This past weekend I got to tag along on a four day outing to the Eastern Sierra. This trip differed from my usual hiking adventures – it was with the Geocachers of the Bay Area 4×4 group and organized by bthomas, a cacher, hiker, and 4x4er.

The trip started off Thursday morning with Motorbug and Geobrowns. We cached our way through Oakdale and along highway 108, stopping to explore some backroads and an old railroad trestle. We also stopped at a virtual cache with an an incredible view overlooking northern Yosemite and the Marine training area. This even ended up being a big milestone day: the Geobrown’s Jeep turned over 100 miles, I found my 900th cache, and MotorBug celebrated his 10th anniversary of retirement.

After a night’s stay in Lee Vining we connected with bthomas’s group and headed into Virginia Lakes for breakfast on Friday morning. Of course we picked up a few caches along the way! In the words of Tom (or was it Jim?) – there’s nothing like a coffee and an open cache to make a perfect morning! After a great breakfast at the lodge by the lake, we started off towards Copper Mountain, the first real 4×4 run of the day. On the way there we ran into Cap’n Finder, and also picked up the last arriving vehicle on the radio. We all connected on Copper Mountain, where we were treated to incredible views of Mono Lake, Lundy Canyon, and of course, a geocache.

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