Back to the Gold Country and Weekend caching

 Weekend caching

#Geocache4Michael

Grabbed this cool cache called Umpire Strikes Back to honor Michael Costello. He was an avid geocacher that was born with congenital heart disease. He used geocaching to get his heart stronger. 4 years ago he sadly passed away and on his birthday the world went geocaching for him.

His birthday is on March 19th. If you find a geocache on March 19th, I would encourage you to write #Geocache4Michael in your log, in honor of his memory.

Was out grabbing a few caches with Sansue, and saw a few cool things. Up above is an Insect Hotel, but not the Travel Bug type. lol 

Some caching between rain showers. We found 2 different long PVC pipe caches. One was set up vertical and you had to lower the cache down out of it and the other was on the ground horizontal.

Who would drag an old newspaper box into the woods....Oh, I guess a geocacher would to make a cool cache. lol

Easter Weekend

On Easter weekend the day after we did some "Fraser Valley Cache bash" caches, we went out between rain showers and grabbed several caches in the downtown and Gastown areas of Vancouver.

Sansue and I did several caches including an Earthcache called "Mottled Limestone" that was on the side of a building, and a cool Multi cache using a cool Art piece called "Line of Work"

Text-etched laminated wood elements reach out towards the water at an increasing angle and length like a wave, which compares the energy of a wave to the growing diversity and complexity of British Columbia's workforce.

PS: On the right hand side of this webpage is where you can find my YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, links. Please feel free to check them out and follow or subscribe!!!

The big news last month was the Mars Rover landing. It was carrying a geocoin for that was part of the calibration system for the Watson Camera. All geocachers had a chance to log this once they took the calibration picture. At time of writing this, only 10 days after it was loggable, it has been logged 62,330 times. The picture above is The Mars Rover Trackable Souvenir. Got it for logging the Trackable code onboard the Rover. What a cool opportunity to log this from 219.88 Million Km's away!!

NOTE: The highlighted or underlined words in my blog can be clicked on as they are links to other cool stuff!! Also if you click on any of the pictures they become bigger to view better!!!

The Erratic

So as I wrote a couple of months ago, about wanting to publish an earthcache using an Erratic (A large rock or boulder that differs from the surrounding rock and is believed to have been brought from a distance by glacial action), and I had one already picked out to use and write about. 

I was given some info from a friend that reviews caches, and It turns out the reviewers' that review Earthcaches are not publishing Erratic's right now. I am told there are too many erratic earthcaches. Unless there is some unique geological lesson, chances are it won't be published. I have started looking at other areas to create an Earthcache. 

I have published 4 Earthcache's but 1 of them I had to archive as the signboard was taken down. Another I had archived as the signboard and the stairs leading down to "The Vanishing River" were destroyed. A friend went to look for it as it was a part of the Alice Lake loop. He suggested some new questions to ask and I was able to revive this important Earthcache. So as of right now I have 3 active Earthcaches, but I am considered a Platinum Level Earthchache Master according to the "Geological Society of America" as I have created four Earthcaches. This is one of the reasons I am looking at adding at least one more to my profile. Plus I enjoy doing earthcaches while traveling, so I would like to be a part of the advancement of more Earthcaches for those others to enjoy. 

Gold country caching

As you have seen from last months post, we are planning a trip to the Gold country to do some caching. We were planning to go sooner, but the weather got crappy. My list of caches went from starting at 95 to 143 caches last month during the initial planning, plus an additional list was added for caches in Hope, BC on the way back home. 71 of these caches are "Gold Country" caches.

I will write more about this in my next blog. Until then, Stay Safe, Wear your Mask, and Wash your Hands!!

Well that's it for this month,

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

Five Thousand, Five Hundred, and Fifty Five!!!

 Boundary Bay Dyke Trail caching

So Sansue, Magicboy2012, and I decided to go grab some caches to get the stamps for the "Wonders of the World" to work towards the souvenir's. We were able to get all the stamps but 1 on the Bay.

 

One cache in particular stood out during our hike, and that was "The Clarinet" 

It by far was the coolest container on the walk. You can find it easy as it is in plain view, but to retrieve the cache container, you need to use one of 2 methods. We used the second option and had it not been for a nearby piece of fishing line handy my TOTT would not have been long enough. This cache has 99 fave points on it, which is almost as many as the whole BBDT series has on it. That's the reason I am not a fan of power trails with just a bunch of pill bottles or preforms. No imagination within these caches.

We also did an Adventure Lab while we were there, and the total walk was 7.71km long, and I found 21 caches and 5 finds for the AL. 

This big rock was shaped like a Heart.

This driftwood shape was so much like a Giraffe head that someone actually painted it to look like one. lol

My little boy Magicboy2012 playing around.

Weekend Caching

One sunny Saturday, Sansue and I went Caching in Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, and New Westminster. We did some traditional's, a Multi, and 2 puzzle caches. The Multi was at the Sapperton Brewery District, and one of the traditional's was a difficult 5 cache. After a bit of looking and thinking outside the box, we came up with the cache and a smiley in more ways than one.

 

 

The smiley!!




Such a cool and very well hidden cache, just sitting there smiling at all that pass by!!

Hornby Road 5555

In case you were wondering why this month's blog is named "Five Thousand, Five Hundred, and Fifty Five" it is because Today (March 7th) I got my 5555th cache.

A cool number that reads the same backwards, forwards, and inside out. We started at the Hornby Road series and Burns drive caches, and later ended up in Vancouver and we grabbed a total of 25 caches, including 2 that were in a tube and the suggested method to retrieve them was to pour water in them while plugging the hole at the bottom of the tube. Interestingly enough, we did one like this just last week at Boundary Bay. The first one today we did, because the container had a magnet on the top of it, we were able to reach down with my magnet stick and something else that I had in my car, because of the TV shoot I was on a few days earlier. A cache we found at Boundary bay a week ago, There was a piece of fishing line nearby that I was able to use. This is what I remembered so we could do this one.  You can see my video "The Right TOTT" on how we retrieved the first one. The second one we did today however needed about a liter of water, as it did not have a magnet or metal on the container. So we stopped at a nearby store and bought a bottle of water, and went and retrieved the cache. Funny thing is, when Susan let go of the bottom hole she was plugging to hold the water in until I could retrieve the cache, it sprayed out and got her all wet, LOL, ooops, I meant sorry baby!!

PS: On the right hand side of this webpage is where you can find my YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, links. Please feel free to check them out and follow or subscribe!!!

Fraser Valley Cache Bash 4

This year I decided to participate in the Fraser Valley Cache Bash. You can see more about this event at the webpage “FVCB4”

The theme for this years event is "The Unexplained." I figured Magic is something that is Unexplainable to most so, I hid a cache called "Unexplainable Magic Clock" which used a video of me doing Magic to get the co-ordinates.

And we also went looking for as many FTF's as we could find on the publishing date!! Unfortunately we only got one First to Find. Lol. Oh well, we still enjoyed doing a few New Fraser Valley Cache Bash caches, and then also went and grabbed some other caches at Willband Creek Park between Abbotsford and Mission. 

My Cache container was even chosen specifically and made to look like a Clock to fit within my Magic Clock theme!! 

I used a trick that has been used by famous Magicians such as David Copperfield on one of his many TV specials.

The Magic Clock Trick

NOTE: The highlighted or underlined words in my blog can be clicked on as they are links to other cool stuff!! Also if you click on any of the pictures they become bigger!!!

From above the Earth to the Bottom of the sea

Last months blog upon writing about the Mars Rover landing, I talked about the accomplishments of an astronaut that took the first TB up to space and also published a cache on the international space station.

Recently he was in the news as he has now hidden a cache in the deepest spot in the Ocean. You can read the story “Here”

Also speaking about Geocaching stories, here is a recent local one from Vancouver Island's CHEK News:

"Geocaching-The perfect Pandemic Pastime"

Return to Gold Country

So Sansue and I are planning a trip to the Gold Country to do some caches in May. As of right now my list has 95 110 136 caches in it, although I have already found several of them.

Finding 24 caches and collecting the stickers in the Gold Country series, you can send away and receive a very cool gold bar shaped geocoin like the ones you see here in this picture.

Feel free to discover these coins.

I own 2 as I have found over 48 of these caches. I also own several other Gold Country coins, as some I won at one of the Events. I plan on getting another 1 or 2 Gold bar coins on this trip!! 

 I will write more about our trip in an upcoming blog. Until then, Stay Safe, Wear your Mask, and Wash your Hands!!

Well that's it for this month,

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65