Maryland Geocaching Society

You may post your CAM 2017: Herrington Manor State Park logs here. No spoilers please!
On May 6th you will be able to officially post your log on geocaching.com.

Cam 2017 #1 03/25/2017

We were planning to do the closer to home caches today with our six year old grandson. He woke up not feeling well, though, so we had to take him home. That put us out near Tyson's Corner, so we made a last minute switch. We loaded up grandson, dogs and gps'rs and headed west. We decided to find the two furthest west caches, and were so glad we did. Herrington Manor was a super fun letterbox which brought the history of the park to life. We really enjoyed how interactive it was. Thanks for setting this up, you did a great job and we had fun with it.

Found March 25th at 11:30 AM, CAM #1

We drove out to Deep Creek Lake on Friday in preparation for starting CAM on Saturday. We were pleasantly surprised to see two CAM caches a relatively short distance from where we were staying. Since Herrington Manor was only a short drive away, we headed to this one first.

When we arrived there were already plenty of CAMers in the parking lot and coming back from the cache. We were enjoying the unseasonably warm weather but wished the skies weren't so gray so we could get some better pictures of the lake. The Letter Box was really run. I checked our profile stats and realized we'd done exactly ONE letterbox up until now. We were glad to have some Garmin GPSrs and have to remember how to use them to project a waypoint. Turned out we must have done OK as when we arrived at the cache the GPSr was at around plus or minus 10 feet. We were also able to help out a couple of other cachers who looked hopelessly lost in the woods. The four of us were able to sign the log together.

Thank you for a challenging, unique CAM hide! TFTC!

Quick find after a quicker snack being led by Crazy Science Chick leading us around... Many fisher folk around...

(CAM find 1/11, 3/25/2017)

Zoop Cacher and I started our day at the kickoff event in Bowie. We went to the Bowie event last year, and when the caches were released last year we decided to immediately drive the 3 hours to the Assateague cache. So, deciding this should become a tradition, we chose the farthest caches from us in far Western Maryland.

The three and a half hour drive was beautiful, as always. It was amazing how the forest changed from deciduous to strong hardy pine as we got closer to the park. We rolled down the windows and enjoyed the smell of the forest and the sounds of the woodpeckers.

When we got to the parking coordinates we ran into many familiar faces and met a few new ones. We followed the directions of the letterbox, which were well written and easy to follow. When we got to the pole, these smartphone geocachers looked at each other and said "oh no, we have to project 225ft on a heading of 250.14?!?!?" Luckily I remembered that I had downloaded iGCT app just in case I ever needed to do this. We projected the waypoint, and I think we did it correctly - but the geocachers already back there pretty much made sure we weren't wandering around lost in the forest all day. The path was very muddy from the recently melted snow, so we were dangerously slipping downhill towards the lake. Luckily my balance decided I didn't need to be baptized in the lake today. While we were looking for the cache, one of the other cachers yelled "found it!" And that is the best sound in the world.

Thanks for hiding this cache!

March 25, 2017 After attending the CAM kickoff in Frederick, we headed west with Phos4s and JAB430. We enjoyed our walk around the lake and shared the experience with some fellow cachers. Glad to have a good old-fashioned GPSr to do the projection because we know how to do it that way!
Found a couple of other caches in the park and then enjoyed a packed lunch with all four of us sitting at a picnic bench looking out at the water and the waterfowl!

This was our first cache of CAM this year, and we were FTF -- -- on it at 9:20 a.m. Saturday. We drove out here after the kickoff event at the Chick-fil-A in Cumberland and pulled into the parking area near the pristine lake, only seeing one other vehicle. When we saw a sole person standing by the lake fishing, we knew we were the first geocachers on site. We enjoyed the well-told and easy-to-follow letterbox story and made the find without any trouble. We put our names in the fresh logbook, got a couple photos and headed back to the car. As we were getting ready to leave, another pair of cachers showed up. They said they'd stopped for a couple other caches along the way, which left our coast clear. We bid them luck, punched up the directions to New Germany, and headed off for our second stop.

TFTC #9 CAM find , 2nd for today's road trip ....Left NJ early this morning with plan to do one cache over on the western side today and one tomorrow . But when we arrived we all were saddened to see that we all lost internet service on our phones and hadn't loaded the GPS . So unable to do lol for other caches in the area we made fast work of finding the 2 CAM caches only today ...So left a bracelet. Took nothing ...This one was a bit hard to find but I made the find after we all searched many spots..

This was my last CAM stop for this year. I'm happy to have finished, but a little sad it's over already. As with my last stop, there was a beautiful lake and few people fishing here. I made quick work of the letterbox directions, following a gray track of grass to the cache. On the way out I stopped for the nearby falls earthcache (very cool) and drove home. I was too hungry to wait for the CAM picnic so I grabbed some grub to tide me over until then. Thanks for the fun adventure!

Super bummed to DNF this, especially after such a long drive to get here. Searched for two hours before I couldn't feel my hands anymore. Bouncy GPS, bajillion fallen logs, and three inches of snow were just too much to be successful.

Herington Manor April 8

After yesterday's success, and a warm night I was hoping for success today too. And expecting others to try also I rose early, had a hearty breakfast and headed out into 'warm' sunshine, a beatuiful day. I waited a while to see if anyone else would show up, but after half an hour I was siill alone in the parkinglot. What to do? go it alone!. The numbered instructions and text of the stroy seemed to overlap quite a bit, confusing as all get out. So I just ignored the stroy and only read the numbered instructions. Took me right to a spot where I had two choices. Both convered with 3+ inches of snow. But a couple pokes with my trusty 'caching stick' brought a familiar 'clunk' - CAM #8 found.

Sure the trails were mud but not bad.

Only 2 more to go.

3/26 CAM #4
Found with Pegasusmoon and Pyro1970 on opening weekend after a great breakfast and a few other caches in Oakland. I was nervous about the projection, but Pegasusmoon had it all figured out while I struggled with my GPS! TFTC

4/14/17
Decided to squeeze in a little CAM caching on the way to northern PA today. After taking a bit of a wrong turn heading here from New Germany, Saberspark77 & I arrived here a little later than we expected, but thankfully the park and trails were familiar from the fall picnic a few years back and we were able to navigate the letterbox fairly easily. A few fishing muggles were out enjoying the day, but otherwise the park was very quiet. While we would have liked time to stick around longer and hike more, 4 hours of driving still awaited, so after collecting the code and signing the log it was back on the road. We've made it to the halfway point though: 5 down; 5 to go!

4/15/2017

I noticed some other geocachers at the first stage when I arrived at New Germany State Park. I ended up meeting DaisyChain and FBS67 and worked with them to solve the puzzle. We headed off for the cache but realized we were getting closer to the bonus cache so we found that one first. We doubled back around and got to our goal. I signed the log and traded some trackables I'd been carrying or a long time to DaisyChain. TFTC

4/15/17 - The journey comes to an end at 11:02 - Day 5, Number 11, 1,246 miles and lots of fun. I had to refresh myself on projecting a way point with my GPSmap 62st. I could do degrees but no decimals. Nevertheless, we soon had the cache in hand. Found with my son, SawyeRR, and Kitakima. Left CAM2017 Pathtag and exchanged a personal pathtag.

Savored the sense of accomplishment with a photo op with my son. This is our seventh CAM and one of the best. Thanks MGS!

Found 4/9/17 with SoccerLexie and FooFinders.
This was #4 of CAM 2017. We started early on our Western MD trek meeting in Frederick. Stopped for some Earthcaches and a virtual on the way out. Plan was to go to the farthest cache and work our way back home. We grabbed Herrington Manor CAM first and the letterbox there.
Had a rare snowball fight in April and had lunch at the Fox Den per recommendations. Headed to New Germany cache. Grabbed it, the bonus and a few others. Nervously watched my son cross over the spillway on top of the downed tree. Headed home and made another recommended stop at Queen City Creamery.
Long day but lots of fun.

APRIL 13 #11 We're DONE!
With six CAM Caches logged we had saved the last five to get "along the way" on our annual trek to West Virginia for Easter. Yesterday we left the Shore early and found numbers seven, eight and nine before stopping for the night. We came here after doing New Germany. Happily, our old faithful Garmin 60 makes it easy to project a waypoint, and we followed good coords right to GZ and an easy find. Thanks to MGS, the hider and this Park for our eleventh and final CAM find! With our first three trips and the "off the route" mileage of our trip to West Virginia we totaled 1020 miles to finish CAM 2017.

In a couple of days, it will be 10 years since I’ve been to Herrington Manor. That was April 29, 2007, during CAM 2007. MeatballMatt and I stayed overnight in Oakland and came here the next morning. Now, I’m kicking myself because I had a great time here today and I had some flashbacks to the 2007 trip.

Did the CAM 2017 cache first. On the way to Cam’s pole, I ran into TRO and Ozzie. Before I went into the woods Trapture and family caught up to me. We located the cache together and swapped pathtags. Dropped a CAM 2017 pathtag into the cache for the next finder. Then ran into mm52 on the way out. Probably more, but I lost track.

After getting the CAM code, I went off on my own to find a bunch of other caches. I needed to get home at some point, but I was enjoying Herrington Manor so much that I just kept saying “one more cache” a few times. Then I thought about stopping at a hotel, skipping work tomorrow, and spending a day here and at Swallow Falls. Eventually, guilt got the better of me and I started for home.

Getting close. This is #9 for 2017!

4/22/17 I had been here years before finding the old Letterbox when I lost the keys to my friend's borrowed car. Fortunately, nothing like that happened this time and the find was made pretty easily. Nicely done letterbox--thanks for the changeup on the Traditional/Unknown/Multi CAM variety. I headed right over to Swallow Falls SP afterwards and caught some nice trout to take home for dinner. Thanks for placing this one and bringing me out here again.

This was the easiest of the 4 CAM caches this weekend. Almost a cache and dash.
Plus, it wasn't raining during this cache.