Best of 2014: GBC 2 - Name that Tune

Number 9: GC4VKVR – GBC 2 – Name that Tune
Hidden by WVTim
163 Favorite Posts
Berkeley County, West Virginia
Found on April 12, 2014

Geotrails are an approach to directly incorporate geocaching into a local tourism or recreation strategy. When done well, a geotrail can attract individuals from all over to come to your area, find the caches on the trail, and consequently spend money on necessities like fuel, food, and sometimes even hotel rooms and other attractions. WVTim’s geocaches have put the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia on the map for geocachers and I firmly believe he has generated millions of dollars in revenue for the area because cachers choose to seek his incredible caches. This cache, number nine for 2014, is on the Gadgets of Berkeley County Geotrail.

A great geotrail has a theme and defined geographic boundaries. In this case, the theme is unique containers or “gadget caches” in Berkeley County. This specific cache is a birdhouse with a combination lock on it. While you may find very few caches like this where you live, many in Berkeley County look like this. How you find the combination to open the lock varies. In this case, you need to bring an ear for music or a sense of rhythm, preferably both.

With over 2400 finds, even cool and unique finds are often beginning to be repeated. Tape measures? Seen in Airway Heights, WA and Reston, VA. Magnetic keyholder tucked into the top of a newspaper stand? Seen in Portland, OR and Washington, DC. These are still fun caches, but they’re less ingenious the second time around.

Spoilers follow. This is your only and final warning.

Name that Tune was a never-before-seen treat. I pulled the drawer out from the bottom of the birdhouse to reveal a xylophone and instructions to play “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” Each bar on the xylophone was numbered. At certain points when I struck the xylophone Chris wrote down the number and cracked the combination.

I think this cache resonates with so many people because it is unique, yet it is nearly impossible to miss and very simple to solve. It also does not hurt that it is in an area so rich with other outstanding geocaches.

Best of 2014: Under a Lamp Post

Because I need a little more time to work out my 2015 New Year’s Resolutions, the next posts are going to be dedicated to the 10 most favorite geocaches Chris and I found in 2014. These caches are selected based on two criteria: 1) they were found in 2014 by us and 2) their number of favorite points on January 1, 2015. They include locations of great natural beauty, historical interest, that showcase the imaginations of ingenious geocachers, and combinations of these characteristics. These posts may include spoilers.

Number 10: GC2TJG2 - Under a Lamp Post
Hidden by WVTim & Krazydan7
150 Favorite Posts
Martinsburg, West Virginia
Found on November 8, 2014

WVTim is something of a geocaching celebrity. He is known not only for placing outstanding geocaches (spoiler alert: he hid multiple caches that appear on this top 10 list), but also for being a wonderful person. Even though our correspondence has been limited to the internet so far, we connected right away because he's a son of Marshall (I won’t reveal the year!) and I am a daughter of Marshall (MS ’08).

It was actually an accident that we sought out this cache. We were over near WVTim’s church where he’s hidden four outstanding caches (GBC 6 – Gadgets Supplied, Safecracker, * some assembly required, and This Old House) when we met two members of 4LostMarbles! who were caching the area from Baltimore. They told us (Chris, Brian/bitmapped, and myself) about this lamppost cache that they just could not find. They looked everywhere around this common lamppost and they did not understand how this cache could possible elude them. Hearing about their difficulty and realizing it was a WVTim cache, we figured it was probably there and there was probably a twist.

Spoilers follow. This is your only and final warning.

After cleaning up at the church, we drove over to the pharmacy and the five of us gathered to consider the lamppost. The four of them focused on the lamppost when my attention wandered. WVTim had given 4LostMarbles! a hint. The hint was something to the effect off “10 feet down.”

When we pulled into a parking spot I had noticed a drainage area/dry retention pond directly in front of us. As I started down the slope I signaled to Chris to have them follow me because I spotted an enormous culvert.

I had never found a cache like this and had a little bit of trepidation. I am a little claustrophobic and a little afraid of the dark. What I am saying is, there are excellent reasons why I had avoided caches like this in the past. But this one seemed designed for nervous, easily perturbed geocachers. Though, in the interest of being entirely honest, I didn’t hesitate when one of the guys eagerly entered ahead of me.

When we had the cache in hand, the hint made perfect sense. We were not only thrilled to have found it, but to have made some more friends in the hobby. Besides, the more friends you make from different areas, the more help you have when you get stumped—and every good cacher gets stumped once in awhile!

In Search of Great Geocaches

The weather is warming up and our feet are growing itchy! Over the cold winter when we could get out, we set our sights locally when it came to geocaching. When the threat of severe weather is real, the desire to travel hours to find great caches is limited. Furthermore, shorter days and colder temperatures tended to yield more modest goals. But those days are behind us for a few months!

Our strategy to find a place to go: look for the most cherished geocaches. Using the Pocket Query function (all premium members can use these) I created a query with a 200 mile radius from home, yielding a maximum of 50 caches, and sorted it by favorite points. I then added geocaches from two geocache “trails”: the WV Civil War Geotrail and the Gadgets of Berkeley County Trail. There were little clusters around Erie, Columbus, and Parkersburg but easily half of the caches were in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle. Decision made!

We based ourselves out of a hotel in Reston, VA, which wasn’t super close to the Eastern Panhandle but supported some of our other goals (visiting friends in the DC area and visiting a Micro Center). It also enabled us to take in some stunning spring scenery.

On Saturday morning we set out early from the hotel to start from the furthest away cache of our goal area: Welcome to Maryland. This was the only cache that was not in West Virginia that we found and to access it, we had to drive into Pennsylvania. This means we hit four states on Saturday. I like little statistics like that. It also perfectly positioned us to find The Key is the Key, which is located at the I-81 southbound West Virginia Welcome Center. The Key is the Key may be my absolute favorite cache of the entire day. We may have had to cheat just a little to figure it out but when we did, it really appealed to the engineer in me. WVTim had posted a video on YouTube about the cache and that’s how we learned the correct approach. I strongly recommend checking out the video, especially if you think the WV Eastern Panhandle is a place you’ll never get to visit.

We found two of the Gadgets of Berkeley County caches and unfortunately did not find one of them, though the one we did not find was our favorite (and, in retrospect, another cacher may have been signing the log which is why we couldn’t find it). GBC 1 – Visitor’s Center, whose first stage is at the same place as WV Civil War Trail Zone 3 – The Round House, is the definition of a park and grab at both stages. But not only does the first stage offer amazing views of historical railroad infrastructure, a spin of the radio dial reveals so much more about the area and the geocache.

Though we had decided that our primary objective for the weekend would be to find enough of the geocaches in Zone 3 of the WV Civil War Trail to qualify for that zone’s geocoin. After receiving the coin for zones 4 and 5, we knew we had to get the other three. In order to qualify, we had to find eight of the fifteen caches in the zone. On Saturday we found:

• WV Civil War Trail Zone 3 – Stuart’s Surprise
• WV Civil War Trail Zone 3 – The Round House
• WV Civil War Trail Zone 3 – Mosby’s Raid
• WV Civil War Trail Zone 3 – Martin Delany
• WV Civil War Trail Zone 3 – Summit Point

So we found five of the caches and discovered five incredible Civil War sites. So often it feels as if WV didn’t see much action in the Civil War due to the inhospitable terrain but through this trail it’s easy to discover the key roles the state had in the war. This series is also great for newer cachers as the containers tend to be very similar in size and how they are hidden, the series also includes a few simple, but extremely well-executed, multi-stage caches. Given we only found five on Saturday, our trip home on Sunday was designed to ensure we picked up at least three more.

Overall, we picked up 12 geocaches on Saturday and every single one was outstanding. Despite picking up those 12, there are at least as many that are on our “most wanted” list remaining in the area for us to return for (maybe in 2 weeks when I get my next whole weekend off?).

Top 10 of 2013: The Grand Finale

Number 1: Evolution of the Rest Stop !
Berkeley County, West Virginia
397 Favorite Points 

The cache with the most favorite points we found in 2013 was found by us in January. However, it did set the tone for an excellent year of geocaching and definitely solidified our membership in the WVTim fan club!

This geocache is the one with the most favorite points in the entire state of West Virginia and there are several characteristics that, I think, have enabled it to become such a well-loved geocache. I’m going to describe these characteristics without, hopefully, giving too much away because I think they are important considerations when deciding to develop a well-loved, popular geocache.

The first is simple: access. This cache is located in a rest area off of an interstate highway. Lots of people pass by this location every day and it is not difficult for the cache to be found while stopping to use the rest room facilities or even just stretching your legs on a long haul.

The second characteristic is the terrain rating. There seems to be a parabolic relationship between favorite points and terrain. A geocache with an easy terrain rating is accessible to more people so if it is clever the masses will flock to it. A geocache with a difficult terrain rating is often placed somewhere that’ll take your breath away (be it through a strenuous hike, an exhilarating paddle, or rappelling off a cliff-side). In this case, even though it was dark and the ground a little slick, we had no trouble making the find with the help of a flashlight.

The third characteristic is the container. Almost everyone has found a film canister or Altoid’s tin under a lamppost skirt or tucked in the end cap of a guard rail. These are caches that typically have lots of access and a low terrain rating, but no one really cares. These can be fun if you’re visiting a new area, just getting into geocaching, or trying to achieve some kind of goal (e.g. finding one cache per day for a month), but they’re not about to steal your heart. A clever container can bump a mundane location up to a geocaching destination.

Though when I reviewed the most popular geocaches from 2013 by the favorite points, there were some glaring omissions. My personal favorite was another WVTim cache, Bike Maryland. This cache was so good that it inspired my hide, Bruceton Mills Lake and Dam.

I tried to compile a list of “honorable mentions” for the 2013 cache year, but there were really too many to count. If I had to choose one state and region that I enjoyed the most through caching in 2013, it would have to be Maryland. Visiting the highest point in Maryland (Hoye Crest) was stunning, taking in several state parks (thinking of Swallow Falls State Park and Rocky Gap State Park in particular), and enjoying the communities of Garrett and Allegany counties generated so many wonderful memories.

So far, 2014 has been a slow year for geocaching. Between the cold and the snow it’s been difficult to get out much. I’m hoping that’ll change this weekend! Happy caching!