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

assiniboine Forest Along the harte trail

On The Trails And Off The Trails

We were looking forward to our Saturday caching trip all week! When we set out Saturday morning about 11 A.M. the temp was -10C and no winds, not sure if the temps came up during the day at all because when I got home at 4 P.M. it was still -10.  But was comfortable for walking the trails and through the bush. Our goal for the day was to do the caches along the Assiniboine Forest section of  The Harte Trail.  This part of the trail runs parallel to Wilkes Ave, the CPR Line also parallels the trail. 



 

This picture is the start of the trail, a groomer went ahead of us making it easy to walk, on the trails at least!   There are 5 caches placed along the trail by a MBGA member  to celebrate International Trails Day on June 5.  June 5th marks the official  opening of the Harte Trail extension, 6.5 km of trail running from Shaftsbury Blvd to the Perimeter Hwy. 


                                                      

First of the Harte Trail Series

These geocaches were all pretty close to the trail and not too difficult to find.  We were amazed at how nice the trail was and how much we were enjoying it.  Thanks to geocaching for bringing us here to discover it.

This is Gerry's find on the Trail Series, yeah! We are always so happy when we make a find.

This is Diane's find and this is what excitement looks like!  That about finished that series and so we still had some time to get a few more.                          

There was a Letterbox in the area and I wanted to get that one.  Letterboxes are not common in Winnipeg and I was anxious to see it.  Getting to this one proved to be a whole lot more work, we had to do some bushwacking from this point forward!  But it was so worth it in the end.  In the letterbox were some tradables and also 4 animal stamps and a stamp pad so we stamped our journal and left our signature in the log book provided.  We will have to work at making a signature stamp for GeoPartnerS to be able to leave our stamp as well.  The next 3 caches that we went to involved going though the bush.  Getting slapped in the face with branches, climbing over fallen trees, crawling under fallen trees, this way, that way, stumbling and falling!  Was a little hard work but did provide some good laughs!



Heading off the beaten path



 We found a few different and unique caches here, you look at an object and think it doesn't fit but my brain does not say look! Until I am told to look and voila, there it is!  Another cache hidden high in a tree with fantastic camo covering.  We do not as a rule look up, but as cachers we have to start to watch and really pay attention to our environment as a cache can be hidden in the least likely places.                                             

This cache was higher then you would expect a cache to be and it blended in so well with the trees.  Could have been hard to reach but there happened to be all kinds of broken trees with built in hooks to use as a tool.  Very nice hide!  At about 2 P.M. we decided to call it a day, so we got back onto the trail and put the coordinates to our first cache of the day which was near the car into the trusty Garmin etrex and it told us we had a little over a 1 km hike back to the car! ACK!  So the hike out was not so enjoyable to the tired and worn out GeoPartnerS, whose behinds were dragging.  But the day was so worth it, we did have fun and enjoyed the day a lot. We managed to log 9 caches to add to our collection, which is now at 36 finds.  Yeah Us!  We also wrote down the tracking number of a travel bug and learned that we can log it on geocaching.com as a "discovered" travel bug.

This is a photo of the letterbox stamps we made into our journal.

Until Next Time

Have Fun Caching

GeoPartnerS

Caching since 2011

Participaction Just get up and do!

PARTICIPACTION

You can walk

Let's get up and moving, do something fun, something that doesn't feel like exercise.

Most of the time it's hard remove ourselves from the couch being glued to the television unlessthere is something that is far more exciting to do. Geocaching! If you have not heard about Geocaching, it's a world wide treasure hunt, using a GPS and geographical co ordinates. You need to sign up at geocaching.com . You choose a unique user name and create a profile. On geocaching.com you can search for the caches near your home or in the area of your choice. Caches are hidden objects, sometimes they are micro, some times they are larger. There will be a log book to sign and there may be tradeables in the cache, you can take an object and leave an object of equal or greater value. There may be travel bugs in a cache as well. A travel bug has a unique tracking number and is tracked on the web site. If you retrieve a trackable log into the website and log the trackable and keep it moving please. Do not hang on to it. Keeping the travel bug moving is the object of the game. When you have access to your computer then log your find with your feed back to the cache owner.



 

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Exercise


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Skate

                                                                

Or Cache

I have links to information sites as well as fun sites on Geocaching on my side bar. 

 

 

Have Fun Caching

GeoPartnerS

Caching since 2011