for the hard core cachers, there is a new cache up in the mountains.
AT stateline is open for finders. It is a very nice winter hike, but is under a few inchs of snow now.

For a little more information check the wannago thread and picture gallery. I hope the main reason you geocache is for "Thrill of the Hunt" (with apologies to trailfrogs) or do I?

Looks like a great hike. Just how far is the hike in from Hwy 76? Do I need to plan on camping or is it a day hike.

This one moved to the top of my to-do list.
It's a day-hike. If Johnnie and Nasty can do it in a day - the rest of mere mortals can probably do it.

Just remember before the rich mountain road was fixed Johnnie did the 12 miles on foot as a day hike, twice.

Oh, how well I know. The only reason I offered my input is because I talked to BOTH of them on Saturday and they told me about this cache. I didn't say it would be easy, tho, just doable in a day.

For the less physically adept, there is a closer parking spot than indicated on the cache page. Check your map!

Even then a pretty good walk.

quote:

Originally posted by KVOM:
For the less physically adept, there is a closer parking spot than indicated on the cache page. Check your map!

I think the owners wanted the cachers to attempt it from the two parking coords they gave...ie the "hardcore" comment. They could have placed it closer if they wanted people to have an easier hike.

reepicheep

I think any place you park to walk to this stash it will be a great hike. Thanks for putting this cache in such a great location. This would make a great camp weekend cache run. There are several you could do in the area from the short Ranger Nick to forbidden forest II.Why not stop a fish a little while you are in the area there is a great year round trout stream.

The sunset and views of the mountains on the way to this cache were amazing. The hike was great. It was a bit shorter than the other options.

I have been here. Hiked from highway 64 in North Carolina to 76 in GA. Nice little backpacking trip. Actually have a picture with the sign some where around here.
I Thoroughly recommend this hike!
As stated earlier yes you can park closer but what fun would that be?

Also for those of you worried about being able to do it in one day, there is a shelter in GA(Plumorchard Gap Shelter) ~6 miles from 76, and probably 3-4 miles from the cache. So those thinking of not being able to it in one day you know have a camping spot. It also one of the nice shelters Ive ever seen, 3 levels, bear cables, and a privy!

No one "places" a parking spot; the cache page indicates two possibilities. If anyone wants to walk 10+ miles each way they can park at 76 and start hiking.

Any of the AT caches can be done as longer or shorter walks.

If Johnny or Allen thinks someone needs to hike 20 miles for this cache let them post up. Better yet, let them tell us they did it that way.

And for all those people who didn't already know...There is no Santa Claus, your parents were the Tooth Fairy, Norman Bates was his own mother and Bruce Willis is actually dead in The Sixth Sense.

Is there any I missed?

quote:

Originally posted by KVOM:
No one "places" a parking spot;

Don't use quotes around words I didn't use.
I said "gave".

quote:

If Johnny or Allen thinks someone needs to hike 20 miles for this cache let them post up. Better yet, let them tell us they did it that way.

That's what I'm saying, let them post how they want people to find it.
It is their cache and they could list a 3rd parking spot if they wanted.

reepicheep

Oh yeah Brad Pitt is Edward Norton in Fight Club! And the Girl in The Crying Game is a GUY!

Wait a minute there! There is no Santa Claus?

Sorry Rebel - here is proof - (NOTE: I am not the author)
Is there a Santa Claus? No!

I am pleased to present the annual scientific inquiry into Santa Claus:

No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

There are 2 billion children in the world (persons under 18). But since Santa doesn't (appear to) handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload by 85% of the total--leaving 370 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there is at least one good child per house.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas with which to work, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second.

This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh, and move on to the next house.

Assuming each of these 91.8 million stops are distributed evenly around the earth (which we know, of course, to be false, but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc.

That means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run -- at tops -- 15 miles per hour.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight! On land, the conventional reindeer can pull nomore than 300 pounds. Even granting "flying reindeer" can pull TEN TIMES that normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight or nine...We need 214,200 reindeer. This increased the payload--not counting the weight of the sleigh--to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison, this is four times theweight of the Queen Elizabeth ocean liner!

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air currents, like those generated by spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake.

The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of one second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subject to centrifugal forces 17,500.6 times greater than gravity. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by a 4,315,015 pound force.

IN SHORT, IF SANTA EVER DID DELIVER PRESENTS ON CHRISTMAS EVE, HE'S NOW DEAD.

AND a rebuttal! (again ... I am not the author)

Is there a Santa Claus? Yes!

I think there has been enough Santa bashing going on here so I need to step up and defend the poor man, who is undoubtably aging and too tired to prove his cynics wrong in person.

Firstly I would like to point out the many flaws used in the "scientific" approach used by our learned colleague. There are several assumptions that are completely unfounded and in no way lead to the conclusion that Santa is dead. I will shortly prove that not only is it possible that Santa is alive, but that he is going to be delivering presents this weekend.

Although it is suggested that no reindeer can fly, this just means that nobody has described this phenomenon in the literature recently. Let us examine the possibility of reindeer flying. Suppose that you observed this very event and that you saw it a statistically meaningful number of times -- where would you publish such an event? Certainly it is not a hot field that Science or Nature would want to cover. Since the reindeers latin name does not begin with Drosphila or contain the word melanogaster, your observation would certainly not get into Cell. So the question is where would one publish? The most relevant magazine may very well be one of the less well known ones such as the journal of the annual review of the annals proceedings of the national academy of quadrapodal and ungulatal research. The point is that this, and similar magazines are not included in the medline searches that were used to determine that reindeer don't fly (keywords reindeer, flapping and Santa). Therefore, it appears that the conclusion that these gentle animals don't fly is premature and a thorough examination of all the data has not been adequately summarized.

Exactly how many children are there on Santa's list? Suppose that the numbers are correct, that is that there are 370 million children to keep track of. To identify each child uniquely, about 32 bits of information are required, or 4 bytes. This is a total of 1.5 gigabytes of information. This is not much information to store on a computer, about the size required to store 1000 really cool games. So lets say that Santa has to actually check on each child during the year to see if they are naughty or nice. With 370 million children, that makes just over one million children per day to check on. Assuming that Santa has sophisticated electronic equipment that can discern between children, Santa would require only 60 elves to observe each child for 5 seconds each. Although this is a rather short time for observation, the it clearly demonstrates the feasibility of keeping track of each child. Given this time shortage, why should we assume that there is one good child per home? If your year was critiqued in one 5 second snapshot would you be deemed good or bad? Hey, who said Santa was fair. But that's OK, lets assume that there is one good child per family and that there are 91.8 million homes to visit.

So Santa and his elves have 31 hours to deliver their Christmas presents to almost a hundred million homes. I would like to here suggest one of the more interesting aspects of this inquiry into Santa, that is the possibility that there may be more than one. I think it is possible that Santa is a generic term used for that person who performs certain duties at a certain time of year. Similar to the term priest, rabbi, teacher, fireman - they do not refer to a single person at all. Certainly if there were only one teacher to teach 370 million children, it would appear to be impossible on paper. As proof of this I would suggest that you walk around to different malls this Christmas season and sit on Santa's lap. When you do this you will notice, as I have, that the man in the red suit is different from mall to mall and even week to week. We must be realistic, how could Santa afford to take the time off to talk with the children at this time of year? My preliminary data suggests that there are in excess of 20 thousand Santa clauses. Makes you stop and think doesn't it: lets use my lower figure for the number of Santa clauses, given 100 million homes this leaves each Santa with 5 thousand stops in the night. Over 31hours this makes 161 stops per hour, less than three per minute - a far cry from the one thousand per second suggested by my upstanding colleague at the Acme lab. With these figures, it is quite possible to cover the 75.5 million miles each Christmas with the multiple Santa clauses. Given my lower estimate, it would require each sleigh to cover 3500 miles in the thirty hours - this is about 120 miles per hour - well below the speed of sound, explaining how Santa(s) can be so quiet.

Payload requirements for such a flight are high. Although, who ever gets two pounds of legos for Christmas? One year I got a single chap-stick. SO I suggest that the average load is less than my colleague, but it doesn't matter. Given 20,000 Santa's this requires each sleigh carry about 4 tons of toys. Since the average land reindeer can carry 300 pounds, such a sled would require only 10 to 20 strong reindeer. This number is surprisingly close to the number of reindeer classically depicted.

In conclusion, I think it is apparent from the data and calculations that Santa Claus not only exists, but that there are many Santa clauses out there to make everybody's Christmas as happy as possible. Just remember that the average lump of coal weighs 0.73 pounds, that is 1.27 pounds less than the average box of legos, and certainly easier to deliver.

... and if you thought the 'cut and past' flood was over ... you are WRONG! Because IF there IS a Santa Claus - it MUST be a woman ... Here's why ...
Think about it. Christmas is a big, organized, warm, fuzzy, nurturing, social deal, and I have a tough time believing a guy could possibly pull it all off!

For starters, the vast majority of men don't even think about selecting gifts until Christmas Eve. Once at the mall, they always seem surprised to find only Ronco products, socket wrench sets, and mood rings left on the shelves. On this count alone, I'm convinced Santa is a woman.

Surely, if he were a man, everyone in the universe would wake up Christmas morning to find a rotating musical Chia Pet under the tree, still in the bag.

Another problem for a he-Santa would be getting there. First of all, there would be no reindeer because they would all be dead, gutted and strapped on to the rear bumper of the sleigh amid wide-eyed, desperate claims that buck season had been extended. Blitzen's rack would already be on the way to the taxidermist.

Even if the male Santa DID have reindeer, he'd still have transportation problems because he would inevitably get lost up there in the snow and clouds and then refuse to stop and ask for directions.

Other reasons why Santa can't possibly be a man:

Men can't pack a bag.
Men would rather be dead than caught wearing red velvet.
Men would feel their masculinity is threatened...having to be seen with all those elves.
Men don't answer their mail.
Men would refuse to allow their physique to be described, even in jest, as anything remotely resembling a "bowlful of jelly."
Men aren't interested in stockings unless somebody's wearing them.
Having to do the Ho Ho Ho thing would seriously inhibit their ability to pick up women.
Finally, being responsible for Christmas would require a commitment.
I can buy the fact that other mythical holiday characters are men: Father Time shows up once a year unshaven and looking ominous. Definite guy. Cupid flies around carrying weapons. Uncle Sam is a politician who likes to point fingers. Any one of these individuals could pass the testosterone screening test. But not St. Nick. Not a chance.