E.T.

One night the captain (chris), rene and I decide to go out geocaching. For those of you who are not aware, we are all members of Team Nightwatch ( geocaching adventure group) and most of our excursions take place well after the sun has gone down. On this particular night we decided to find several caches that were located near a ridgeline a little northeast of devil's punchbowl. We manage to get to the creek at the bottom of the trailhead a little after 2200. its a decent length hike along the trail of switch backs to get to the top of the ridge, and there are several sections where the trail is sorta missing cause it has been washed out and all that is left is a steep drop off. Usually I hike a lot faster than the majority of the group, so on this night, as on many others I was wearing a 40 pound wieght vest to slow me down. It was a pretty bright night, with little cloud cover, with the moonlight reflecting off of all the snow along the trail and mountain side. Around 2300 we are near the ridgeline. We pause to look out over the valley behind us. As we are doing so, I notice a car driving on a road about a mile or so away. I ask chris if he happens to have the laser pointer on him, which he does, he quickly pulls it out and hands it to me, I grab the laser and scramble off the trail and up the ridgeline a little ways, when I get to a good spot I shine the laser at the car. Now this particular laser has a green light, and on a previous adventure we were using it to mark a friends position so that he could locate us up on a hillside. This is when we discovered that at a distance of about a mile the tiny little light ends up covering about a ten foot radius of whatever it is shined on. As soon as the light hits the car, we see the break lights come on and the dust start to rise as the vehicle comes sliding to a stop. I gradually move the light around the outside of the car in a circle motion. Then I shine the light back on the car for a couple seconds before turning the laser off. The car sits there for a min or so not moving. Then the car slowly starts to move forward. I immediately shine the laser back on the car, and instantly there is a cloud of dust that rises up as the driver of the car slams his foot on the gas. I keep the light on the car for a few seconds as the driver tries to outrun it as he races away. By now the others are laughing hysterically as I turn off the light. After this short break, we continue the rest of the way up the trail. When we reach the ridgeline, we lost the trail in the snow. None of us expected there to be so much snow still on the ground. As we refer to the gps, we realize the cache that we are looking for is farther up in the snow on an adjoining ridge. Normally this would not keep me from going after it, but after some slipping and sliding on the snow, I decide it is too dangerous for everyone to try for it so we decide for safety's sake to head back down (I know, since when am I safe). We decide not to pass up all the fun, and instead of taking the trail back, we decide to try and slide down the snow filled draw. We all climb down a small drop off, and then I take a giant leap out into the draw. I immediately discover that this was a bad move as I land in a pile of rocks that are barely covered with snow. I continue on down the mountain, discovering new rocks with each slip and fall. The others follow me down, with the same luck. Instead of gracefully sliding down the mountain, we manage to bounce and tumble down the whole way while ripping some clothes and bruising our bodies. When we get to the bottom we find whats left of the trail and work our way back to the car. The way home we again laugh at the car we scared with the laser, and we make plans to look in the paper to see if there are any local “UFO” reports. Definitely an entertaining night.