Leap Day Caching

St. Vital Park

Diane and I set out to gather our Leap Day caches about 10:30ish, it was -13C with a windchill of -21, we weren't sure if it would be a bit chilly!  But we were going into wooded areas with protection from the wind.  We headed out!  There was one point on our map that we were not going to visit, as it was a distance away and it was rated at difficult.  What do I do? Mistakenly put that point into the GPS!  So we head out, the walk didn't seem so bad but when we got there we were doing the drunken bumble bee dance!  The GPS would not give me an accurate reading, going this way and that way...so we did an honest to goodness search and then decided to give it up.  But we did discover this tobbogan ramp that kids have a ball on I am sure.

The walls along the trail were made of ice to keep the tobbogans on the straight and narrow coming off the ramp.  I am very sure that this area is very well used.  It was deserted today.  Off down more trails to get to our next destination.  The park has a loop of road ways with a large network of groomed trails for hiking or skiing.  It's a very nice place to go for whatever activity that a person chooses to do. 

 

We are now heading to our second search! We are hoping that we will have better luck then we did with our first one.  The hides here seem more difficult to us!  We get to the spot and again we walk around and expand our search and come back to the area where the GPS tells us that GZ is, it is starting to look like we are going to be beat again, when Diane comes up with the find, it was on the ground which we were not expecting by reading the information, but there is was in a hole in a tree!  This is our 60th cache, yeah PartnerS!

We have been waiting for a little while to log our 60th.  Now upward and onward!  On to our next destination which was a mico, by the description it should not have been hard to find, as it was near a tree with 2 limbs coming out of one stump! But which one?  There were tracks near such a tree, the GPS was telling me that was the general area!  There was a nice hole in the tree, but sure no cache in that hole!  So we did a very wide search of this area and gave it up as a DNF. Diane was ready to call it a day as well and so that is what we did!  Better luck in St. Vial Park next time!

A forest guard



Just going about his business



There was also a real nice duck pond, which was perfect for skating!  By the time we left the temperatures were nearing 0c.  I was able to walk around without mitts at that point, there was a fair amount of melting going on, the sun is starting to have some good warmth already.  I finished the day by coming into my area and grabbing 2 caches within .5 km of my house.  I had been wanting to look for these for awhile now.  So we logged 3 for our Leap Day caches, we discovered Regina travel bug as well.

Some History of the Park

Have fun caching

GeoPartnerS

Caching since 2011

Hello Forest Our Old Friend

Another Day In The Forest

Saturday turned into a beautiful sunny day, when we started out there was a very light breeze blowing and the temperature was -9.  Facing into the wind was a little chilly, but we knew that we would soon be in the protective cover of the forest and the breeze would no longer bother us.  But first we had to grab our first cache! 



Click on the pictures to
see a larger view.

 This geocache found by "moi" was at this little building which is a water station.  Most of the homes south of Wilkes are not hooked up to the city water and so they need to get their cisterns filled. This is one of the filling stations where the pumper trucks fill up with water to deliver to those homes.

On the edge of the forest, behind the Tuxedo Golf Course, Gerry dug this one up very quickly.  We signed the log and left our ladybug magnet and sig card and continued on, deeper into the forest!



Fallen dead trees in the forest




Some Oak trees along the bike trail
leading into the forest

  

We thought that we would never reach
some of these caches!

Gerry spotted this cache as well! He did have his super geocaching eyes wide open today.  This cache was in two parts, the log was in the cache with the gnome so we signed it! Then we figured out where the treasure was!  This was a neat cache made us think and read! I like to just skim the text, in some cases that is not a good idea!

Gnorman's Diamond Mine found
by Gerry, we liked this one.





The diamond mine workers!



We like what we found!

This is the outer container, very neat and a lot of work to make. It was quite far from where the GPS was telling us that GZ was, but I noticed it and was going to investigate, I thought that the stump looked out of place.  Gerry mentioned later that there is no birch in the forest!  But it was just the bottom part of the stump that didn't look right to me!  Just as I got there Diane noticed a giant spider hanging from a tree above my head, so we knew that the cache was very near by!  This cache is another in the "Remember Series"  This one is Remember #30.  The information on the service man is at the end of this post.



Another cache! Neat tradeables in this one, a little porcelain doll!
amoung other nice items.




Our first room in the game cache.
We will have to get the others another day!



This was the last one of the day for us.  This cache is part of a game, called "Clue Jr" The mystery is "The Case of the missing Chocolate Cake"  There are 5 rooms, each room has a set of clues and suspects.  When you find a cache you need to cross off the clues, when you have visted all five caches, the remaining clues will help you find the grand final.  A very neat concept for a different type of cache.

  The excerpt below is taken off the website advertising the university.  The University borders on the Golf Course and Assiniboine Forest.

Canadian Mennonite University



Canadian Mennonite University is a Christian University in the Anabaptist tradition, offering challenging programs and recognized degrees in undergraduate and graduate studies. CMU is a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.

CMU values strong academics, excellent teaching, and rigorous thinking. We do this within a framework shaped by Christian faith and with the conviction that faith makes a difference in how people understand the world, how they live, and how they relate to others.


Three tired cachers back at the car

This is the information in the cache, the date of death is different then the documented date on the net.

Richard plunkett Baker

Pilot SPAD

AF706 Lt. 19 Squadron

11 Canadian Mounted Rifles

Born October 18, 1888

Cheated death march 24, 1919

Died April 1954.

This information is off the internet

Lt. Richard Plunkett Baker

30 3-24-1917 He cheated death on this day.

11:55am
At Givenchy in France

Died in April of 1956. He was 66 years old.
 Spad S7

№ A6706
 Halberstadt DII
 19th Squadron

Royal Flying Corps.

The common factor in the 2 caches in this series that we have found is a German pilot Manfred von Richthofen or better known as the Red Baron.  We will have to find more in this series to find our answers.

Have fun caching

GeoPartnerS

Caching since 2011

Fisher Branch Job

With A Little Caching
Monday turned into a day with clear blue sunny skies!  The drive into Manitobas Interlake Region was certainly pleasant.  The job of the day was ground truthing for some forest blow down that happened in this area in the summer of 2010.  High winds touched down in small swathes in a small area of forested, mostly private land.

This is a picture of some of the treed areas, the trees are very small and stunted in some areas.  The land is rocky and not too fertile.

Some areas have White Spruce growing amoungst the poplar trees.



An old barn that has collapsed



Sharpe Tailed Grouse

Sharpe Tailed Grouse Courtship dance video 

We did manage to grab one cache in Fisher Branch, by the little red caboose.  We went north on the highway to grab one more, but this one eluded us.  The terrain was a little rough, with a lot of rock and fallen trees, with huge tree roots sticking out of the ground.  The snow was a little deep, we rooted around for maybe 20 minutes or so and still came up empty and so decided to call it a day as far as caching went. Our boots were full of snow and our hands were cold!! We didn't prepare with our warm clothing when we left the vehicle.

Have fun caching

GeoPartnerS

Caching since 2011

Saturday in the Assiniboine Forest

Another Sunny Day Of Enjoying The Forest

One more day of caching in the forest and the PartnerS were looking forward to it!  The sunshine was beautiful, with a light wind blowing.  The temperature at 11:00 A.M. was -8 with a windchill of -16c, was a little chilly out in the open, but in the forest it was comfortable.  We started our day hiking on the trails, the sun was shining and the sky was blue.  This picture was hiking across a clearing to start our adventure.

The GPS was cooperating today and so we didn't have too many problems finding any the caches that we were after.  We found our first one rather easily.  It was a nice cache hanging in a tree, it was very winter friendly, but not so well hidden in the winter time!  In the summer time it would be a more difficult find with the leaves on the trees to hide it a little.  But easy on the first one of the day is always a good thing!



First one of the day



We continued along the trail, taking in the scenery and enjoying the fantastic day!  For January 28 can you beat these temps and the very minimal amount of snow cover that we have on the ground?  If we had our normal snowfall we sure would not be bushwhacking in Assiniboine Forest right now.  We are so lucky to be able to be finding these caches at this time of the year, in the summer time this area would be infested with bugs and wet terrain.

Here is a some furniture that we discovered just "hanging around"

makes us wonder, who hauled this into the forest to hang in a tree?  So we shake our heads and carry on. 




MaaaWaaaaaahhhh!

 To this next little micro, that Gerry's eagle eye spied!  As you can see he is more then happy to add it to his list of "finds".  In this cache there was a picture of two people who wanted to travel around, so we took them with us down the trail to drop into another cache.
 

Down this trail and up that trail with some bushwhacking in between the 3 brave GeoPartnerS trudged on to the next one!  This one was kind of hard to see, it was above eye level and looking up into the sun made it hard to see.  We thought this was a real good "in plain site" hide.  But Diane's Sharpe eyes spotted it!  Miss Di can claim this find and she was more then happy to put into her "Yeehaw I found it" folder!

Who wouldn't love going for a walk down this wonderful trail?  We are off to the next one, it will be the 4th of the day.  We met up with a fair amount of dogs and their masters today out getting their exercise and fresh air.  The dogs really enjoy being out there running free.  Except 2 older dogs, who were not enjoying their long walk too much.  They were walking rather slow and resting a lot.  We can attest to the fact that as we age it gets harder!  So around the corner, up a hill and there we are approaching our next target.

In the woodpile!  We found this one quite easy, cute little container that looked like a flying saucer.  It was called Tinder Circle, how appropriate.  The container did not close too well as some of the tabs were broke off the round lock and lock container.  We did manage to close it better then we found it.  We left the picture that we picked up in a previous cache in this cache.  We figured this to be a good temporary home for the couple.

We came across this prime piece of real estate on our way to our next big find.  We liked the high ceiling in the spacious A frame and so we sat in it awhile and tryed it out for comfort, to see if it was to our liking, but we decided that it was a little too drafty and so we made a unanimous decision to forgo making an offer on the niffty little property. 

Our next two finds were ammo boxes which are so nice as there is alot of room for tradeables and for the log book.  The ammo cans also close up real well and keep everything inside dry and safe. 

The second ammo box called "Periodically Insane" was our first little milestone...our #50th  find...yeahhh.

This next one was a very good hide, we named it as a favorite.  The spot that it was hidden in was so very well camouflaged into its environment.  Diane spotted it, good eye for sure!  This cache is number 7  in a series of caches called "The Remember" series.  This series of caches is dedicated to a few of the thousands of Canadian Servicemen who gave everything to defend our way of life.  We need to gather the information in all of the caches and put information together and that will enable us to find the last cache in this series.

The information given in this cache was about this Lt. in the RAF:

-John Percy McCone

-Pilot....

-SE5A.....The plane was designed by British company R.A.F. (Royal Aircraft Factory).S.E. - Scout experimental (single seat fighters).

-C1054....registration number

-Lt 41 Squadron RAF

Born March 11 1891

Died March 24 1918
He was 27 years old.

Shot down by air ace Manfred von Richthofen in his Fokker DR.I. 

We put the container back into its hiding spot and noticed 2 cachers approching us so we stayed and met them and chatted a bit.  The cachers were Rookies7691 a dad and his son, also new to this game.

Up and onward to our next and last geocache of the day.  This was another find by Sis Di!

I love the excitement!

Then it's time to head back to the car, we have about a 1 km hike, again 3 tired geocachers head back with backsides kind of dragging! 

We decided to pick up a piece of wood to house one of the caches that we plan to construct when we decide to start to hide some of our own. This was the weather when we left and when we left the forest.

11:00 Mainly Sunny -8 73 -12 NW 24 101.4 24 -16
14:00 Sunny -9 66 -14 NNW 35 101.5 24 -19

Until our next adventures.

Have fun caching

GeoPartnerS

Caching since 2011

GeoPartnerS Signature

 This Is Me!

 Researching, reading, thinking and deciding what our theme will be.  We finally decided on "Ladybugs".  I found this wonderful ladybug blogger layout at this site.  We love it! It is so much fun, as is caching! 

We put these ladybug fridge magnets together for one of our tradeables.

This is our signature label printed on 1.75 x .50" avery labels.  We will use these labels on cache logs, so we have printed 2 tags on each label to keep the size small.  I can't wait to go caching to use some!

We have put these sig tags with our ladybug and protected them with little plastic bags.  This is our most common tradeable.  We  have some keychains and some jewelry from the DJ's Gemstones days, that I am giving away as well.  I have also made some bookmarks in the ladybug theme and printed them on photo paper and laminated them, they are pretty cool.

Click on picture to enlarge

Have Fun Caching

GeoPartnerS

Caching since 2011

Assiniboine forest caching #2

And Then There Were Two

Two of us braved the colder temperatures and slight wind today to go out on our adventure!  The temp was -16c with a wind chill of -26c, with light snow falling.   We started walking with a brisk pace and kept warm, the wind in the forest was at a minimum.  We were fine as long as we were moving, but as soon as I had to bare my hands, the first time to sign a log book my hands were ice cubes.  When my hands got cold I used Hot Hands2  this was the first time I used them!  They are amazing!  When the packet is exposed to the air it heats up, I put them into my mitts and wrapped my fingers around it,  the hot hands stayed hot for about 6 hours.  I will stock up on them from here on in.  We had a great caching day, getting 8 !  I don't have many pics today as my camera pooped out, bummer.  Gerry's "eagle caching eyes" were peeled today, he was spotting them right away.

We found 2 hides by the Boy Scout Troop placed while out hiking in the forest.  The one cache shelter was very unique and cool, a wood teepee, not sure if they used it as a shelter and then decided to shelter a cache inside. 

Another hide by a local cacher was placed in a quality piece of real estate, a well ventilated house for sure!  We looked this house up and down, round and round very carefully and thought that we would have to pass up on this offer today, but in the end we had success and put in our offer!  This was a cool hide, our first ammo box container.  Lots of room in it for tradeables.
We hiked and bushwacked until we were tired hikers and decided to call it a day and hike out about 2 pm. Backsides et al dragging we headed to our starting point and the car.

14:00	Light Snow	-14	80	-17	SE 26	101.1	3	-24
11:00	Light Snow	-16	73	-20	ESE 22	101.5	19	-26



Boy Scout Teepee

 The above were the weather conditions when we left and when
we came back.










Have Fun Caching
GeoPartnerS
Caching since 2011

So You thought you knew it all...

We knew we had a lot to learn

Sunday we went to a "hiding" seminar called "So you thought that you knew it all" The morning session was the beginners caching and hiding, it included finding, basic hiding and tools of the trade. We went through the different containers to use, one being Starfrit lock and lock available at different shops.  It is worth purchasing the containers that are sturdy like the Starfrit as the cheaper $Store ones will not hold up especially in our cold winters.

This is the rectangular loc & loc.  They are available at stores like Canadian Tire, Sears, probably at Wal Mart and Zellers.  This size container has room for some tradable along with the log book and pencil.  The main concern about containers is that be "water proof"

Pill bottles or waterproof film canisters are available from The Cache Box Store online if you don't have an alternate source. 

The film canister at the right hand edge is available for purchase from the cache box store for .99 cents.  If you purchase it with the geocaching label it is $2.49.  The Cache Box Store has a big variety of containers and other supplies as well as coins and travel bugs.

inside a rock

rock

nano

bison tubes micro

mini decon

So as you can see the types of containers vary a whole lot, use your imagination and the sky is the limit.  The important factor again is that they be waterproof.  Lee Valley is one place to buy bison tubes. A note on these, you may need to replace the o rings to keep them water proof in our changing temperatures.  Princess Auto is another place to purchase rare earth magnets along with other supplies, watch for supplies to come on sale.

We also had a section on painting your own containes in camouflage, there are a lot of sites on the internet that explain that process.  There are also many videos on U Tube about the process.
If you are using new metal containers that are hidden in plain view, make sure you age them.  You can rough them up with some dents, you can dry brush lite grey paint to age.  The containers can not be new and shiney or they will jump out at people looking for it.  If a container is shiney and new you can use flat black or flat grey spray paint, stand back about 2 feet from container and spray it lightly.

There is also a technique called blending and dazzle the picture on this website is one example.  It is breaking up the lines so it makes it hard to see and hard to determine what it is or what direction it is moving in.

Another hiding tecnique was using ghillie suits, get a net at the dollar store and use the flora from your cache area to disguise.  The problem with this is there is a lot of maintainence as wildlife, weather and time will destroy your camo.  Using fake flora will work but will not blend in so well.

UTube Video on camouflage and hiding geocaches
How to Camouflage a Geocache ver 2.0  


Places People Shop At

Toad Hall Toys Located Downtown Winnipeg
Princess Auto  3292 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3K 0Z1

(204) 831-8275

Lee Valley   1395 Ellice Avenue

Canadian Tire 750 St James St
Wal Mart  1001 Empress St

Cabelas 1300 Ellice AvenueWholesale Sports 1225 St James St

EBay

There are many places on the internet to order supplies from as well

I have some of those places on my side bar in the shopping area.

There are offical geocache stickers available from two caches in Winnipeg

Stick'em up, eh? 
For the large stickers

Stick'em down, eh? 
For the small stickers

Have Fun Caching
GeoPartnerS
Caching since 2011