Belfair Cache Machine

A “cache machine” is geocaching social where someone sets up a route that people can follow to make a high number of geocache finds in a relatively short period of time.  On Sunday, I attended one in Belfair, WA.

Since Belfair is not too far from home, I planned on driving up the morning of.  Traffic on Sunday/holiday weekend/at 5am/westbound was far more benign than I anticipated.  I rolled into town pretty early, but it was still dark and I hadn’t met up with my geocaching buddy to start.  Rather than wait in the parking lot for half an hour, I drove back into town, looking for an open espresso hut.   I passed a few of them, losing hope that anything would be open on a Sunday/holiday/weekend/at 5am, when I saw the “open” sign up ahead.

About the last thing I was expecting on a cold (20F) morning was to be greeted by a barista in a swimsuit:

Barista: Generic banter about holiday.

Me: Unspecific response. Reciprocal inquiry of same.

Barista: Unmemorable follow-up. What can I get you?

Me: Medium mocha.

Barista: Comment about local sports team event occurring later.

Me: Unmemorable follow-up.

Later, I discovered that I’d found Belfair’s “Espresso Gone Wild.”  Except for the swimsuit aspect, which I thought was more weird than kitten-killing, it was completely tame.

I met my geocaching buddy at 7am and, unable to convince him that he needed coffee, too, we set off for the first set of caches.  Complete.  Chaos.  Though it was completely dark (still), you could see the bobbing headlamps walking back to the cache.  In fact, they just kept it out for the next person to put back.  Once back to the car, it’s a quick drive up the street to the next.

Very crazy.

After the tenth cache like this, we decided we’d do the route backwards in hopes of avoiding the Blitzkrieg of cars.  A few other folks had the same idea, but soon we had enough spacing that it became enjoyable again.  There were a lot guardrail and gate hides.  By the time my geocaching buddy would pull the key out of the car, I’d have the log out, signing it for both of us.

Then we came to the first toughie – a hike to an ammo can that currently resides somewhere among a clear-cut fir forest.   Debris was everywhere, there was nary a hint, and we all found ourselves playing the Follow-the-Garmin game.  With nearly a half-hour invested, we gave up.  Later on, we found out the cache owner visited and had a hard time finding it.  As he is a high-volume person himself, he allowed us to record the find while he updated the page for others.

The next really tricky one was a NIAH (needle in a haystack).   A pile of gnarled logs harbored a “2.5 difficulty” micro.  We conjecture it was more like a 4.0, but one of the local cachers made the grab.  The cache was well-hidden up and inside a nook of this thing.  He happened to bring a flashlight.

The next bloc of caches were nicely-sized containers located in a wilderness park.  Finding all three took about forty minutes, but it was enjoyable hiking time.  This is why we geocache!  Unfortunately, it’s a bit at odds with the concept behind a “cache machine.”

We had a series of guardrail micros that helped bring the overall average up.  The only memorable one was “Lake Tahyua,” where we ran into a local geocacher using the Cache Machine as an opportunity to educate the community about Letterboxing.  He was quite the personality: older guy, self-taught, bright, enthusiastic, energetic, eccentric and convinced everyone who’s not Doing It His Way is wrong and must be corrected.  He seemed nice enough, but I could see how his personality would clash on the forums.

We continued along the (reverse) route, picking up a cluster of caches in a campground area.  Here, we worked with another group of long-time cachers.  They were pretty pleasant, and much mellower than our friend at Lake Tahuya.  As I was walking by one of the cars, my (new) Oregon 450 picked up a “Chirp,” a wireless beacon that they’ve installed in their car, using it as a mobile travel bug.

By now, it was late in the afternoon.  The posted route would have us doing some interesting out-and-back for a small handful of caches.  Because we didn’t want to miss the post-event shindig at JR’s Grill in Belfair, we skipped those and anything whose description suggested it was more than a few minutes’ walk.

Total for the day: 61 finds (59 traditional, 1 multi, 1 puzzle), 3 DNFs.  Whew!

Code	Cache Type	Waypoint Name	SZ	D	T	TOD	Time btwetween	Notes		Placed
1MB74		All Star	M	1.5	1.5	7:15				2/28/09
TRR1		Belfair Waterwheel	R	1.5	1	7:23	0:08	Cool icicles		3/19/06
X3MQ		Romance? – Grab a Tic Tac!	S	1	1.5	7:28	0:05			7/11/06
116W9		Blue star – Honoring Those Who Serve	S	2	2	7:33	0:05			3/5/07
VMR5		North Mason Travel Bug Chamber	R	1.5	1	7:35	0:02			4/26/06
217QH		POWER’S OUT – WENT POSTAL	M	1.5	1.5	7:41	0:06			11/20/09
WE05		GPR #2 – Mission Impossible!	S	1	1.5	7:51	0:10	Diverged from group		6/19/06
14M2H		Tree Farm: One Degree of Separation	R	1	1.5	7:55	0:04			7/24/07
29V6V		Haunted Junkyard	M	1.5	2	7:59	0:04			6/6/10
2KX94		Things I “Hate” About Caching	NA	2	2	8:13	0:14			1/1/11
15BRQ		Spotting this Cache is Easy!	M	2	3	8:15	0:02			8/22/07
2KRG8		Sparky the Fire Dog	M	1.5	1.5	8:25	0:10			12/30/10
203QV		Up Stream	S	2	1	8:35	0:10			10/19/09
1V3J2		AWW SHUCKS!	M	1.5	1.5	8:43	0:08			6/21/09
1JDA8		STOP, LOOK & LISTEN	M	1.5	1	8:50	0:07			11/23/08
1JDA0		Dump and Run	M	1	1.5	8:57	0:07			11/23/08
1JDAD		FOUL BALL	?	2	2	9:02	0:05			11/23/08
1JD9V		The Blue Gate Special	S	1.5	1.5	9:05	0:03			11/23/08
1JD9D		E.P.2	S	1	1.5	9:07	0:02			11/23/08
1JD93		JAILBREAK	S	1.5	1.5	9:19	0:12			11/23/08
MMJN		Tahuya #2 – Eleven	R	2.5	3	9:48	0:29	DNF, but CO said we could log it		1/29/05
114GG		Three Stooges	S	1	1	9:56	0:08			2/25/07
13EQC		GPR2 – #5 Prudential	R	1.5	1.5	10:04	0:08			6/21/07
114G3		Tiger Lake	S	1	1.5	10:11	0:07			2/24/07
1BH0A		Tail of the Tiger	NA	1.5	1.5	10:20	0:09	DNF		4/22/08
2AW2X		Tri as you may	S	1	1.5	10:25	0:05			6/26/10
WVBG		That Way To Seabeck	M	1	1	10:30	0:05			9/20/07
1YE2J		Tangled Mess II	M	2.5	2	10:58	0:28	Hardest find		9/8/09
1RTF3		Challenge?	M	1	1.5	11:00	0:02			5/24/09
NPRF		Great Library	R	2	3	11:30	0:30	Hike		4/30/05
2K47P		It Came From The Other Side	R	2.5	2	11:30	0:00	Found w/Great Library		12/6/10
PD9J		Thunderbird Track #5 – Stream	R	1	1.5	11:36	0:06			6/25/05
2C3ZH		Tahuya foolya	R	1.5	1.5	11:41	0:05			7/21/10
22K36		lake tahuya	M	1	1	11:53	0:12	Fledermaus!		1/2/10
1W4A7		stumped on holly	S	2.5	2	11:59	0:06			7/19/09
1QDZK		Lk Symington	M	2	2	12:08	0:09			4/22/09
12M3M		Bedrock Travel Bug & Gecoin Motel	R	1	1	12:17	0:09			5/6/07
22BP8		Bison by the Blue Gate	M	1.5	1.5	12:23	0:06			12/27/09
1W90K		Tangled mess	M	2	1.5	12:30	0:07			7/20/09
22BQ3		Bison by the Babbling Brook	M	1.5	1.5	12:35	0:05			12/27/09
1C5J8		1 Time At Band Camp…	M	2	2	12:50	0:15	DNF		5/11/08
1X2J5		Must Love Oysters	M	1.5	1.5	13:01	0:11			8/9/09
22BTT		Closer to Fine	M	2.5	2	13:23	0:22			12/27/09
1F462		Stuck on Mason	M	1	2	13:25	0:02	Added		8/9/08
22K3Y		salmon friendly	R	2	2	13:30	0:05			1/2/10
2EWH0		One Degree of Separation: Tree Farm #26	S	2	2.5	13:49	0:19	Added		9/5/10
1C5N9		Out In The Stix	R	1.5	2	13:59	0:10			5/11/08
1C5K3		This Ain’t No KOA!!!	M	1	1	14:15	0:16			5/11/08
1C7XD		Quik Clam Cache	S	1	1.5	14:22	0:07			5/11/08
1X2HV		Six Point Maple	M	2.5	2	14:28	0:06	DNF		8/9/09
1D004		Zone of Influence	M	2	1.5	14:41	0:13			6/5/08
1D00Q		Welcome Wagon	M	1.5	1.5	15:02	0:21	Hike		6/5/08
1D00A		X marks the Spot	S	1.5	2	15:09	0:07	P+G		6/5/08
1C8Q1		Joy OhJoy!	S	1.5	1.5	15:21	0:12			5/14/08
1D00G		Robbins Lake Cache	S	1.5	1.5	15:42	0:21	Hike		6/5/08
1D00K		Tee Time	S	2	2	15:57	0:15			6/5/08
1CZZV		U turn to Tee Lake	S	1.5	1.5	16:01	0:04			6/5/08
15PH2		Road to Oblivion	R	1.5	1.5	16:08	0:07			9/4/07
2C1YC		I may take up yodeling	S	2	2	16:16	0:08			7/20/10
1GF04		Forgotten View	L	1.5	1.5	16:18	0:02			9/20/08
JACT	MC	How Easy to Forget (A Different Kind of Cache)	R	1	1.5	16:29	0:11			4/27/04
199KP		Critter’s Run	?	2.5	1.5	16:56	0:27			2/10/08
14WYV		NOT BOAT RAMP	S	1	1	17:00	0:04			8/4/07
2KXB6	?	Bark Code	S	2.5	1.5	17:19	0:19	Added		1/1/11
2JD01	E	Belfair Cache Machine dinner	NA	3.5	3.5	17:35	0:16			1/2/11
292WK		big beaver pond	R	2	1.5			skip		5/23/10
1XR5G		DB5	R	1.5	2			skip		8/25/09
1GYPX		H-006 Hood Canal View	M	2	2.5			skip		10/5/08
1C75A		JIGG’S UP	M	2	1.5			skip		5/12/08
1C750		Let’s Do The Jigg !	R	1.5	2			skip		5/12/08
2C7YV		micros are boring	L	1.5	3.5			skip		7/24/10
1GF19		Mission Oriented H-007	R	1.5	2			skip		9/20/08
21M03		N.O.P.C. FTF Challenge #6 – Enduro trail	R	2	2			skip		11/30/09
15JMZ		Not the Maple Syrup Kind	S	1.5	1.5			skip		8/31/07
2AT40		Oak Patch	M	1	1.5			skip		6/25/10
2BY73		one along the way	S	1.5	2			skip		7/18/10
15CEY		One Degree Of Separation:Tree Farm #27	S	1.5	2			skip		8/23/07
15HPX		Rendsland Creek Cache	S	2	1.5			skip		8/30/07
1JD8E	?	SANDHILL SERIES FINALE	R	2	2			skip		11/23/08
15JN1		THE BURMA ROAD MICRO	M	1.5	1.5			skip		8/31/07
2KREB	EC	Theler Wetlands Tidal Marsh	NA	1.5	1.5			skip		1/1/11
28QAV		Tiki Lucky Cache	?	2.5	1.5			skip		5/18/10
15HJZ		TOMBSTONE TERRITORY	M	1.5	1.5			skip		8/30/07
2FYV0		Too many micros	L	1.5	3			skip		9/29/10