[Az-Geocaching] RRTW

[Trisha]

OK, disregard my previous email!!

I saw "Thumb Mesa" and translated that in my little brain to "Table
Mesa" (which is nearby, and in Maricopa County.)

"THUMB Mesa" is in Yavapai County, as is the nearby "the THUMB" cache
which Dan and I found 'way back on 12/28/02.

Ya know, Thumb and Table are both 5 letters and start with "T" and it
ended with "mesa".....? DUH!

Besides, it seemed more reasonable that someone would break down on
the road to TABLE mesa, it's alot longer than the road to THUMB mesa,
which is relatively close to the Interstate.

Sorry to make anyone grab their maps and think, wait, Black Canyon
City isn't in Maricopa County!?!?

I think geocaching.com should make a lexicon rule similar to their
0.10 mi rule. NO caches with similar names within 10 miles of each
other! HA! (I'm kidding, OK?)

stay safe out there

Trisha "Lightning"
Prescott


On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 13:36:32 -0700 (MST), "Trisha" wrote:

> 
> I just had a chance to read thru this entire story (well written!)
> 
> Just so you know in the future, this location is barely in Maricopa
> County (just south of the Yavapai Co line) but we are often called to
> assist in searches here. You can contact either county for help!
> 
> Stay safe out there!
> Trisha "Lightning"
> Prescott
> 
> 
> On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 15:43:33 -0700, "Brian - Team A.I." wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is my log from a very interesting adventure 
> yesterday.  The rest of the logs for the day (night) are filled with 
> scorpions, and a rattler I discovered coiled to strike under a rock I
> was going 
> to search.
>  
> But this is the start of the day, and a very long 
> one at that.
>  
> Thumb Mesa (by the 
> seat of your pants)GCEF4D
>  
> 1018hrs (but my adventure in this began about 1:40PM) 
> Ok, so Scott did a pretty good job of telling the story, but I'll add
> my .50 
> to it as well. 
> I was getting ready to head to the Mesa Ranger office to modify my
> permit for 
> a drive through Bulldog Canyon when my cell rang. Call 1. Normally,
> this is a 
> fax message (I hate that spam crap), so I rejected the call. A few
> minutes later 
> my heart sank when I listened to the voice mail. It was RTW calling
> for help. He 
> said he'd try me back so I had phone in pocket while I started to
prep
> for the 
> drive up to BCC. He called about 10 minutes later, and I agreed to
> come up and 
> help. About 30 minutes later, I had the truck ramps, floor jack, jack
> stands, 
> water, GPS, PowerAde and was backing out of the driveway to begin
> Mission: 
> Rescue RopingTheWind (or RRTW for short). 
> A little over 90 minutes later, and I pulled off the road to a
waiting
> RTW. I 
> drove him back to his truck, we unloaded my equipment and worked to
> get the 
> u-bolt pieces out to get to a shop for matching. For 10 minutes he
> worked on the 
> bolt, but the u-bolt itself kept spinning, giving him no bite to get
> everything 
> loose. (light bulb). Scott realized that since he u-bolt was in two
> pieces, 
> there was nothing to remove, so he just pulled the pieces out.
Between
> his tiny 
> hydraulic jack, my 2.5-ton and the ramp we used for added height, we
> just 
> couldn't get the control arm in place. Off we head to BKC in search
of
> another 
> floor jack and some tow rope. In the process of trying to back down
> for a more 
> secure place to work, he backed the rear tires into a wash and became
> stuck. 
> Normally, this would suck, but it provided a perfect rest to keep the
> truck from 
> sliding while underneath it working. The other jack, and second ramp
> worked in 
> getting the control arm in place. Yay! 
> Scott had a pair of u-bolts in his truck, but they were significantly
> larger 
> than the one that broke, and wouldn't fit. Sooooo, off to Phoenix we
> go in 
> search of an auto parts store that had something we thought we didn't
> have. 
> Autozone, Checker, Napa and even a wrecking yard didn't have the
> u-bolt to match 
> up. We drove from I17/MP244 to 101/59th ave all the way to 7th
> ave/union hills. 
> A mechanic kindly let Scott in after-hours to look for the part, but
> all the 
> u-bolts were the exact same size as what we already had. Hmmmm.... 
> Ok, one of the sides would slide into the hole, but the other
> wouldn't. It 
> was just a hair shy. Off to HomeDepot for a 7/8 deep socket, socket
> wrench and a 
> round file. After stopping for some refueling at the TacoBell/Pizza
> Hut, we 
> headed the 35 miles back up to the truck, and Scott began filing the
> holes. 
> About 10 minutes later, he was able to fit both side in, and hammer
it
> in place 
> for a perfect fit! Time? 2150hrs. It turned out that we had the right
> part 
> afterall, but just needed to gap out the hole a hair for the threads
> to pass. 
> After torquing down the bolts, and put everything away, we hooked up
> the tow 
> rope and I performed my first vehicle tow to pull a stuck vehicle out
> (only 
> having the Jeep 36 hours, I'm certainly breaking it in....). We
backed
> out 
> vehicles to more level ground and Scott took another look at his
> suspension to 
> make sure everything was ok, and we hiked/fell/hiked/fell our way to
> the cache. 
> I slid 2 or 3 times, the most about 30' down the hill on my feet, but
> cutting up 
> my hands pretty good from the rock contact. Guess that's what happens
> when you 
> don't plan for such an adventure and only have one flashlight. My
> headlamp was 
> in the Camelbak at home.  But after being that close to the cache for
> 7 hours, I wasn't going 
> away without a find.
> 10 minutes or so later, and Scott made the find, as only one of us
> could 
> search with a single flashlight. The views were great, and I told my
> wife to 
> have the search crews look for us at the bottom of the mesa on the
> west side in 
> case we didn't make it home by morning.  
> Thankfully, I found a much easier way down, just a few feet away from
> where 
> we found the cache. A couple foot shuffles later and we were down the
> hill and 
> on the way back to the vehicles. Ironically, we found a wash that we
> followed 
> out and ended up about 10' from the road, and only 180' from our
> vehicles. 
> This was certainly one my most interesting cache adventures, and not
> one I'll 
> soon forget. It felt good being able to help out in a situation like
> that, and 
> to now have a vehicle that would make it back there. My Nissan 4x2
had
> neither 
> the power nor the clearance to get to his truck. 
> BrianTeam A.I.
>  
>  
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