One Two One -Two Brown Bag Lunch - 1/2/2012

The plan for today was to meet up with jbgreer and attend One Two One Two - Brown Bag Lunch by Abiectio (GC39CA4) at Shelby Farms Park. It started at 12 pm, so jbgreer came over and got me and we picked up some sandwiches to eat before the event started. We had no plans to pick up caches along the way, so we got there a bit early. Just before noon, other geocachers showed up. I was amazed at the number of people who showed up on what turned out to be a sunny, but extremely cold day.

[ Good sized crowd met at the north pavilion. ]

Lots of stories were swapped along with the meeting of cachers old and new. Most of the cachers were local, but there was at least one person from Jackson, TN and a couple of people from Arkansas.

As the event came to a close, a group of us made plans to go over to Herb Parsons Lake and try getting Purple Heart by Tiger130 (GC38YDJ), a 5/5 cache that requires climbing around 60 feet up a tree. Fellow geocacher shandrum had all of the necessary equipment and expertise to help us attempt to reach the cache and we appreciated the opportunity to hunt it.

[ The lake also looks beautiful. ]

[ shandrum sets up the climbing ropes ]

After a short walk to the cache location, shandrum set about rigging up the lines and harness. We then got a quick tutorial on how to use the ropes to ascend the tree. Abiectio was the first volunteer to attempt the climb. He didn't have much luck starting out, so he gave up to let the next person go. I was next to volunteer. I got myself setup with the harness easily enough and started out fine, but within 15-20 feet got myself into a situation where I couldn't climb any higher. I think I simply needed more practice with the climbing technique, but on this day time was short so I descended to let someone else try it.

As a consolation, Abiectio, jbgreer and I went to find the nearby cache Purple Heart by Tiger130 (GC38YDJ) , just a short distance away. Even with this being mine and jbgreer's second time here, it still was a tough find. When we met back up with the group, we learned that Sfearnow had successfully made the climb and had descended. Looking back, it would have been a good idea to have stayed and watch him use the ropes. After jbgreer and I left, aschrack also made the long climb.

After reading the online cache logs, I saw that many of the previous finders were hauled up the tree instead of doing the work themselves. While even that experience would have been interesting, I hope that I am able at some point to ascend the tree using my own power.