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| Santa Barbara Solstice Trip |
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| by Scott Legal |
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| PJH looks over Team Dakiba's itinerary binder. Boy was Team Team Dakiba organized! |
June 23. 2003: Long in the planning,
the Conejo Cachers, a name coined on our Boney
Mountain hike in May, set out on a journey to Santa Barbara
for some serious Geocaching. Our itinerary started out large,
with over 40 caches on it and swelled to well over 50 caches
by the time we went on our journey. No one believed we could
do all of the caches in one day, as evidenced by a pool where
the highest selected number of caches was 45 and the next highest
was 39. In the end, we visited 29 caches, of which one was a
no find and 8 were replacement caches for caches that had disappeared.
Our group consisted of Baby Sparkle, Campyc, Ecochic, Faveral,
Narlsharls, PJH (a fellow cacher from San Diego), Slegal, Team
Dakiba and Trurokr.
Yes, the Conejo Cachers replaced missing caches. As it turns
out, many of the caches placed in the area do not belong to
local cachers. So these caches are not maintained. We aren't
going to adopt them, because we aren't locals either. But we
did replace the missing caches. Team Dakiba and Trurokr spearheaded
this campaign by bringing an ample supply of replacement cache
containers and the rest of us helped to fill them with tradable
items.
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| The Conejo Cachers in Santa Barbara |
Now on to the hunt. Our trip began at our meeting place at McDonald's
in Newbury Park. Everyone appeared bright eyed and eager to
begin. Well everyone except Faveral who had to wake up 4 hours
early to be a part of this event. I'm sure they slept extra
well after the trip. On we went to pick up Ecochic in Ventura
and then on to our first stop, The
Lion's Seat in Montecito. This cache gave us the most trouble
and had us wondering if we were going to get anywhere near as
many as 20 finds for the day. Once found, we were off to the
beach area of downtown Santa Barbara where we quickly found
and/or replaced the following caches: East
Beach Park, Above
the Law, Big
Fig, CAL
306 and Stearns
Pier Tribute.
After we finished with the downtown beach area we headed west
to other coastal caches. Our first stop was Pumpkin
which required us to travel down a long staircase leading to
a beach. The staircase had lots of water and algae in it making
for a very slippery trek. But more challenging than the route
most of us took was Narlsharls' attempt to descend while walking on the wall lining
the staircase. It turned out that his vantage point proved best
for finding this cache. We continued on to find Mamma
Cache in La Mesa Park and Table
View. Then it was on to replace the missing Lost
Positas Cache. Wow, there are some great views to be had
from this high up coastal park.
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| Heading for Go With the Flow |
Our next cache was on a secluded stretch of beach reserved primarily
for the rich and famous of Santa Barbara in the Hope Ranch area.
All of us enjoyed the short hike to Go
with the Flow and we took a little extra time here to take
in the peacefulness of the area. We almost got in an auto accident
on our way to the next cache as we struggled to figure out how
to get to it. Fortunately, there was no harm done and our long
and windy drive through neighborhoods of Santa Barbara's elite
finally got us to the right spot for a short walk to Class
1.
On we went to U.C. Santa Barbara where we found Forgive
me Father, for I have studied..., an interesting cache on
a bluff overlooking the ocean. The other cache on UCSB's grounds,
WWII
Remains, proved a tough one to get to as any trails that
might have led to the cache had since disappeared under thick
growth. By the time we had returned to our cars from the cache,
there was a definite trail to the cache.
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| Baby Sparkle on a swing we found near The Monarchy |
Our next two caches were at the site of our lunch stop. After
a much needed refueling we set out to find two caches in a pretty
lakeside park. We had to replace the missing Karen's
Backyard cache. But more importantly, we found the Lake
& Mountains cache which contained a travel bug that we needed
to find the next cache on our itinerary, The
Monarchy. It was well worth it as this cache was in a beautiful
area. While in this secluded beach bluff area we saw a young
horned owl. There are two other caches in this beach bluff area
and we walked to them next. The first, Lost
Again?, was lost again and had to be replaced by us. The
next cache was Cobalt
Blue. I'm sure it is named for what the ocean must look
like on a beautiful sunny day. Our day was still a little gray
at this point, but the view was beautiful nevertheless. On our
way back to the car we passed near the Monarchy cache again
and discovered a couple very high rope swings that several in
our party were brave enough to swing on.
Could our day get any better than it has already been? Slegal
and Trurokr, perhaps more than anyone else, really wanted to
head up to Gaviota. There are five caches up in Gaviota. While
we had done a little bit of hiking on the trip already, Gaviota
was where we wanted to get in some real hiking. Our first stop
was Hot
Seagull Soup, a missing cache up a steep trail to a natural
hot spring. We replaced the missing cache and enjoyed some entertainment
courtesy of Narlsharls on the return hike. Our next stop was
for a replacement cache at Traveler's
Stop. Then it was on to a third straight replacement cache
at Binary
Blues Zwo, on a bluff overlooking the ocean. What a beautiful
view as the trip northwest had yielded beautiful blue sky for
us.
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| Slegal on the final climb
in the Wind Cave |
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| The Conejo Cachers in the Wind Cave |
Now comes the big hike. Some finders of The
Wind Cave had said that this hike effectively fatigued them
into ending their caching for the day. Would it do the same
to us? No way! But it was a strenuous uphill hike that took
us to the bottom of a cliff with a cave in it. Our GPS' said
we were real close, but that we had to scale the cliff. The
climb and final destination were so cool that this cache earned
a spot at the top of my list of favorite caches visited, bumping
the longstanding One Hundred Dollar Cache down a spot. Without
exception, this was the cache of the day for everyone and our
posts to the cache stated it succinctly. We had one final cache
to find in Gaviota before heading out. The Seagull's
Gate cache was a fun short stop that elicited angry stares
from passers by as we illegally parked and 10 people piled out
of our cars to comb the rocks next to the road. How silly we
all must have looked to these irritated travelers.
We went on to look for two more caches on our return trip to
Santa Barbara. The first Binary
Blues - Binary Bridges - My 100th GeoCache was another replacement
cache near a beautiful old bridge that was once part of the
old Highway 1. Then on to a fun stop at Swiss
Family Robinson. We pulled back into Santa Barbara where
we attempted a group FTF at I
present - The Oltmans. This cache had been around for several
weeks and still had not been found. Clue: if no one has found
a one star cache in its first month, it's not there. And after
some serious searching, that was the conclusion of all of us.
Campyc and Ecochic left us at this point to head back to Ventura
to prepare for our arrival for a celebratory dinner. The rest
of us traveled on to our final cache stop where we found A
Weekend Away and Bluff's
Edge. It had gotten dark so Slegal, who had come prepared
with his 60 watt Blow Torch bike light, turned night back into
day to aid us in our search. After finding Bluff's Edge we heard
a train coming and Slegal did the kid thing and had the train
run over a penny. One final souvenir from the trip.
Our final stop before returning to Newbury Park was Ecochic's
house for pizza, beer, Bob Marley and a bit of story swapping.
A fitting end to a very fun day. What's next?
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