In Bearberry's own words:
I have been Geocaching since January 2006 with “The Cub” (spouse). We are chronologically challenged like our primitive Garmin Etrek Summit. It has no maps, no download, no color, limited projection, small arrow. But it gets the job done.
The best thing about the sport of Geocaching is the diversity of the activity. It is much more than hi-tech hide and seek. There are “Event caches” that involve a lot of effort to organize. Some involve park cleanup like the CITO (cache in trash out) events organized by Peanutbutterbreadandjam. It is not uncommon for 40 cachers to show up to clean up a city park. There are social event caches like “Pizza and Beer” arranged by One Bad Ant which are as the title describes and sometimes involve puzzle cache hint swaps from fellow cachers, as well. There is a “Virtual” cache called “Brass Cap Cache” by Outforthehunt that is also very special. It has more than 9600 logs and 5300 images! It involves the use of GPS technology to find over 400 permanent survey markers called “brass caps” in the province of Alberta. Many are in cities and most mountains have one. Outforthehunt has made a significant effort to create and maintain this virtual cache. New brass caps are added to the findable list from time to time. Puzzle caches provide hours of entertainment on rainy days just trying to come up with solutions. Any puzzle with a difficulty of 3 or more is usually beyond me. Some cachers like VanDerDecken and Kophykupp are puzzle mavens and can solve almost any puzzle. 3Jaze puzzles are quite famous for detail and elegance.
The most difficult cache we have ever found was “Skogan Pass” by Scouter John. It took us 3 days and 38 kms. hiking to get this one cache. This cache is not as difficult as we made it to be. We started out at the end of January 2007 from the Pigeon parking lot. From here it is an 18 km (return) hike. The elevation gain is not insignificant but it is a gradual and consistent grade. We were plowing hip deep snow (skis or snowshoes would have been the answer!) and we were completely done-in only 391 meters from the cache. We were really worried that we had pushed ourselves way too hard and may have serious trouble getting back to the car. We made it back totally exhausted and hurting and took the next day off to recuperate (We are chronologically challenged after all). On the third day I had the brilliant idea of trying to get to the pass from the opposite side (Nakiska). It was way better due to some groomed ski trails but still it was an all day, 18 km. hike. We were pretty full of ourselves after finally getting this one. We were FTF and as of today – “only to find”. This cache actually would be a very nice mountain hike in the summer – winter not so much.
The most unusual containers we have found were at caches called “Toblerone Ridge” and “The Ranger’s Outhouse”. Both were placed by BVPete and I will leave the description of the containers to your imagination.
We like mountain caches best and we are proud of the caches that we have placed on Pigeon Mountain and Forgetmenot Mountain as they are in such beautiful mountain settings. They do require significant effort to get to but several Calgary cachers have visited them.
Comments