Rhondle's Geocaching Blog

GeoWoodstock VIII

2010-07-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it! We attended our first mega event - GeoWoodstock VIII in Carnation Washington. And while we were there, we paid a visit to Groundspeak HQ and made the trek to the Project A.P.E. cache, thus completing 2/3rds of the much sought-after geotriad.

Our first leg of the journey took us from Salmon Arm to Wenatchee, WA and we basically geocached all the way, so the trip down basically took a whole day. June 30th was also a memorable day as it was when we found our first US geocache: Depot Transplant

The next day, July 1st, we made the trek to Groundspeak HQ. Battling Seattle traffic is never fun, but we managed to survive it. It wasn't quite as exciting as I expected it to be, basically you can only visit the reception area, but there is a Groundspeak geocache with a bunch of items, a couple of bins full of trackable items (I dropped one of our coins there, hey why not) and a log to sign. For the most part, I basically my time there writing down codes of all the trackables I could find - something I doubt many do, especially since the coin I dropped there was only logged once (as of the time of this writing). Still, a very neat experience, but it was pretty stressful so we opted not to return for the 10 year bash that they were putting on the day after the mega.

The next day, we participated in the WSGA-organized hike to the famous Project A.P.E. cache (Mission 9: Tunnel of Light), which was remarkably well done. I'm actually very impressed with the job that they did, and for having the foresight to come up with a plan to deal with the hundreds of pilgrims making the trek to this very famous geocache.

Overall, the hike was much easier than any of us had anticipated. We took turns carrying Melissa in the backpack carrier, which actually made the overall trek much easier. However, it was raining on and off which complicated things, and on top of it all since we had overestimated the difficulty of the hike we were a little more prepared than we needed to be. The first 20-30 minutes of the hike was relatively intense, but once we made it to the Iron Horse trail it was smooth sailing. The large number of people making the trek that day took away from the experience somewhat, but we took it all in stride. While we were there we took the opportunity and found the other geocaches along the trail as well, plus took a look at the now-closed tunnel.

Later that evening, we headed over to the COWWS Meet & Greet Luau where we were treated with free food which was immensely welcomed after a long cold day hiking the trails. We picked up our GeoWoodstock registration packets, bought a couple of coins, and then went back to our hotel for a much needed night's sleep.

The next day, we eagerly attended GeoWoodstock. Being our first mega, we weren't sure what to expect except for a lot of people. And we were still surprised. But it was well organized, with lots of parking and a very suitable venue. Overall, I would rate our experience there as mediochre, as very little of what was being offered there was actually interesting, and (in IMHO) it was really little more than a venue for numerous vendors to tap into a huge number of people with gobs of disposable income to spend on their hobby. But, nonetheless it was a very memorable experience and I am glad we went.

On our way home, we stopped for another night in Wenatchee, and were pleasantly surprised to discover an event (A Cache-cadian 4th of July) was planned for that evening in a park right behind our hotel! As it turns out, being July 4th, that park was the preferred viewing venue for the fireworks display, but it wasn't necessary as we got a great view from our hotel window!

On top of everything else, we stumbled across a couple of benchmark caches which earned us a couple of more icons for the trip. What a blast!

Team Rhondle with mtn-man

Our first Whereigo cache!

2010-05-31T22:03:00.000-07:00

With team Fred6603 visiting from Australia, we have been doing more geocaching that usual; but most of the caches we've been taking them to we've already found. This weekened, however, it was the birthday of the youngest member of our team, and so we decided to take a trip to the coast to meet up with friends and family.

We grabbed a few caches along the way, and spent the night in Hope so we could go and get BC's first Whereigo cache (GC1K47J) first thing in the morning.

In all, it was a lot of fun! Whereigo caches are notorious for having issues - mostly with the players, but it worked out pretty well with the Asus PPC (WM6) that Fred6603 had. We'll have to do another sometime soon!

10 Years! Salmon Arm, BC

2010-04-17T20:03:00.001-07:00

Come and help us celebrate 10 years of geocaching in the heart of the Shuswap!

We are planning a simple meetup in the waterfront park near the pier.

2:00 pm
- Meet & Greet
- Geocoin & Travelbug show & swap
- Snacks

2:30 pm
- Group photo. We have to show a group photo showing a group of 10 or more people to qualify for this event.

3:00 pm
- Cut the "10 Year" birthday cake!

3:30 pm
- Wrap up the event. Go grab some local geocaches!

If you think you will be able to make it to this event please register that you will be attending.

See you there!

Find #700!

2010-03-27T22:35:00.000-07:00

Since the weather was nice and we needed a break, we made a quick trip out to Vernon to pick up our find #700: A Hole in One (GC2542M). We didn't have a cache chosen for this milestone, so we just decided to see what would happen.

As it turns out we picked up two caches (#698 and #699) in Armstrong on our way down, and as pulled up to what would be find #700 there was a car parked directly at that location so we assumed, well, it had to be geocachers. Sure enough, it turned out to be Nenners and the better half of team Pro & Cras Tin8.

After we had found the cache and signed the log, the groundskeeper from the adjacent golf course came by to see what we were up to and to warn us about flying golf balls. Fortunately he was busy and didn't pay attention to us while the cache was being re-hid.

We've bought a house how and with our move pending we don't expect to do a lot of geocaching during April, but fortunately we hope to make that up as we have several large geocaching trips planned for this year, including two in May, and at least two in June, as well as at least one each in July and August.

The plan is to get another 298 caches to make it to our big 1000 milestone this year. It's been slow finding caches lately since we've basically totally exhausted our area.

Cache on!

Event GC24G6V - Meet Team Fred6603 From Australia

2010-03-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

Introducing our first event cache - GC24G6V - Meet Team Fred6603 From Australia.

Jo's parents (Fred6603) are coming to visit in May, and as they are avid geocachers we have decided to host an event in their honour so they can meet some of Salmon Arm's geocaching community.

Currently we are planning for this to just be a simple picnic style get-together in a Sunnybrae Park. We'll be bringing drinks & dogs for everyone, there's also plenty to do with swimming (hopefully it's warm enough at the end of May) or even geocaching as there are quite a few caches nearby.

We'll be augmenting the cache page as the date draws closer but if you think you will be able to make it please register.

See you there!

GeoStomp 2010

2010-03-21T21:54:00.000-07:00

Kodos to Coulior for hosting yet another highly successful GeoStomp event!

I was joined by Stampcoin and KnightOrc for this excursion.

We hit the road early - as Kamloops is a hefty drive from Salmon Arm - and made it to the event only a few minutes late, which was compounded by us having to wait for a train when we were just around the corner.

When we arrived, we were surprised how many attendees there were at the event - we barely made it in the door! After a brief introduction to the caches by Couloir we were on our way.

We began by doing a coffee run - which was fortunate as there was a new cache right there! After grabbbing a couple more caches nearby, we worked our way over to the south side of the highway where we stayed for most of the day caching. This was an area that none of us had cached much which was fortunate; we just went from cache to cache which included both new as well as a great deal of legacy caches.

After a quick stop for lunch we continued caching on the north shore of Kamloops, but before too long we ran out of time and had to return for the wrap-up meeting.

I was fortunate in being picked 2nd in the prize draw, and as as such I was rewarded with a ready to go geocache which included a trackable tag. I believe Rokman4 donated this - Thanks!!

After the wrap-up we continued geocaching, snagging quite a few more caches until it was just too dark to continue and decided to head for home.

In all we found 28 geocaches (22 traditionals and 6 multi's) plus the event, not to mention quite a few trackables.

This puts us at a grand total of 697 caches, setting us up for the big 700 on our next geocaching excursion!

Find #650 on our trip to the coast

2010-02-28T20:45:00.000-08:00

We went down to the coast on the weekend to visit my parents. Normally we don't travel the Coquihalla during the winter months but with this abnormally mild winter we couldn't resist the opportunity to get away. Originally the plan was to geocache on the way down, but since we've geocached this route so many times before there were slim pickings and so we decided just to grab a few in Mission where my mom lives.

Of course, things don't always work out according to plan. The weather wasn't on our side, and with only a few caches nearby we did the best we could. However, we reached our 650th cache milestone at Sudoku Wipeout (GC15284)

Our hope is to reach 1000 geocaches this year, and although the mild winter is certainly helping we're finding that there are very few geocaches within an hour's drive of home that we can get, which is slowing us down considerably. However we are planning a number of geocaching trips this year, so everything should balance out in the end. With some 348 caches to go we're fairly confident that we can reach our goal this year.

Contrary to our previous plans, due to the fact that this year is shaping up to be a very busy one we're not expecting to put out a lot of geocaches this year after all. I'm currently guessing around 5 or 6, but that could change of course. Rumour has it that we may see a Brain Drain II this summer!

Our first find of 2010 - and it was a FTF!

2010-01-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

With the start of 2010 comes a new geocaching season and with it the excitement and anticipation of the adventures that will undoubtedly follow.

Only 10 days into the new year and we received our first opportunity for a FTF. We received the notification that a new cache Shuswap - Sicamous Multi/Puzzle (GC22P24) had been published. Our log summarizes the adventure:

This cache was an unusual experience for us. We received the notification about this cache being published on January 10th, and went about solving the puzzle. With the coordinates in hand, we jumped into the car and made the 20 minute dash from Salmon Arm to Sicamous hoping to be the FTF. We found stage 1 without too much difficulty, but there wasn't any information in it about how to find stage 2. Puzzled, we signed our name on a slip of paper, and returned to the car.

After deciphering the hint and thinking like a geocacher, we formulated an idea. A few minutes of searching (and slipping on ice) paid off for us and we struck paydirt. With the cache finally in hand we signed the log and set off for home - hungry and a bit puzzled.

But the story gets stranger. Upon returning home we discovered this cache was no longer published, and thus we were unable to log our find. A quick email to the C/O revealed that the reviewer had made a mistake and prematurely published this cache, and a short while later had "un-published" it.

So here we are logging this find long after actually physically finding it. Fortunately this is January and we haven't been doing much caching; we postponed logging any of our recent finds until this cache was officially published so we can log them in the correct sequence.

Without the coordinates to the final stage, this cache proved to be a bit more challenging than we had expected. It was, however, a good exercise in thinking outside of the box. TNLN. TFTH!

Looking back on 2009

2009-12-31T19:00:00.000-08:00

With Christmas past we are now counting down the final days of the year, and with it we have posted our 9th and final cache of 2009 - A Mighty Wind (GC229XY) - named for it's close proximity to a "certain" building. Although this geocache isn't the one we had planned to put out for our 9th and final 9/09 cache, with the year nearly over and the temperatures low enough to frighten most Canadians off to a warm beach somewhere in the tropics we decided we had no choice but to resort to Plan B and put out our backup cache before we ran out of time.

2009 In Review

The year started off fairly well, an extensive geocaching adventure during November/December in Australia had left us full of ideas and it was tough sitting out the winter waiting for spring to finally come around. With snow still on the ground we spent an evening setting up Twilight Trails - Salmon Arm's first (and currently only) night cache - to kick off the geocaching season.

We put out one cache during April, May and June respectively. My favourite so far was Brain Drain (GC1QV50), which was put out to compete in the BCGA 2009 Cache Blitz. This gem was built for us by Jo's dad (Fred6603) during our visit with them in Australia and has caused a great deal of exasperation to those who have dared to go find it!

As the summer hit we found ourselves embarking on a number of geocaching adventures to various destinations, including Revelstoke, Golden, Vernon, Lumby, Kelowna, Kamloops, Summerland, Penticton, Nakusp and Calgary. In amongst all of our travelling we also somehow managed to put out three more geocaches during the month of July: Gardom Lake (GC1W1RZ) (Salmon Arm's first Letterbox Hybrid geocache), Sudoku Style (GC1W33E), and Salmon Arm Challenge (GC1W4YD).

Our next cache, Bluesky - Park Hill (GC1XYPX) was put out on August 29th as part of the Blue Sky initiative (Project BlueSky), which also provided us with a Project BlueSky geocoin, which you can discover if you bump into us at an event. Putting out this particular cache left us with some interesting memories - Salmon Arm had one of its more severe fire seasons this year, and I will never forget covering our faces to block out the thick smoke while we hiked up the trail enroute to put out this cache. Due to the heavy smoke we didn't end up putting it as far down the trail as we would have liked, but I still think the cache is hidden in a decent spot nonetheless.

After this we slipped into a bit of a geocaching lull; and with only one 9/09 cache remaining to put out for the year we opted to devote our time to reaching our milestone of 600 finds which we achieved on November 7th at Alphabet Soup - BC Style (GC1YBVV) during a geocaching trip to Kelowna.

Milestones for 2009

First webcam cache! (GC8760)

First CITO event! (GC1XTF8)

Oldest cache so far - Treehugger (GC1DD)

19 FTF's

308 finds (giving us a grand total of 629)

What's Cooking for 2010

I have been working hard for the past three months on a cache series which I am hoping to put out during the first part of 2010. It takes a lot of work and time to plan and put out a series, but I'm hoping that the first couple of caches will be ready sometime in January (fingers crossed...)

Jo's parents will be visiting from Australia in May which will undoubtedly lead to some pretty exciting geocaching adventures; there's really no plans yet but we have some ideas of course.

We are thinking about attending Geowoodstock VIII (GC1QM7K) Mega Event in Washington state next Summer. Normally travelling to the US is a bit of an ordeal, so we try and avoid it. But with a Geowoodstock right on our doorstep, we'll never have another opportunity to attempt to attend one so easily, so we have been putting some serious thought into attending that event.

We should easily reach 750 caches next year, but most traditional caches are starting to lose their appeal so we are going to prefer non-traditional caches during 2010. After all, geocaching is about the adventure and not a number.

Happy new year, and Cache On!

Winter is just around the corner....

2009-11-25T22:42:00.000-08:00

As the year counts down to a close, and with the weather on a rapid decline, the opportunities for geocaching become fewer and more challenging. Road conditions, inclimate weather and limited daylight severely impact any geocaching opportunities.

On November 11th, we realized that the weather was particularly nice and being a holiday, we decided to step out for the afternoon and grab a few caches. We were finding caches at a remarkable rate and in under two hours we had collected 12 geocaches. With daylight all but gone, we reluctantly wrapped up our trip, but the next week we stepped out and picked up a few more caches.. Unfortunately, with the nearest unfound geocaches a good distance away, a considerable drive is in order, so we have been concentrating on picking up the "stragglers" - the caches which take some degree of effort to get to, and no others nearby.

On our latest geocaching trip, we pulled into a church in Armstrong, and after looking for the cache for a good while, gave up and went back to the car for a hint... only to discover that we had left our lights on. While we were waiting for BCAA to give us a jump, we had ample time to find the cache. Sadly the delay seriously cut into our remaining daylight, cutting our excursion short.

With snow expected very soon, we aren't planning any more geocaching trips this year. It's time to stay indoors, and start planning out some new geocaches for next year. Oh and I guess the 9th of our '09 series...

Cache 600!

2009-11-07T19:24:00.000-08:00

With winter rapidly approaching, we decided to plan one last geocaching trip of the year to try and meet our goal of reaching 600 caches this year. And we succeeded! We selected Alphabet Soup.. BC Style (GC1YBVV) as our 600th cache, having already compiled a bookmark list of the geocaches meeting the criteria.

Although we'll likely pick up quite a few more caches this year, geocaching generally grinds to a halt around here once the snow flies and doesn't pick up again until the spring so we wanted to be sure to cross this milestone now when there's no snow around.

Since we've basically found just about every geocache within a hundred kilometer radius of Salmon Arm, next year we'll have to spread out and try really hard to explore new places.

GC1W4YD - Salmon Arm Challenge

2009-10-19T21:45:00.000-07:00

GC1W4YD - Salmon Arm Challenge
Published: October 19th, 2009
Type: Mystery
Cache #8 of 9 for 2009

I had the idea for this cache back in July, but a string of events (yes, mostly geocaching) kept me preoccupied and I didn't get around to releasing this cache until now.

The idea is a pretty simple one actually - collect a series of codes from caches around Salmon Arm, and then type them into a web form to retrieve the final cache's coordinates. Originally this cache was going to include all of my favourite caches here in Salmon Arm, but unfortunately, many of those are micros and the cards I had made up won't fit. So instead I changed the cache's theme to be a quick tour of Salmon Arm, since it literally takes you from one end of Salmon Arm to the other.

This cache is intentionally very easy. However, the final cache is hidden in a location where the accuracy of the GPS is heavily degraded due to tree cover. I did add a hint after the FTF was taken, but if folks have trouble locating the final cache, I will add a better hint.

I'm still working on the next cache of the 9/09 series... but nothing is finalized yet =)

Cache on!

Calgary Geocaching

2009-10-18T21:52:00.000-07:00

Our aunt & uncle invited us to Calgary for a visit. We've hardly found any geocaches in Calgary before and the weather forecast was looking pretty darn good so we decided to go.

We spent most of our time visiting, but we still managed to find a few caches. We even managed to get our very first webcam cache!

We almost got the webcam cache in downtown Vancouver this summer, but as luck would have it that camera got shut down just a week before we made it down. The most frusterating part was that I only worked three blocks away for years and I had no end of chances to get that cache. Oh well. That's what happens when you procrastinate I guess!

Anyhow, after three years we finally have found at least one webcam cache. Phew.

We also bought ourselves a Christmas present while we were there: a Garmin eTrex HCx GPS! After 569 caches with our eTrex H (a fantastic GPS by the way), we decided it was time for a treat. We're not sure what to do with the old one though; it's well used but works great. I think we'll hang on to it and use it as a "loaner" GPS when friends come to visit.

Fall Caching Trip with Stampcoin

2009-10-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

We took a day trip to Adams Lake and Chase with stampcoin to snag the remaining caches in those areas which we hadn't yet got. In all, we hunted for 17 caches and found 16. Not bad for a day in these parts! Our total now stands at 560. I was originally hoping that we would cross 600 this year but due to a couple of cancelled/rescheduled geocaching trips, it doesn't look like we'll quite hit that goal this year.

GC1XYPX - Bluesky - Park Hill

2009-09-21T18:34:00.000-07:00

GC1XYPX - Bluesky - Park Hill
Published: September 21st, 2009 (First day of Autumn!)
Type: Mystery
Cache #7 of 9 for 2009

We were asked to participate in the BC Parks - Project Blue Sky (now also known as Geo-Trek 2009) project by placing one of their geocaches in Salmon Arm. Also participating in this area was KnightOrc & Catwoman, Shuswap Ed and Kano Kuple.

There were three unactivated Project Blue Sky geocoins in the cache for the FTF, 2TF and 3TF, as well as a whole bunch of awesome swag. I'm glad the Project Blue Sky folks used their government grant money to provide some fully loaded and excellent caches, swag items and 300+ high quality trackable geocoins instead of just paying themselves a salary.

Despite getting a government grant - the concept of which rubs me (and a lot of other geocachers) the wrong way - at least they made a really solid effort in contributing significantly to geocaching. It's a shame that all of the caches were the same size and most were released as traditionals. The option of releasing them as something other than a traditional cache was never discussed, so three of us took the liberty of releasing the Blue Sky caches as something else. There were two Mystery caches - one of them is this one - and one Multi, released by KnightOrc & Catwoman)

There was quite a bit of delay in having these caches released; the caches were originally supposed to be released back in August but the release date eventually got pushed to the 21st of September. We were anxiously awaiting the caches to be released in the hopes that we would be able to score a FTF on one.. and sure enough, KnightOrc & Catwoman's cache wasn't too far away and we headed out to try and find it. After hours of traipsing through the woods at night, we finally signed the log and wearily made our way home. But that's a story for another blog entry.

Kudos to Stampcoin, lwong, KnightOrc & Catwoman for solving the puzzle and scoring a find on the cache so far! Well done everyone! Enjoy those coins!

Our first CITO

2009-09-19T19:10:00.001-07:00

Today we attended the Salmon Arm CITO - Fly Hills FSR event and spent a great deal of time picking up garbage and getting to meet other cachers.

All in all, the event was a resounding success. We filled three pickup trucks worth of trash of all descriptions. We found items such as vehicle tires, the remains of a matress, a box full of broken dishes, what looked like the contents of someone's garage, a stove, the top of a dryer that was full of bullet holes, and an XBOX 360 that someone had shot to pieces.

We got to meet a lot of new cachers, including autotech, lwong and erinf31; the food was excellent, and the prizes were fantastic.

We're looking forward to our next event!

Salmon Arm CITO Event: Come help us clean up Fly Hills!

2009-09-05T11:29:00.001-07:00

I am helping Stampcoin arrange a CITO event here in Salmon Arm. As pretty much anyone who has done my cache "The Fly Hills are Alive" knows, the entire area is littered with trash and is desperately in need of a cleanup... so naturally we thought "CITO!"

Here's the details:

More info: Salmon Arm CITO - Fly Hills FSR

When: September 19th, 2009 at 11:30am sharp

(incidentally, this is also the International Talk Like a Pirate Day so if you show up and discover a bunch of there's a lot of folks wandering picking up trash and saying things like "Avast! Curse the hides of the filthy dogs who dumped their trash on them thar hills.. Yarr!!" don't be scared away.. it's all glorious fun)

Where: N 50° 40.715 W 119° 22.587

Conditions: Rain or shine

What we are providing: Garbage bags, hand sanitizer, food, drinks, lots of prizes. We also have trash waivers from the city to allow us to dump the garbage we collect at no charge. Please talk to Stampcoin or myself if you have a vehicle capable of hauling trash and are willing to help out.

What you need to bring: Gloves! There's a lot of sharp stuff around, so be sure to bring a pair of really good leather gloves. Optional things to bring: trash stick, lawn chairs/table, FRS/GMRS radio

Itinerary:

11:30am - 12:15pm : Impromptu lunch, Meet & Greet

12:15pm - 2:45pm : Cleanup

2:45pm - 3:00pm : Meet back at GZ. Door prizes.

3:00pm - : Volunteers needed to help carry trash to dump

Things to note:

If you can contribute something to eat, it would be most welcome.

If you have extras of anything (gloves, hand sanitizer, garbage bags, etc) it doesn't hurt to bring them

If you want to donate a prize to the event, contact Stampcoin

If you are bringing geocoins or travel bugs to the event, please drop them in the cache (with an associated note of course) and please touch bases with me so we can coordinate the trackables .. we want to make sure everyone who wants to discover the trackables gets the opportunity to view them all.

If you have a FRS/GMRS compatible walkie-talkie, bring it along. We will be operating on 462.5875 Mhz - Channel 2. If you are unsure, consult your manual as channel assignments sometimes vary among manufacturers. We are not using CTCSS/DCS (if you have the option, set it to "0" or "off")

Caching trip to Lumby

2009-08-23T17:36:00.000-07:00

Took a trip out to Lumby today and grabbed a few caches while we were there. In particular, we really enjoyed the caches by cbearw. I always enjoy devious hides, and it was really a breath of fresh air to go somewhere and find a bunch of really well done and clever hides. This is really what I live for in geocaching, and I know many others that do as well, so I must say kudos to cbearw, your caches are awesome. Keep up the good work!

Three more FTF's in two days

2009-08-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

We took a trip to Vernon yesterday as we often do, and naturally we grabbed a couple of caches along the way. One was a new cache which we managed to score a FTF on - Valley View in Enderby, was a great little hide in a neat little spot we never would have been to if it weren't for geocaching. Today we grabbed some new caches in Sicamous - Shuswap - Riverside Park and Shuswap - Hidden Beach.

The big 500!

2009-08-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

On Friday we took a day trip to the Summerland and Penticton area of the Okanagan and made it to within two finds of the big 500. It was getting late and with a 2.5 hour drive home we decided to carefully choose which cache we would get to celebrate the milestone and get it another day.

Today we settled on Groundhog & Shadow's Firefly Trail -- Our 100th Cache Hide! cache for the big 500. This was a night cache, which we have always enjoyed. In fact, this was the first night cache we found in Canada; all of our previous ones were in Australia. We also picked up two of G&S's other caches as well, in particular Y-Not in Vernon? was particularly enjoyable.

Weekend caching trip to Revelstoke

2009-07-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

We took a day trip to Revelstoke this weekend to pick up some geocaches out that way. We didn't get as many as we were hoping to get but we got seven for the day, including the virtual cache at the top of Mt Revelstoke. Wow, the view was amazing but the bugs were too much for us.. even with liberal amounts of bug repellant doused all over us, we still got swarmed pretty badly. However, it was a lot of fun. And we're closing in on 500 finds, we should have that in a couple of weeks!

GC1W33E - Sudoku Style

2009-07-19T20:32:00.000-07:00

GC1W33E - Sudoku Style
Published: July 19th, 2009
Type: Mystery
Cache #6 of 9 for 2009

Ok, one thing I will come out with right up front is that there are lots of Sudoku based geocaches, so naturally I was very undecided whether or not to publish yet another one. However, one thing that really appealed to me about placing a sudoku puzzle cache was that they're pretty easy and that almost anyone could successfully solve them; this is a marked difference from some of my other mystery caches, and since i'm trying to appeal to cachers across the board, releasing an easier mystery cache makes sense.

I do have a couple of harder caches slated to come out over the next month or so, but for now introducing a few more geocaches to Salmon Arm hopefully helps inspire others to do the same.

Cache on!

GC1W1RZ - Gardom Lake

2009-07-18T18:09:00.000-07:00

GC1W1RZ - Gardom Lake
Published: July 18th, 2009
Type: Letterbox
Cache #5 of 9 for 2009

The latest in our series of nine caches for this year is our first Letterbox Hybrid. This is a cache type that I have been wanting to place for a long time now, and we've finally done it!

For those of you new to letterboxing, here's a quick excerpt from the Letterboxing North America website:

"Someone hides a waterproof box somewhere (in a beautiful, interesting, or remote location) containing at least a logbook and a carved rubber stamp, and perhaps other goodies. The hider then usually writes directions to the box (called "clues" or "the map"), which can be straightforward, cryptic, or any degree in between. Often the clues involve map coordinates or compass bearings from landmarks, but they don't have to."

"In addition to the clue and any maps or tools needed to solve it, the hunter should carry at least a pencil, his personal rubber stamp, an inkpad, and his personal logbook. When the hunter successfully deciphers the clue and finds the box, he stamps the logbook in the box with his personal stamp, and stamps his personal logbook with the box's stamp. The box's logbook keeps a record of all its visitors, and the hunters keep a record of all the boxes they have found, in their personal logbooks."

So if this sounds exciting, make (or buy) a personal stamp and go get it!

Enjoy!

A weekend of caching

2009-07-12T22:44:00.000-07:00

We found five caches on Saturday, four of them in Kamloops. We did 2 caches plus half of GCQEY7 with our friend KnightOrc and then completed the two-stage cache and got another on the way home. We got our first difficulty 5 cache as part of that trip.

Today three new caches were published in the nearby Blind Bay area so we hopped in the car in pursuit of a possible FTF (or three). However, we were beaten to the punch by gr8pix who happened to be passing through this are and saw the caches published on his blackberry. Navigating these trails with a stroller wasn't such a great idea; we got thoroughly exhausted pushing it around (mostly uphill it seemed) for nearly three hours!

We have also been planning out our remaining five caches for this year as part of our commitment of placing nine above-average caches during 2009 in and around Salmon Arm. Our plan has been to help "lead by example" in planning and placing above average caches in this area to hopefully attract geocachers who are searching for something different.

One of the biggest problems with geocaching is that the vast majority of caches placed are very similar; eg: a peanut butter jar, a lock-n-lock container, an ice cream pail, a magnetic keyholder, or a film canister - finding one of these now and then is all well and good, but when almost all of the caches you find are the same thing, over and over again, you start longing for something more interesting.

That's where our commitment comes in. Placing these unique and innovative geocaches takes a long time - much longer than the average cache - but we believe that it's worth it in the end. Hopefully in time, more geocachers in Salmon Arm and this area in general will help us on our quest and change geocaching in the Shuswap area from being just another swath of plain ol' geocaches to a real geocaching destination; actually something that could potentially attract visitors from around the world.

So if you're planning to put out a cache in this area - great! But please, consider helping us achieve this goal. Each and every cacher has the potential to devise unique caches that have never been seen before, and every one counts!

Oh and just in case you're curious about these caches, there are two bookmark lists that you should check out: Shuswap's Best Caches and Rhondle's 9/09 caches.

Cache on!

GC1V95C - Quick, Stop!

2009-07-01T23:45:00.000-07:00

GC1V95C - Quick, Stop! - TCDNBC
Published: July 1st, 2009
Type: Traditional
Cache #4 of 9 for 2009

Number four in our 9/09 series is a quick and easy cache on the far east side of Salmon Arm catering to travellers coming into town from Calgary, Golden and Revelstoke. Not all of the 9/09 caches are intended to be hard, and this is probably one of the easiest.