bottle in a sand pile. Sounds fun, huh? It was a neat location, but try four hours in the hot sun swinging a metal detector around a grid with no pings except for one smashed rusty beer can. Mockba a nd I gave it a good try, but my grandkid’s cheap little metal detector couldn’t find that pill bottle with the quarter on top. We really hated to give up. Mockba seemed so discouraged and figured his coords must be wrong or the bottle buried to deeply by competitors. There were tracks showing someone else had been there. I tried to convince him it was much too early to give up or call the C-nuts for help. We would have to see if we could round up better detectors and get more bodies out here. We figured someone had already found this bottle and were a day ahead of us. That night Bunker Dave purchased a much more professional detector, and Aim High looked in to renting one. I had the evening off to watch competitors on The Amazing Race being just as nuts as we were.

MOCKBA:

Terrible, slow, error-prone day. And the Sagebrushies are still ahead of us! I showed up at work to finish the urgent things and to tell them that I'm gonna be off till 2pm. The waypoint projected to Sand Dunes, and the stash was buried, with only a quarter coin for a metal detector to find. UJ was bringing her grandkids' detector. We were supposed to meet at I-80 West and we ended up looking for one another 3 exits away. (Team caching rule #1: get the coords for your meeting place!) Eventually we got to the area, and discovered that the competition has dug all over this place. It was hot, and it was boring, as we ran out of "curious places" and just divided the desert into grid, and went section to section, hour after hour. Nothing beeped, save for a buried beer can... Oh the misery of a long drive away from a DNF!

Forum Post by: Team Yellowback, 9/7/2004, 4:38 PM

Arrgh! You must have jynxed it! The first metal-detecting step of the hunt yielded nothing within 10 ft of the projected waypoint ... then within 20 ft ... then.... no answer yet, how far will that one turn out to be?

If it is really 60ft or worse, we may need a platoon of cachers over there, all armed with metal detectors. For attractions, Lizard Toads provided a view and a mighty big sandbox to play. But I think we'll need to grill steaks and bring cold beverages to get a friendly crowd over there. Hey, the cachers' barbecue season never ends on Labor Day.

Day 5 - Wednesday, September 8, 2004

UtahJean:

Out of bed early to join the boys on a second trip to the sand pile. The phone caught me going out the door with news that Aim High couldn’t find a rental until after 10 am, so he and Dave had decided to abort and go on to work. What?? No way, I said. So what if it’s going to be hot. When I said I would go out there anyway, I think that galvanized them into changing their minds and coming after all. So… Bunker Dave and I started driving, him NW and me SW, running into each other on I-80 just past the -------- turnoff (no, not literally) and continuing on out to that great sand pile to the west. We were prepared for a long siege in the sun, but would you believe...with his nifty new detector, Dave found the pill bottle seconds after I pointed out point zero--the first sweep, in fact. Awesome! The force was with us and Mockba’s projection was absolutely perfect!

We joyously sent the info along to Mockba and he immediately came up with the next objective, -------, a peak up -------- Canyon. Fortunately, we caught Aim High by cell phone on his way to the sand pile with a rented detector, so he turned back and drove the other way to next objective. He did this major climb all alone making good time while Bunker Dave and I killed time catching a couple of caches in the Saltair area. After a while we headed back east to be closer to a possible start-point for the next objective. Just as we approached Parleys on I-80, the info arrived from Mockba. Aim High was jubilantly on the top of the mountain and had found the disk. The next pill bottle turned out to be on a much lower peak near the ----------. Perfect timing. We turned north, made a relatively quick climb up, found the bottle, and phoned that info back to Mockba. While he figured out this more complicated one, Bunker Dave and I drove the short distance to Mockba’s workplace in Research Park.

MOCKBA:

My spirits may have sunk, but not BunkerDave's. He was convinced that we were cheated out of luck because of a toy-style metal detector. He's got a better model, and he wouldn't wait to try it out. Aim High was going to rent another one and join them a bit later. Soon my phone was ringing. Lady Luck smiled this time. And the numbers projected in the *********. Within minutes, Aim High started a 3,000 ft climb up ********** trail. Things were finally starting to roll!

In the meantime I was playing with a few projections, and it became clear that the next site must be ***** of *****. A location on Little Mountain made sense, and maybe another one by Mt. Van Cott... So UJ and BD were getting back into town in anticipation of Aim High's call. Just hope his cell phone battery lasts... Yay! And the next one is ... actually a short hike from my office! But I didn't have to brave foothill trails in my office shoes. Bunkerdave and UtahJean got everything before my last meeting of the day was over.

A few minutes later, we were conferring at the street curb. We needed a boat to grab the next goal, and we were determined to do it tonight. Yes! I wanted to grab GC**** for a long time, and now was it. UJ's husband brought their luxury canoe down to Salt Lake while I went home to change. BD picked me up and soon the three of us were sitting in Kimball Junction Wendy's. It was still light. But it became pitch dark when we reached the lake and discovered that the Plan A turnoff is blocked off. We unloaded anyway, and portaged in through the weeds for a quarter mile till we realized that Plan B should be much faster. OK, back to the highway.

Just before 11 pm, the canoe was in the water, about 3 miles as the crow flies from our destination. But with Dave's super-high center of gravity, I was certain that we'll be in the water beside the canoe much sooner than we can get anywhere! We had to forget the comfy seats, and to squat at the bottom. Two rookie paddlers all right, but under the guidance of our experienced Great Helmsman we kept zigzagging along the shore and across minor bays, and reached the island before midnight. Oh the shooting stars! Oh the Milky Way!

Now up the hill through the nettles ... and fallen trees ... and more fallen trees ... and into the most incredible tanglewood bushwhack I've seen in years. Aspens and firs, dead and alive, leaning and fallen, on a steep slope. And spiderwebs everywhere for UtahJean's delight. The container was supposed to be at the eye level, but what exactly is the eye level in such a place where you are crawling on the ground one second, and dangle in the air another second? I left my GPS at home and now felt that I violated the Team caching rule #2. UJ and BD would shout out how many feet from the ground zero they were, but in what direction? I really prefer seeing a screen with coordinates, since I could tell the directions to the North and West even amidst this deadfall. Eventually I caught up with Jean and looked up the current coords at her little Gekko. Wait a second! It wasn't the longitude I calculated! I guess UtahJean copied from Bunkerdave's and BD got a few numbers from the wrong line in the printout? Luckily we were less than 300 ft (read Insane Night Bushwhack feet) away from the true location. Whew!

We spent another hour, it seemed, to find ****** Cache, the one billed as an easy-find five-star, and which had an FTF log by our beloved skipper! Then it was 3 miles paddle back. The wind tried to blow us back, and the waves made us hug the dark shoreline real close. The Pleiades rose, and Orion's Belt shone in the East, a welcome messenger of coming winter. As we paddled along, the crescent of waning Moon finally rose over the hills. The wind blew mist against us, and I was sliding into the are-we-there-yet desperation, asking Dave to change paddling hands every few minutes. But then we saw the green glare of reflectors at our starting point. Hurray!

At the shore, Bunkerdave made a quick waypoint projection for the last remaining goal on his Garmin. ***** Creek in *****, need a picture of a sign somewhere over there. OK, let's hope that we can find the right sign online. But that could wait until the morning. We already bagged 4 goals on this long, exciting day, including the dune dig, the 3,000 ft climb, and this 6 mile paddle. Oh, by the way, isn't it the morning already? Venus was already high in the sky when we pulled into Salt Lake Valley with UJ. At quarter to five, I was catching first z's.

UtahJean:

We met Mockba who revealed our next and possibly last objective was an island in a certain lake. I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT all along!! Of course--that’s DHobby’s playground. But it’s too late in the day, ….isn’t it? A heavy debate ensued about what and when and how we could knock this one out. I definitely wanted to use my trusty canoe and equipment even though it meant going all the way to Farmington to get it. It was after 5 PM already. Bunker Dave was calling friends looking for a closer boat. I realized my teammates were going to do this insane thing tonight, regardless of darkness, questionable equipment, with or without me, so I decided to have Jay (MailboxMan) bring the canoe down to SL so I didn’t have to buck the northbound rush hour traffic. That would cut the time in half. Worked like a charm, even though Jay was convinced we were totally out of our minds and wondered if he’d ever see us again alive. (Of course, we’re out of our minds. That’s a given.)

Jay and I transferred our 42-lb 18’ Wenona Sundowner onto the Explorer’s racks and I headed east to a rendezvous at a Wendy’s. Bunker Dave and Mockba soon met me there and we grabbed a quick sandwich and I changed out of shorts and sandals into warmer clothes. Of course, it was pitch black by the time we got to our destination on a clear, moonless night. It wasn’t nearly as cold as I had feared it would be. Unable to even see the lake, Dave drove a bit too far looking for an access road shown on the map. I had warned them all the roads along here were padlocked, and I wasn’t sure this was the right one or not. But they said, what the heck, let’s try this one. So we unloaded the canoe and started down the hill. Soon the road ran out and we could not find the lake. Hee, hee. The boys set the canoe down and we all scratched our heads. We were too far east. So back up to car, reload the canoe, drive back west to a viewpoint and again start hauling the canoe and gear down the hill along a trail. It was blacker than a coal mine, but we all had headlamps, plus my large mag-light, and another smaller flashlight or two. This time we actually found the lake. Hurrah! Mockba and I hurriedly marked the spot on shore so we could find this trail when we came back. Sure glad I thought to throw in that roll of reflector tape. Not sure why we were in a hurry—we had all night ahead of us.

So there we stood on the shore of an enormous, scary black body of water adjusting our pecking order. Right off the bat there was an intense discussion on who would sit where. Bunker Dave and Mockba had no experience in a canoe and I had plenty, and no, I wasn’t going to sit in the middle. It was gonna be the driver’s seat in back for me, or we just ain’t going, fellas. I was adamant and reminded them I only brought them along to carry the canoe and provide the paddling power. Hee, hee. They had to give in.

Then there was the excitement of actually getting into the canoe and getting started. Things were really rocking and rolling, and I’m surprised we didn’t dump right then and there. The boys were flailing with their paddles, so I yelled at them to stop, STOP, STOP! Just hold still a minute. Then I gave them some quick instruction on how to paddle—“First, turn the paddles over--you’re holding them backwards. Dave, you paddle on one side, Mockba you paddle on the other and synchronize your strokes. If you change sides, do it together. Don’t try to steer. I’ll take care of that. Slow and easy until you get a feel for it.”

Our lurching and tipping soon settled out, Whew, and we began to work together. Immediately, oops, we almost ran aground on a low spit extending out from shore because we simply couldn’t see. After putting on the brakes and backing up, I suggested to the guys that we turn off the headlamps. Yes, it was amazing how much better we were able to see. Our eyes adjusted to starlight, and we could see the shoreline and the entire lake instead of just the boat. The guys pointed out a direct route according to the GPS, but I insisted, even on this windless night, for safety’s sake, we stay close to shore even though it meant looping in and out of the bays. We had about three miles to go, and it wasn’t long before we had our rhythm and technique worked out. We all relaxed a bit, got silly and sang a few songs and had some long conversations about all kinds of things. Way over to the east were lights from the marina where DHobby and Ro park their lovely boat. I’ve never seen a more beautiful, spectacular nighttime sky—looked like a surreal painting for a sci-fi book cover—stunning, awesome, spiced up by a wonderful show of shooting stars putting out enough light sometimes to reflect off the water.

Finally we came around the last point. “Steer straight for the milky way, boys.”

Suddenly, the island, dead ahead. Slow down—slowly, slowly. We edged along looking for a landing. Fish, BIG fish, were jumping all around us. Where’s my fishing pole when I need it? Another rocky moment while trying to get out of the boat. Canoes are like that, but we were lucky, and all remained safe and dry. It was still not very cold, and we quickly worked up a sweat heading up the hill. We could taste victory nearby, and we all were in a hurry. The coords were going to take us near the top—of course, and oh boy, was this hill steep. In no time we entered a tangled forest of young spruce trees. I quickly fell behind. This was tough going. I kept hitting dead ends where I simply couldn’t climb over, under or push my way through the tight overlapping boughs. Bunker Dave just seemed to step over all this stuff with his long legs. I kept tripping in the darkness, so I switched on the big heavy-duty flashlight I had been lugging. Oh, how I wished I hadn’t. All around me, everywhere I looked, were huge glistening webs, and in the center of each was a great BIGGG spider!!! Oh my god!! AARRRRGGGGHHHH! I hate spiders! This was a horrible nightmare—a bushwhack from hell!

Bunker Dave and Mockba reached the zero point while I was still struggling up. Finally I got there and we began casting about for the last container. Just trying to look around this extremely thick area was exhausting. This couldn’t be right. For sure, C-nuts and the Hob wouldn’t hesitate making us work our butts off, but at the same time they wouldn’t make it impossible. Finally, I caught up to Mockba who was pulling out his papers and wanting to know what coord we had in our GPSs. He hadn’t bothered bringing his poor, broken down yellow Etrex. The screen has dimmed until he can no longer see it at night. Oops, sure enough, Bunker Dave and I both had the wrong coord. I don’t even know how that happened. We quickly inserted the right one and voila! point zero was 200+ feet over that away. The boys sprinted over while I again struggled to make progress. I couldn’t go the way they went. By this time I was whimpering and feeling sorry for myself. It felt exactly like the time I got trapped in the reeds hunting for Harbor Cache in Utah Lake, only that time Craig C-Nuts was there and grabbed me by the arms and physically hauled me out. So where was he now when I needed him? Bunker Dave and Mockba were too busy rejoicing. They had found the last cache. Finally I dragged myself the rest of the way up that awful hill. WE DID IT! WE DID IT! This is the place, and a much more logical place at that, on the edge of the forest.

Possibly, this was the end of the game, except for locating the last item—a sign somewhere far away, but we didn’t necessarily have to go there. I reminded them not to get too carried away celebrating, that we still had to get ourselves off this island and back to the car. But no, not until they found Craziest Cache by a Dam Site, a 5/5 star hide. That ought to be easy though, since I had been there before and it was on the way back to the canoe, further down the hill. We managed to get down without getting caught in that awful thick stuff again, but alas, even though I thought I remembered how the cache was hidden, we couldn’t find it. It seemed Mailbox and I climbed right up here by this old log and it was in the bushes over there…right where BunkerDave was zeroing out, but nothing looked right. After about an hour, BunkerDave was saying, Jean, are you sure you’ve been here before? Finally, Dave gave a yelp. He had it. No wonder. A big chunk of dead tree had fallen right on top of it. I felt better. I did remember it correctly. OK, sign the thing and let’s get out of here. I tossed a UJ ringy thingy in there.

Back to the canoe and again a bit hairy entering the canoe. We need to work on that. The fish were still jumping like crazy, feeding by starlight. Plop, plop, splash, splash. Going back was smoother for a time. Even though the guys were sitting too low for a good stroke, which was probably tiring for them, we made good time. A thin crescent moon slipped up over the horizon and cast a dull film over the brilliant stars. Now we could see everywhere. Unfortunately, about halfway back, the lake finally took offense at our being there and started sending rows of swells toward us from the NW. OK guys, just relax your hips and let them rock with the motion. Don’t compensate with your upper bodies. I got a bit nervous at this point and was ready to steer us to shore if the wind picked up. I couldn’t head us into the wind since that took us too far from shore, or even quarter into the waves, so we did wallow a bit. It was difficult keeping our heading with the wind at such an angle. Just when the swells began to get larger, we reached an inlet and the wind swung around from the east out of that channel. Good! The two winds seemed to cancel themselves out and the water settled down again even though the wind still blew. A few more swells on the other side, and then the wind died away and we had smooth sailing all the rest of the way. Not too far from our landing, fog began rolling across our bow and the temperature dropped considerably. Uh oh. I hadn’t thought of fog. But, of course, we couldn’t get lost with GPSs, and even though the fog bounced the light back in our faces, our flashlights still easily picked up the bright green glow of all that reflector tape. Great! We were home free! How good to be on firm ground again. Back up the hill, load it all up, celebrate a moment with horseradish and bologna sandwiches and a taste of Mockba tea. Oh my, was I tired, we all were, and so delighted with ourselves. Yahoooo!! We only wish Aim High had been there to share that moment, too. What an awesome team we were.

Forum Post by: PsiGuys, 9/8/2004, 9:24 PM

All I can say is that Team PsiGuys/YellowBack kicked some major butt today and we're still going!! I believe we're really getting this team concept down pat and the team is continuing into the night!

Be safe out there and cache us if you really think you can!!!

Day 6 - Thursday, September 9, 2004

Forum Post by: Team Yellowback, 9/9/2004, 8:43 AM

Thanks PsiGuys, superbly done!

The team mates - you guys rock, still awed by this nearly-seamless delegation of assignments and by this irrepressible caching spirit.

And what a night it was! We had plenty of shooting stars for the wildest wishes of each of us out there. The set of goals looked extremely challenging at first, and we were further hampered by a few interesting goof ups. At one point Lady Luck led us on a wild goose chase from a wrong turnoff. Later in the night, as we cursed the Lizard Toads in the midst of the most impenetrable bushwack we ever had a privellege to search, we discovered that both of the still functioning GPS receivers in the team had the same waypoint entering error! We didn't get back until the Morning Star was already high in the sky. But what a set of accomplishment!

The next projection results will be in the mail shortly. Way to go guys!

MOCKBA:

Rectified the last projection and found a picture of a sign, but I could only confirm its position to about 50 ft precision. What if there is a second sign nearby? An extensive Internet search yielded a couple more pictures from slightly different directions, no other signs in sight. Good. Sent the image and the numbers to Lizard Toads and received confirmation. Now I had to run up the hills with Jasmine again, to shoot the missing pictures. Everybody sent their bundles of images to Georgia's address, and probably buried it under all these megabytes of stuff. Now it's wait and see if the proof is acceptable.

UtahJean:

Thank you LizardToads for a really great game. Thanks to lookinunderthesagebrush and the SciCal team for providing such great competition and spurring us on. We were constantly aware of you on our heels. I wish more people had played. I’m not sure we could have put together a better team. All three guys brought so much to play in conquering this challenge. If nothing else, I hope I provided some competitive passion, maybe the glue that held us together and some Mom factor—come on you lazy guys, get out of bed, let’s go, of course, we can do it. Yes, it helped that I had a 4WD and a pretty nice canoe. Oh, and yes, maybe I brought along a bit of the force. I’m sure I managed to make a few observations and suggestions here and there that helped, and I hope I didn’t make the boys have to wait too long for me on those up-hills. Thanks guys for making me feel a part of the team. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with you. And thanks C-Nuts, Dhob, Potter and Suzer, for going to all this trouble. You really outdid yourselves. You went to all these great places too when you placed the hides, so I’m sure it was fun for you too.

Dropped Mockba off and got home at 6 AM exhausted, very sleepy, hungry--hair, pockets and bra full of sand, spruce needles and twigs—thank god no spiders, although I did find a couple of strange bites. My clothes, packs and shoes were smeared with mud and sticky sap, my hair and skin salty from sweat. Wow, was I a mess. In short, it only took one look at myself to tell I had a marvelous time. Did that bed ever feel great.

Forum Post by: lookinunderthesagebrush, 9/9/2004, 10:17 PM

Different teammates said they would post something here, and than we all ended up not doing it. We've got some lost in the circuit downloaded pictures of beautiful leaves and mountains that we'll post as soon as we straighten out their location.

We've had all the problems that Yellowback/Psiguys have had, plus a new lack of gear problem. We thought about burying extra quarters in the sandbox, but decided against it.

We're wondering where MOCKBA plays into this whole thing because that hike description couldn't have come from him.

Tonight, after hitting some snags, we narrowly avoided high speed collisions with a badger, a deer, and than a skunk within about 5 minutes. We'll fight to the end!

Day 7 - Friday, September 10, 2004

Forum Post by: Lizard Toads, 9/10/2004, 3:32 PM

You guys never cease to amaze us at how fast you can accomplish a goal. We figured it would take a couple of weeks but it was completed in a little more that a half of a week. We have confirmed that the PSI Guys/ Yellow Backs have completed all the objectives and fullfilled all the requirements of the game.

A big CONGRATULATIONS to each of you! A job well done! Wow, you guys were FAST! It took us a lot longer to set it up than for you guys to knock it out! On behalf of the Lizard Toads Team.....A big Thanks to all of you for playing the game and giving us some GREAT entertainment over the past week! We do hope you enjoyed your adventure and that you gained something positive from the experience.

Forum Post by: lookinunderthesagebrush, 9/10/2004, 7:19 PM

And this is the image of defeat we finally saw last night after a 2 mile walk. The picture looks calm compared to high the waves were, and we were unprepared to make the swim/paddle and leave other team members waiting in the dark. And now we've found out that we were too late anyway.

The other post makes a lot more sense now that we know which bushwhack it was talking about.

Congrats again to the unstoppable Psiguys and Yellowbacks! They were a superstar team if ever there was one.

MOCKBA:

Writing memoirs and accepting congratulations It's been an adventure! Hats off to the organizers, and huge thanks to the team and to everybody who helped, and to our competitors in this crazy quest!

Forum Post by: Lizard Toads, 9/10/2004, 9:49 PM

ROTFLOAO What a great story. Georgia is unable to type a response because of laughing spasms so I'll take over and say well done. We wish we could have been there to watch your antics. We hope everyone is still on speaking terms and eager for more of these adventures.

Day 8 - Saturday, September 11, 2004

Forum Post by: lookinunderthesagebrush, 9/11/2004, 3:17 PM

Our team was Dinohunters and Dorkteam6. Now that we see the competition, we feel a little like the Washington Generals. (Editor's Note: In case you don't remember, the Washington Generals was the team who travelled with, and perpetually lost to, the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team.)

But we made a good run and arranged a ride today to grab the last point we needed. We sent our email with the sign to the Lizardtoads and hopefully got it right.

The Dinohunters were the brains of the operation (if that wasn't already obvious ) and all of our waypoints were within 15 ft or less after the 3rd and 4th points, where we had to go back twice. We had to go twice to the 7th point under the sand, but that was one of those unexplainable GPS quirks. The 2nd day with the same coords and a different GPS got us within about 2 feet and made it practically a drive by. Everyone's busy today, but we'll post some different accounts tomorrow. We don't have anything to match the night canoeing, but Jeremiah did spend a couple hours out in the sand past midnight.

Forum Post by: MOCKBA, 9/11/2004, 4:01 PM

Just to put the competetive strength of the teams in perspective ... we've been trailing behind the Sagebrush team from day 1 and until less than 12 hours before our island raid.

Forum Post by: Aim High!, 9/11/2004, 5:13 PM

And a follow on to Mockba's comment. After a very disappointing day Tuesday, but after quickly finding the quarter in the sand on Wednesday, our Team's resolve strengthened. At this point it was as if Team lookinunderthesagebrush awakened in our team what Admiral Yamamoto said after the attack on Pearl Harbor. "I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve." Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Empire of Japan, 7 December 1941. The surge began and grew into a tidal wave that was sustained for almost 18 hours straight.

What a great time had by all! I hope that additional cachers take the plunge and go out and nail as many objectives as you can before the closing date of the game. There are so many capable cachers out there, much more so than any abilities our team brought to the table. I definitely can't dismiss Mockba's incredible projections though--that was really mind boggling. But, again what Mockba was doing on the computer is something that we're all able to do--we just have to sit down and familiarize ourselves with the program.

When you look at the rag-tag way our team came together, it's actually a wonder that we were able to pull it off. It just turned out to be right timing for everyone on our team to focus a 100% effort for a short period of time. Jean and I had all day Monday to play. BD had the opportunity to continue our effort through the night Monday. Tuesday--well that day just fell apart but Mockba basically cancelled his work plans to play at the game Tuesday. And Jean, she's always there when needed. On Wednesday, I had arranged to have the whole day off work since I had to work the upcoming Saturday. BD was supposed to be back at work by 2:00PM and Jean should have been working on Grandkids birthday things. When you looked at everyone's "real" schedule, we shouldn't have been able to complete this when we did. Like I said, everyone was just able to rearrange their lives (probably fate in this instance) for a small period of time and focus a 100% effort.

Again, take the plunge and learn some more about your GPS. It sure has a lot more capability than I ever thought! And, the pressure is off! There's caches to hit by every single objective. So, plan to do some caching at the same time. Jean and I missed a 5/5 cache at one of the locations and I know I'll not be getting back there any time soon!

Have fun and be safe out there!