I sent an email to a Geocacher in Southern California who has found over 3000 geocaches. He has a geocache set up on top of La Cumbre peak not far from the memorial. Perhaps he will search for the memorial for me. 2 years ago

I posted a note on a geocache page that is at the top of La Cumbre near the memorial. Unfortunately, only 1 person has looked for the cache this year, and two in 2009. 2 years ago

My brother Mark visited the hill where my brother Andrew crashed. He took some pictures and then headed to the beach where the hang gliders land. He said it’s about a 20 minute drive from the peak to the ocean, but the difference in elevation is about 3000 feet. He did not look for the rock with my brother’s name inscribed on it. 2 years ago

My brother Mark emailed me yesterday. He’s going to try to find our brother’s memorial this Monday. I asked him if he wanted me to get some Geocachers to help him find it, but he didn’t know when he would get there. He’s going from San Fransisco to Santa Barbara. I have no idea how far they are apart.

Mark will take a picture of it if he can find it. I’ll post a picture when I get one. He doesn’t have a GPS, and I may not get the co-ordinates.

Mark received a copy of my mom’s letter when I asked my mom for a copy of it. I never thought that Mark would make the trip to try to find the memorial.

I’m pretty excited about this. 3 years ago

30 years ago my brother Andrew passed away hang gliding in Santa Barbara. After several months a letter arrived from a friend who collected several documents regarding Andrew’s accident. In the documents was a picture of a rock near the crash site with his name engraved.

Thirty years later, I thought it would be a great to locate that rock. I set up a mystery geocache in Santa Barbara asking people to help find the memorial. The page was never published. Apparently, I needed to put a container by the cache for people to write a log. I am 1000 miles away.

I found a Santa Barbara hang gliding community and asked them if any of them knew of the memorial. I had some suggestions, but no leads.

I finally asked my mother for information from the letter. I hated to ask her for it, because it would stir up some bleak memories. A couple of days later she phoned and told me the hill where it occurred. She photocopied the letter, but did said that she was too tired to mail it.

I contacted several geocachers in Santa Barbara and told them of the hill where the accident took place. One of them described the park as quite large, treacherous and compared finding the memorial to locating a needle in a haystack.

I finally received the letter this Monday. I sent an email to some geocachers in Santa Barbara. The jump off point is 800 feet west from the peak, and the crash is 200 feet from there. I had several encouraging emails from the Santa Barbara geocachers. Hopefully, I will hear back from them with the location of the rock and a photo of it 30 years later.

This has been an emotionally draining couple of months. I feel like I am mourning my brother’s death all over again. 3 years ago