Geochallenge of the Month and Return to Gold Country??

Geochallenge of the Month (April)

This months Geochallenge from The Geocaching Vlogger was to find and do a Wherigo cache. Wherigo's are played like a game on a different app from the regular caching app. You need to go to several places and answer questions, to move on to the next spot. The one we did was called "Langley Murals II" 

We looked for a Wherigo closer to us, but the majority of them near me are in and around Langley.

BLUE Switch Day

It’s no secret that GPS is a huge part of our lives. When we find the fastest way to work, check the weather at our location, tag our location on social media, or order a ride share or dinner from an app, GPS is responsible for it all. We can even add finding a geocache to this list! This is all thanks to a change made to GPS in the year 2000

When GPS was first developed, it was only available for use by the U.S. military. Eventually GPS was opened up to civilians but with Selective Availability. This meant that although everyone had access, the accuracy was lowered for civilians. On May 2, 2000 the U.S. government “flipped the switch” so high-accuracy GPS was available to everyone. For reasons unknown, geocachers know this as Blue Switch Day. However, there really wasn’t a blue switch!

Opening up accurate GPS technology to everyone around the globe launched a flow of innovation and new cutting-edge technology that changed the world forever. It created an entirely new world of possibilities. It’s not a coincidence the first geocache was hidden the day after on May 3, 2000, and the game of geocaching was born!

The First Geocache was hidden on May 3rd of 2000 in Oregon, United States by Dave Ulmer. Dave placed a 5 gallon bucket that contained Delorme Topo USA software, videos, books, food, money, and a slingshot! The geocache is not there anymore but there is a Plaque to honor it. The GC code for the plaque is GCGV0P. However the Original Cache placed by Dave Ulmer is still listed on the website. The GC code for the original "stash cache' is GCF. Can you Believe that, just one letter in the GC Code. Below is the original email Dave Ulmer sent out on his internet group. The first ever geocache is still listed it on the website and is here at;  "GCF"  

Well, I did it, created the first stash hunt stash and here are the coordinates:

N 45 17.460 
W122 24.800

Lots of goodies for the finders. Look for a black plastic bucket
buried most of the way in the ground. Take some stuff, leave
some stuff! Record it all in the log book. Have Fun!

Here is the Video of this Historic Cache called "The Original Stash"

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!!!

GOLD Country Caching

 

Well, the trip to the Gold Country in May, did not happen when we were hoping to because of the current restrictions on travel in BC. We have postponed it until Travel restrictions are lifted.(Hopefully in June) I had 143 caches setup in a list which we would go for over 2 or 3 days and we would travel roughly 850-900km round trip. 71 of them were Gold Country Caches. Inside each of these besides the log book are stickers, and once you collect 24 stickers from different caches, you can send them in and you receive a very cool geocoin shaped like a gold bar. I have already received 2 of these very cool coins, from the "Gold Country Geotour"

I am looking forward to when the travel restrictions are off to heading up there for a few days. It gives me more time to add more caches to my list. lol

These are the 6 Gold Country Regions. We had only planned to go up as far North as Clinton, but maybe we will change that and go further North, when we are able to head that way.

Change of plans

Since we were already planning a few days caching for the Gold Country and I took a couple of days off already, we decided to go caching closer to home. I searched out some cool caches with some higher fave points and cool locations. On Friday May 14th we did 15 caches and we started close to the US border then we headed East grabbing caches just above the border and then heading over to Cultus Lake area. 

We then headed back west thru Abbotsford, and back down into Langley. Today was about getting some cool caches, not about lots of caches. One of them I had to solve a rubik's cube to get the co-ords. Good thing I have been solving them since high school. lol 

On Saturday we decided to go out to Shady Island. (PS. It was not that shady) This little island is just off Steveston, and you can get there either by boat, swim, or wait for the tide to go down and cross on the rock breakwater.

We headed over at noon when the tide was low enough to cross on the rock breaker wall. We ended up only finding 5 caches as it got too late and we were concerned about the tide coming back in, as we had to turnaround and head back to where we started. I was able to log a new challenge cache that was over there called "I'm An Islander! Challenge" and also do a tree climb cache. 

I had to climb this tree to get a multi cache called

 "Very High and Dry"

A HUGE heart shaped rock

Found 2 of these while on the island. They are either waypoint markers, or Cairn's of some sort. Would be neat to find out why they are there.

Beautiful beach on the south side of the Island. 

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!!!

FAVORITE POINTS

As you know, if you are a cacher, you are allowed to award Favorite points to cool caches that help other cachers see what's good out there. Usually this helps me plan my trips for caching. I am not a numbers collector that goes after power trails or every cache in my path. I enjoy caches that are cool, or bring me to an awesome place. Do you award Fave points to awesome caches?? My newest cache "Unexplainable Magic Clock" has got quite a few Fave points already. It has a 79% rate of Favorites so far. 

Looking to fill my Grid

So, I decided maybe I should try to fill my Fizzy Grid. That's the grid of 81 different Difficulty/Terrain

numbers. 

As you can see I have 3 combinations still to find as of May 1st.(Editor note: On May 15th I got a 4/5 on our trip to Shady Island) I have never been in a rush to fill this grid, but thought maybe it's time, as I've been caching since 2008. I found a 4.5/3 in my area which is a challenge cache called "MCW-10 mcwilli adds a little flair" and so I started to complete the challenge. The basic challenge is to find a full month of Non-Traditional caches. You can use previous finds from any month you choose. So thanx to a macro on GSAK I started checking all my months and found I did not have any complete months that I could use. So I looked at the upcoming month of May and found I only needed 6 days to find a Multi, puzzle, wherigo, virtual, earthcache, or Letterbox. I have other months where I only need a couple of days to complete the challenge, but thought why not do it this month and get it done. I have already signed the challenge cache and posted a note. (Editor Note: at time of publishing this blog, I only need 3 more specific days to find and log a Non-traditional cache to log the challenge cache)

I will write more about this in my next blog, and let you know if I was able to complete the challenge. Until then, Stay Safe, Wear your Mask, and Wash your Hands!!

 

Well that's it for this month,

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65