Loop-Garou

I’m not someone who focuses on Fizzys.  In fact, I rarely think about loops at all.  But I am someone who notices statistics so, as you can no doubt imagine, I’ve been all over my own caching numbers and noticed lots of things, including the fact that certain specific D/T combinations, usually D 2.0 or 2.5/T3.5, have been holding me back from most loops.  And, for quite a while it’s been 2.0/3.5 specifically.  Therefore, as mentioned previously, when a bunch of rarer D/Ts dropped on Friday, I went for the one holding me back.  I couldn’t find it though; it’s hard (for me) to find a cache in a tree while it’s raining.  But that was alright.  I didn’t need the FTF on it, just to get it one day.  That day was Monday. 

After work I headed to GZ, a park in South Austin that had been previously untouched by caches as far as I can tell.  I passed by all the easier ones and went straight to the back where my target was located.  FTFs were still available on all of them (it’s far enough south that most of the FTF hounds who live north hadn’t started on them, but they’re gone now) but that wasn’t important.  I had identified the correct tree while I was on the original precipitation hunt and gotten a look at what it might look like with the actual find on Friday.  I grabbed my pole and hook out of the trunk and went for a little walk, this time surrounded loosely by joggers, dog walkers, disc golfers, and actual golfers.  Once I got to the foot of the tree, I started looking up.  Having read these new cache descriptions, I knew that part of the Terrain rating was based on the height.  I had seen a T2.5, so I pre-emptively despaired a little at a T3.5.  After a twenty-minute search (because there is little harder for me than finding a cache in a tree) I finally spotted it about fifteen feet up, hanging from a branch.  Luckily, it was only hooked on. 

I extended my pole as far as it could go (eight feet) and then got close to the trunk of the tree and reached it up.  My perspective was a little off and I was only working with one hand, but my height (six feet) extended by the length of my arm (another foot, possibly two, and change) with the length of the pole was just enough to hook it and gently bring it down.  Success!  Even though I don’t care about FTFs, I do enjoy seeing that fresh paper, unsullied by other ink.  I wrote as I usually do that “Atreides was here!”  Once that was done, the real challenge began: returning it to whence it had come.  My hook is hardly high tech.  It’s just a small paint roller with no brush which, while good enough for bigger items, leaves a bit to be desired when dealing with small, light caches like this one.  There is a little lip on the edge that serves as another hook in such cases, but that loses me a few inches of distance.  I adjusted the wire on the cache, hung it from that lip, and then reached up once again.  It barely reached the appropriate limb, but it wasn’t high enough to get over it.  There was only one way to get higher.  I got even closer to that tree trunk to squeeze out another inch or two of height.  Eerily close, if you must know (in some cultures, that tree and I might be married now).  I hugged and reached with all the stability my tiptoes could manage.  And, after three attempts, the container slid over the limb and the wire caught and stayed in place!  I didn’t have to go get my ladder this time!  But I forgot to photograph it!  So you all get a random, recently acquired cache instead!

Regardless of all that, loop 34 is accomplished!  Victory is mine!