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Post by tomanoble on Nov 5, 2010 22:18:55 GMT -9
Blazingpathways and I are planning to go cache the E.T. Highway Series of caches November 21-25, 2010. Anyone interested in joining us? We arrive in Las Vegas the afternoon of November 21 and fly out the afternoon of November 25, leaving 3 full days to do the ET Highway. Maybe picking up caches in Arizona the day we arrive. We haven't figured out our complete trip yet so if you are interested let us know soon.
A big THANK YOU! to Team Alaska Girls for inspiring us to go do this adventure.
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Post by li1gray on Nov 9, 2010 20:55:00 GMT -9
Thanksgiving week great time to go but family is 1st here and I seem to have a new full time JOB of watching grandsons everyday before I work, and Melissa has Chemo the 16th and she is usually feeling yucky still
I would love to tag along though, I have been looking at going down that way too. Just have to get with Earthquake5683 to see if he is available to go. he lives there in Vegas area!
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Post by tomanoble on Nov 26, 2010 23:40:34 GMT -9
Well, we went, we saw, we survived. It took the greater part of 3 days to complete all 1021 caches. Due to an Artic Cold Front which swept through the area it got very cold once the sun set and became more difficult to cache, especially the second day when we quit for the night after a ground blizzard slowed us down to only 15 caches an hour.
Our highest HOUR total that we kept track of was 71 caches and the hightest DAY total 455 caches. We did shorter days than Team Alaska Girls because of shorter days and colder nights.
This series is well worth the effort to do but does require A LOT of work, and it is work, to complete. It is amazing how often one gets in and out of the vehicle in the course of this series. And all the bending and walking even though none of the caches are all that far from the highway. Be forwarned, if you hunt or anyone in your party is an avid benchmark hunter, plan extra time. There are a lot of benchmarks along the route but many are State of Nevada benchmarks and not loggable.
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Post by caprahircus on Nov 27, 2010 5:35:02 GMT -9
Congrats! That is an awesome effort!
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Post by ladybugkids on Nov 27, 2010 10:07:14 GMT -9
Congratulation, you two!
I met some cachers in Houston last week who commented how tiring it was to climb in and out of their geovehicle more than 1000 times. If I were to try it, I'd be tempted to try a rental van and cruise down the road with side door open to ease the ingress and egress.
Do you have a tracklog screen shot you could post? It'd be really cool to see an outline of the alien head.
What were your impressions of the scenery? Is it a pretty area to visit, or is the draw all about the cache density?
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Post by NorthWes on Nov 28, 2010 18:34:31 GMT -9
Be forwarned, if you hunt or anyone in your party is an avid benchmark hunter, plan extra time. There are a lot of benchmarks along the route but many are State of Nevada benchmarks and not loggable. Pretty funny (and accurate) remark! Your odyssey sounds like a lot of work - but fun & rewarding. Actually... when I'm in that part of the world I try for a 4:1 ratio on benchmarks vs caches, to help support my overall balanced geocaching goal of 1 benchmark found for every 2 caches. I'm at 1851 cache finds vs 996 benchmark finds now, thanks in large part to benchmark 'runs' in areas like Las Vegas. The area is so rich in benchmarks along the old highways that it's a blast to seek and find history from as much as 70 yrs ago or longer (my oldest recovery as an FTF benchmark is an 1854 mark in Michigan). Caching's been around ten years; the oldest surveys date back to territorial times in the west - great history!
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Post by tomanoble on Nov 28, 2010 21:31:27 GMT -9
We did rent a van with sliding doors and on some stretches it is much faster to sit with the door open and pull up next to the cache. That was how we got our fastest hour with caches less than a minute apart. The only problem we had is that one of the sliding doors got bounced around enough that it had problems shutting and then wouldn't open again. But it mysteriously opened normally the next day.
We skipped the Alien Head caches because we were too tired and it was too cold to do them at night. Besides which with Victoria's knee problem walking it wasn't much of an option. We weren't sure the van could have handled the terrain, Team AK Girls could probably let you know more about that. They walked the entire thing. If you want to see what all the caches look like when laid out go to GC2550W Head Alien 51 or any other head alien cache page for a photo.
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Post by ladybugkids on Nov 28, 2010 22:03:49 GMT -9
Or, go to this link and zoom in and out for the full effect and to see the other caches in the series. Re: Driving the alien head...folks aren't supposed to. The cache page states in bold "Please don't drive to these caches. The extraterrestrial visitors might take this as a threat. We think it will be safe if we tread lightly and walk to the landing sites. Have fun and keep your eye to the sky!" If enough folks drive across the desert, there is the threat of BLM locking down the area based upon buzz in the worldwide forums.
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Post by tomanoble on Jan 2, 2011 12:46:29 GMT -9
The owners of the E.T. Highway series recently posted a note to E.T. 001 requesting cachers to report all incidents/occurances similar to the one shown here: [red]http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi4189821721/[/red]
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Post by tomanoble on Feb 10, 2011 17:11:07 GMT -9
OH! NO! Earlier this month the Nye County Highway Department pulled all the caches from E.T. 445 through E.T. 1021.due to safety concerns and environmental damage. Various groups are trying to start negotiations with Nye County commissioners about restoring the E.T, Highway and what changes they would want to see for that to happen. Evidently poor driving habits of cachers have resulted in several accidents/near accidents including cars parking on the road while cachers dash for the cache and pulling out in front of trucks going 70 mph. Also they are complaining about cachers driving next to the highway instead of driving on the highway from pull out to pull out.
One person mentioned in his log that based on his experience a rough estimate of the economic benefit the E. T. Highway has brought to Nevada is between $400,00 - $500,000 NOT INCLUDING AIRFARE! Estimate based on how much he spent and what other cachers he knows have spent while there to do the E. T. Highway multipled by the number of people who have found caches along the route.
Hopefully this will be resolved soon and the entire route brought back up. See the logs for E. T. 001 or the thread in the national forums for more current information.
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Post by SSO JOAT on Feb 10, 2011 18:27:20 GMT -9
There's a serious lesson to be had there... poor cache placement causes land manager problems. Alaska isn't immune to such issues either.
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Post by ladybugkids on Feb 10, 2011 20:42:48 GMT -9
There's a serious lesson to be had there... poor cache placement causes land manager problems. Alaska isn't immune to such issues either. Ft. Richardson was closed to caching after an unfortunately series of events regarding cache placement without adequate permission on army land followed up by cachers accessing army land without acquiring the required recreation permit and not telling the Ft. Richardson recreation officer the truth about what they were doing on army land when approached.
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Post by ladybugkids on Feb 10, 2011 20:44:17 GMT -9
See the logs for E. T. 001 or the thread in the national forums for more current information. Linky.
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Post by tomanoble on Feb 19, 2011 15:17:58 GMT -9
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Post by ladybugkids on Mar 1, 2011 11:49:48 GMT -9
The E.T. power trail of caches in Nevada has gained some notoriety recently. All those caches (more than 1000 of them) will be archived beginning today. The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) has demanded that the power trail go away, and NDOT has the support of the Attorney General of that state. Too many accidents and near-accidents have happened because people/geocachers are parking improperly and causing unsafe driving conditions (especially since we are in winter). Groundspeak, as always, respects the wishes of the land managers. Those who want to read others' opinions and express theirs in the world wide forum can visit this thread.
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Post by ladybugkids on Mar 13, 2011 9:57:51 GMT -9
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Post by tomanoble on Mar 13, 2011 10:24:08 GMT -9
Thanks Mike! It was great to see an article on the ET Highway, even if they may have overestimated the number of cachers who have found ET 001.
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