MatM – GeoCalifornia

Mystery at the Museum: Twin Peaks

My career as a gumshoe detective was fun but short-lived, as the Mystery at the Museum promotion ended last week after a month. After a bumpy start, things went smoother and I was able to find all of the clues. Collecting all of the virtual jewels was a bit harder. I mean, they were scattered all over the place! I was finding them in Ramona, Coronado, and Poway! The virtual detective assigned to me was getting pretty impatient, and so for my final assignment, she sent me up to both summits of Twin Peaks in Poway to finish collecting the missing jewels. “I don’t wanna go up there,” I whined. “Can’t I do some park-and-grabs?” She doesn’t speak much, but her virtual face suggested there was going to be a not-so-virtual problem if I didn’t load up a backpack and get moving.

I’ve been up Twin Peaks once before, about 9 years ago, and so the first part of the trail was quick since I already found many of the lower caches. My first stop was ‘Another Star in Poway’ by T.R. Violin (GCPDYD). Hidden in 2005, the cache was in amazingly good shape and a quick find. This cache also marked the position of the trail up to the summit, and after this point the road was winding and steeper. I met an older gentleman coming down the trail and he warned me that the back side of the trail was much steeper than the front face. I had a cache to grab a few hundred feet down the back side and getting down there was almost as treacherous as climbing back up. It was worth it though because the cache I found (‘Snakes Alive!’ by Habu (GC2PQHX)) had only been found once in the last two years.

View of Black Mountain and the Pacific Ocean from the west summit

Trail the summit looking east with Mt Woodson in the background

The final cache of the day was actually a repeat. The cache was named ‘Merry Christmas 2009 – Twin Peaks’ (GC226A1) and I had originally found the cache back in January of 2011 with my two oldest daughters. I remember that cache well because we had just moved to California, and I had just started caching so it represented one of very first geocaching adventures. I also remember being a little skittish about the exposure required to get to GZ, but it seemed so trivial this time. Goes to show you what a decade of SoCal hiking experience will do. I’m still skittish about heights, but at least it is a little less embarrassing now. It was cool to find the original logbook and our nearly nine year old entry. It looked like my daughter actually wrote the log, which was cool. I hung out in this quiet little spot for awhile, enjoying the shade and the view. It also seemed like a good place to hang out from the law because after completing the search for the jewels, the virtual detective told me I had to find 35 MORE caches to successfully return them to the safe. Wait, what? Return the jewels? Nobody said nuttin’ ‘bout returning the ice, see. I’s gots ‘em now and dat gumshoe’s gonna have ta catch me if she wants ta send me ta da Big House…

View from the west summit. Logbook with our 2011 entry…

Mystery at the Museum: Beeler Canyon

I am still working on the new promotion at Geocaching.com called Mystery at the Museum (MatM), a month long game-within-the-game in which geocachers can earn several cool, new badges. For details, click (here). For the details of finding my first clue, click here.

After my less than spectacular search at the 4:10 cache, I was determined to prove to the virtual detective that I was up for this case. Combing through the case files that she gave me and making good use of the filters on the geocaching.com website, I surmised that Beeler Canyon might be a good spot to initiate my search for clues. Beeler Canyon is kind of an odd place, sandwiched between the Stonebridge neighborhood in Scripps Ranch and the back side of the technology park near Costco. The beginning of the road has some nice homes, then there is more of a farm-like area, and then it opens up into an empty canyon. The Vulcan Materials company owns some of the land, and the area also serves as an escape route for Stonebridge, with fire roads dropping steeply down to the canyon. Towards the end of Beeler Canyon road are some nice trailheads into Sycamore Canyon.

Two of the three caches here that had clues were your garden variety park-n-grabs, but one (Beeler Road Rock Ruins, GC5YPPF) was located in a remarkable place. GZ was about 100 feet off the road, in a copse of trees within a fenced enclosure with only three sides. There was ample evidence of nefarious activity in the area, including broken beer bottles, drug paraphernalia, and some old clothes. I approached the trees carefully, listening for teens and watching for rattlers, and then the doorway came into view. The place was well hidden by the thick, dead brush and the overgrown trees. The doorway reminded me of an elven home out of Lord of the Rings. In fact, the whole building, or at least what’s left of it, was very otherworldly. The walls were imbedded with large stones and beer bottles, all of which seemed to have been put there on purpose. There was the usual smattering of graffiti, but some of the rocks were actually painted quite nicely. After a bit of exploring, I failed to find the stolen jewels, dead bodies, or any angsty teens. I did manage to find the cache pretty quickly and given the virtually infinite number of potential hiding spots at this site, I’m hoping for a virtual brownie point from the virtual detective. Anyhow, between the three Beeler Canyon caches, I collected one fingerprint and TWO shadows! Dun dun daaa! So I just need one more fingerprint and two footprints to move onto the next level. So I made good progress towards solving the MatM case and had a cool little adventure.

A blend of art and graffiti on the stone walls

Mystery at the Museum

Today marks the beginning of a new promotion at Geocaching.com. Mystery at the Museum (MatM) is a month long game-within-the-game in which geocachers can earn several cool, new badges. For the details, click (here). Although I spend most of my time playing Munzee, I do like these promotions because it gives you a chance to earn something other than a just a smiley.

When I first heard about MatM, I wondered how they would be able to hide clues in the caches. How hard would it be to crack the case? Would I need to break out my tweed suit and calabash pipe? Sadly, this promotion is similar to others by GCHQ, in that badges are earned based simply on geocache finds. The twist here is that the specific clues are earned only when a cache with that clue is found. Geocaching.com has added some new filters to the search map, so it is easy to see which caches qualify for a particular clue.

A 4:10 Nightmare! That’s a LOT of wood to search…

The first clue I needed for MatM was the ‘Detective’ clue, which is required to have before you can look for the other clues. I set my filters to search for caches that would qualify me to meet this virtual detective, and there were about 30 within a mile or two radius of my house. I have no clue (pun intended) how these caches were selected. There was a mix of old and new, regular and puzzle, and even a few disabled caches were on the list. Seemed very random. Many of them I had already found (or were puzzle caches that would require significant upfront work!), but there were a few that I hadn’t found yet, including another one of the 4:10 series (4:10 to Poway GC72PW0, see this post for more info on the 4:10 series). I drove over at lunchtime and scoped out the scene. I didn’t see any bodies, weapons, jewels, or anything else related to the case. Just a whole lot of lumber to investigate. Although I have found several of these 4:10 caches, I don’t seem to be getting any faster at finding them. The virtual detective waiting to brief me on this case floated impatiently in the sun and shook her head in disgust as I fumbled around for the cache. When I finally found it in an area I had already searched once, she thrust the virtual case file in my chest and muttered, “Good luck, Sherlock. You’re gonna need it.”

Day 1 Badge: Briefed by the Virtual Detective. I’m already on her bad side. (Artwork from geocaching.com)

Although it may cast doubt on my abilities to solve a complex crime such as a jewelry heist, at least it wasn’t a DNF right? RIGHT?? Anyhow, I signed the log and logged the cache to get my first badge. This unlocked the next phase, where the goal is to find three different clues (2 of each type): a footprint, a fingerprint, and a SHADOW! Dun dun daaaa… tune in next time for MatM and see how bad I’m bungling the case.