VaxCave

I’ve found that the GPS in the iPhone is surprisingly good. Here’s a quick tutorial on geocaching with the iPhone 3G.

Step 1. Navigate to the geocaching.com website and choose a cache.

Step 2. Scroll down and click the “Google Maps” option under the “For online maps…” section.

Step 3. The cache location will open in the Google Maps application.

Step 4. Click on the GPS targeting icon in the lower left hand corner. This will move the map to your current location once a GPS lock has been established. In this image I’ve switched to hybrid map mode.

Step 5. Since the cache I was seeking wasn’t that far away, I simply zoomed out on the map and walked toward the pin. Alternatively, you could click on the pin location and use the “Get Directions” feature if driving will be required.

Step 6. Walk toward the pin, zooming the map in as appropriate.

Step 7. Once the cache is within the pulsing blue ring, start looking. The marker in this image put me about 25 feet from the cache. Not too shabby.

Step 8. Log the cache while you are at ground zero and can inspect the contents and container. You can be very accurate in your maintenance reports by doing this. After that, sit back and enjoy the view.

In reading topographical maps, there are 5 major and 4 minor landforms to be identified. When reading maps it is important to know how to identify these landforms. If you are standing in a field with multiple hills, valleys, and saddles around you it will become neccessary to recognize these items on the map in order to determine your current location. I’ve included a short description of each landform type as well as a pictures from the US Army training guide on mapreading.

• Major:
  • Hill: An area of high ground where the ground slopes down from the top in all directions. [image]
  • Saddle: A dip or low point between to areas of higher ground. [image]
  • Valley: A stretched out groove in the land that begins with high ground on 3 sides and normally has water running though it. [image]
  • Ridge: A sloping line of high ground with steep sides and a long line of ascension or descention running the top of the ridge. [image]
  • Depression: A low point in the ground like a sinkhole or an emptied lake bed. [image]

• Minor:
  • Draw: A draw is sometimes considered to be the initial formation of a valley where the ground would slope up in three directions and down in the other. [image]
  • Spur: A spur is a short, continuous sloping line of high ground, normally jutting out from the side of a ridge. [image]
  • Cliff: A cliff is a vertical or near vertical slope that is an abrupt change of the land formation very steep slope. [image]
  • Cut and fill: Man-made features resulting from the cutting through of high areas and the filling in of low areas to form a level bed for a road or railroad track. [image]

Richard and Jen are back from South Korea for about a month. I had the opportunity to do some orienteering with Richard last friday in North Park. It was a good time and I learned a bunch of good information. I think I’ll be working on a new cache that will incorporate actual map reading and projection from points on a topo map. This is going to require the purchase of a new lensatic compass which I am certainly not going to fight.

Rich also left me with a cool book that has loads of good map reading (as well as survivial) information. It’s called The Combat Leader’s Field Guide and contains pretty much everything you would need to know to defend yourself. Although, some of the improvised items require military specific items which I will certainly not be finding at a local flea market. One of the ingredient lists reads: One 50 caliber ammo can, One white phosphorous incendiary grenade, etc…

It was great to see Rich and Jen (and the bulge that is their unborn child) during their short trip home. Hopefully they will be coming back at the end of the month. They are flying out of Pittsburgh so hopefully they will crash with us a day or so prior to leaving.

I organized a park cleanup for the 2004 Cache In Trash Out Day. Groundspeak, and thereby the Geocaching community, sets this day up so that geocachers can give back to the parks in which we play.

We had about 45 people show up for the event in Highland Park, Pittsburgh PA. It was a great day. Dennis Meyer and Mary Beth Steisslinger from Partners in Parks with the city parks service were on hand to get us started and offer guidance. We cleaned up a large amount of the park. Moving out dozens of bags of trash, dozens of tires, and hundreds of pounds of discarded shingles were all part of our tasks. The Partners in Parks folks were great and seemed to be very impressed with our accomplishments.

It was great to meet some of the newer cachers as well as the veterans. I took some great pictures and collected some from some of the other attendees. You can view some of those pictures here. Matt also took some video and I’ll be cutting that into a video soon. Look for that to be posted sometime in the near future.