L 403 In COCONINO county, AZ
Designation: L 403
Marker Type: bench mark disk
Setting: in rock outcrop
Stability: Probably hold position/elevation well.
This hunt caught our attention when we saw that the coordinates showed the benchmark was 3/10 of a mile East of the current Highway 89. All the other benchmarks in that series were right beside Highway 89. Something didn't quite fit the usual pattern.
First thing on the list was to pay a visit to the described location. We arrived at the "parking" area and grabbed a metal 100' tape. From what appeared to be the edge of the parking area 
we measured 50' south and started looking for the witness post and at the size of the nearby trees. We didn't see any witness post and there were plenty of 12" diameter trees. This was going to take some doing to find this one. We thought that maybe we were at the wrong parking area so we drove further south along the highway, found another parking spot and
pulled over. Right off the bat, we spotted a witness post by the right-of-way fence and thought that this was going to be easier than first thought. We parked and headed over to the witness post to find the benchmark. Turned out to be a different benchmark (RED) than the one we were looking for. We did log a find for that one (RED) after checking to see if it was listed on GC.com.
We went back for a second try several weeks later. We got out the tape again and measured 58 feet from the center of the highway at the south end of the parking area. We then measured 50 feet south from that point, Looking for a rock outcrop that was 2 feet high and any tree that would fit the 12" diameter adjusted for the years of growth since 1962. There was nothing there that fit that description. Back home to think this one over some more. I knew we were missing something simple, but just couldn't figure out what the obvious clue was.
We finally went back for the third time and took a careful look at the parking area before starting the search this time. 
The first thing that dawned on us was that there had been quite a bit of dirt moved at some point in time and what was now the south end of the parking area was probably 20 or 30 feet farther north that originally. This meant that we needed to measure at least 80 feet south of the south end of the parking area. We measured (paced) 58 feet from the center of the highway and tried to aim south parallel to the highway. There were a couple of trees to help keep us on course as we headed south. Due to terrain I left the tape measure in the truck, but I did grab the metal detector. I started at the point paced from the center of the highway and took a bead on the one tree and started to pace off 30 paces (adjusted for the uneven terrain). I had the metal detector on while doing the pacing and at about 50 feet from the parking area I got a strong signal. I kicked the dirt around but the object was too deep to just move a little dirt and find it. I went back to the truck and grabbed a shovel. After taking several shovel fulls of dirt we found the detected object. It was a remarkably well preserved Pepsi can. OH Well. We continued on until we reached the 30 pace mark. From this point we looked for the "12 inch cedar" and saw nothing that seemed to fit except for 1 dead tree and it was very close to where we were standing, not 37 feet south of us.
There was a sandstone ledge here so this is where we started using the metal detector. Again with the metal detector and we got another good signal. Moving the blowsand with my shoe revealed the disk. 
The ledge is about 2 feet high, but the 12 inch diameter cedar is not there at the 37 feet south of the mark and there is no sign of there ever having been one that size near the 37 foot mark. The half-dead tree just south of the disk is about 4.4 feet away.
There is another good object to use for reference purposes (at least for several more years) and that is a cedar that has a round hole that goes all the way through the tree. I went back to the truck and got the tape to measure the distance from the disk to the tree with the hole in it.
The obvious points that we should have noticed right from the start is the parking area having been dozed and altered in size (water run-off). And after pacing the distance south we should have noticed the rock ledge that was 2 feet high, even though it was farther than was mentioned in the benchmark description. Finally, we should have used the metal detector right from the start and been a little more patient in looking for this one.
2oldfarts
By 2oldfarts (the rockhounders)
We're from Northern AZ and have over 1000 benchmark recoveries. We have been GC members since 2003. We enjoy rockhounding and just being outdoors. We have a web site showing some of the great places we know about and have visited (coordinates included). http://myweb.cableone.net/rockhounders1/
RSS 2.0 Feed
