Spider Mountain and Geoaching Update
I could not figure out what to write about today. I was really stumped. I have been thinking for a few days of things that I should write about, but a trip Saturday fixed one thing that I had to write about. Spider Mountain.
Actually Spider mountain in known locally as West Mountain, but after my trip this last weekend I decided that I had to change the name.
I had driven up there earlier this year. to grab a muli and I placed one high on the hills. The road is rough, actually a few of my friends told me it was really really rough. So I now throw out this disclaimer. If you are from southern Utah and/or have done any amount of 4x4ing it is not really rough, however if you drive your high clearance vehicle around town all the time, then you are pretty much screwed and in for a rough ride.
We headed up and get some of the 8-10 new caches that were placed. I should have known that there was trouble ahead when I saw the following cache titles.
A Spiderfull view of South Utah Valley
I really should have looked forward to more. It was pretty creepy. I was thinking a few spiders on a bush here and there but this was something different. As you went higher in altitude there were more and more.
Every tuft of grass and every sagebrush had spiders. The pictures that I took had a ton of spiders. Actually I counted 109 originally, since then I have located another half dozen in the pictures.
It was pretty nasty. The weather turned bad and I had to turn around and head back home. It was pretty nasty. It is not often that you get to see spiders in biblical plague numbers. The entire trip was something that gave me shivers. They became so thick that I had to use a pair of sticks that I had in the back of my truck. With one I had to clear the webs in front of me. When I found the cache I used the pair of sticks to poke it out.
It was odd that the hardest one to get was the one the easiest to see. I pulled up to a stop and could see it up a hill about 100' away. It was hanging on a pipe/fence. The issue was that the cache was through a hill of spiders. It was difficult to see how I could make it there. There were spiders scattered everywhere. I used one stick to knock the 4' tall grass. Unfortunately the spiders held on tight enough that I could not get them off. I would have to hit it like a baseball and send it flying.
When I got there the spider was hanging on the bottom of it. Seeing as how these containers are large in diameter. uggg. I was not able to grab them all, a storm was rolling in. So I will have to go back and see spiders.
Geocaching Update
Tuesday was the update to geocaching.com. There were a number of changes to the system.
First and formost was the annoucement of the first software that is running the public API. Cachesense for the Blackberry is the first program that is complete and ready for the public use. About 35 others are out there being worked on.
What other things came out today?
- Added some new attributes. Seasonal Access, Teamwork Required, Tourist Friendly, Tree Climbing and Front Yard (private residence).
- Increased total number of assignable cache attributes from 10 to 15
- Added an option in search results to highlight "beginner caches" (low difficulty/traditional type/recently found etc.)
- Added Twitter and Facebook sharing options to cache log pages, visit your profile or geocaching.com/my/sharing.aspx to connect your accounts
- Added special Block Party icon for annual Groundspeak headquarters event
So there is a lot ongoing, and more to come.