Easter Long weekend caching

Geowoodstock XVIII

Where will you be on August 11th to the 13th??  All the cool cachers will be at Canada's First Geowoodstock!!!

Check out the website for details at: "Geowoodstock XVIII" and make sure you mark your "Will Attend" at "GC86VDF"

Also be on the lookout for these two very cool people!!  I will be hanging out at the Registration Event doing some close up magic on Friday, and will also be doing a stage show during the main event!!

Signal and his Favorite Magician!!

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!!!

TCHALS Planning trip (Easter Long Weekend)

We finally made the trip we had been planning, to gather some more info to get my 10 stage Adventure Lab (AL) up and running.

We headed to Merritt, Kelowna, Vernon, Armstrong, Sicamous, Revelstoke, Golden and then the Alberta Border to finish up my Trans Canada Highway Adventure Lab, so I can post it and make it Live. On the way home, we went back a slightly different way thru Salmon Arm and into Kamloops and back south towards Hope and Vancouver.

Day 1:

We started caching just past Merritt, where we got this cool Gadget cache, on Hamilton Hill road, where there is also several other very cool gadget caches, that we have got in the past.

We then headed down the road where we got a FTF!!! YAY for checking for those before heading out on the road!!!

We then continued up the 97C where we encountered snow....BRRRRRR

But 15 minutes later down the road, we made it to Kelowna where it was nice and warm. 

In Kelowna and area we got a couple of Challenge caches as well as a couple of cool gadget caches.

On the way to Revelstoke, we saw some Mountain Goats hanging out on the side of the highway. I scared them off into the woods, as they were very close to the road and vehicles coming out of the nearby tunnel could have hit them. 

 You usually don't see them down this low. They are normally higher up in the mountains.

We continued down the highway and grabbed a few other caches and an Earthcache on the way into Golden. 

We made it to Golden where we would spend the night, but we managed to grab several more caches and supper before we called it a day. I was also able to get some more info and pictures for my Adventure Lab, that I am building. 

We went for a walk on this cool bridge across the Kicking Horse river.

 

This is one of the locations on my Trans-Canada Highway Adventure Lab Series (TCHALS) as well as 4 other locations in Golden.

Day 2:

The next morning we headed up the highway towards the Alberta Border. I had 5 more spots to stop and get some info for my Adventure Lab that I had researched. One of the cool locations we stopped at to gather info also has an Earthcache there. It is a very cool Natural Bridge that was formed over time.

Natural Bridge

It was once a waterfall, and water found its way thru cracks in the rock. It gradually enlarged the cracks and cut a new channel. Today(Except at extreme high water) the river flows beneath the top of the former waterfall  leaving it suspended as a bridge. Over time the passage will deepen, and eventually the bridge will collapse, creating a gorge. 

The Next stop was just down the road at a small community called Field.

Field is an unincorporated community of approximately 169 people located in the Kicking Horse River valley of southeastern British Columbia, Canada, within the confines of Yoho National Park.

There is a large visitor centre there, with many exhibits inside. It was closed when we were there unfortunately. 

It is such a beautiful area, we even saw 3 Elk nearby. 

I am very surprised there are no caches in this area or town. Well at least now there is 1 stage of an Adventure Lab!!

 

This cool statue of a rider on a horse drinking from a stream will be the spot for one of my virtual lab spots. 

The Yoho National Park Visitor Centre is located on the Trans-Canada Highway in the community of Field, British Columbia. The visitor centre shares a building with the Friends of Yoho and Travel Alberta.

We then headed up the highway towards the Alberta Border, as I had 2 other spots to check out for my AL. 

One of the spots was the Spiral Tunnels:

The Big Hill on the Canadian Pacific Railway main line in British Columbia, Canada, was the most difficult piece of railway track on the Canadian Pacific Railway's route. It was situated in the rugged Canadian Rockies west of the Continental Divide of the Americas and Kicking Horse Pass. Even though the Big Hill was replaced by the Spiral Tunnels in 1909, the area has long been a challenge to the operation of trains and remains so to this day.

The essential problem was that the railway had to ascend 1,070 feet (330 m) along a distance of 10 miles (16 km) from Field at 4,267 feet (1,301 m) climbing to the top of the Continental Divide at 5,340 feet (1,630 m). The narrow valleys and high mountains limited the space where the railway could stretch out and limit the grade (hence the later decisions to bore extra mileage under the mountains and lower the grades).

This is a cool spot where you can watch the trains coming down the hill and going into the spiral tunnels.

The Locomotives actually pass under the train they are pulling.

There are two viewpoints where you can safely watch trains and learn more about the Spiral Tunnels and Kicking Horse Pass National Historic Site of Canada. On average, 25 to 30 trains pass through the Spiral Tunnels daily, though not on a regular schedule.

• From the viewpoint 7.4 km east of Field on the Trans-Canada Highway, you can see the Lower Spiral Tunnel in Mt. Ogden.
• The Upper Spiral Tunnel in Cathedral Mountain can be seen from the pull-off 2.3 km up the Yoho Valley Road.

The next spot on the AL was an Animal Overpass. These are becoming more frequent thru areas where animals are crossing the highway, as they are designed to keep the safety of people and the animals.

One of the spots we stopped for a cache called "Totally Tubular Frustration" we were just above the top of one of the Animal Overpasses.

As you can see these Overpasses are covered in natural greenery and stuff that the animals feel comfortable walking on.

We did a few caches on the way back from the border and we stopped in Sicamouse to do a Letterbox cache in a mall that ended inside the library, but after completing about half of it, we realized the library was closed. Doh!!

We headed back west and got to Kamloops for the night. We grabbed 1 Virtual cache and 3 puzzles that were online Jigsaw puzzles that we did some time back, before calling it a night.

Day3:

Got up the next morning and after breakfast, we went and grabbed a few more caches including a Multi that I needed for a challenge as well as a Challenge cache for another challenge that I have already completed. Lol.  Time to head back towards Vancouver, but we didn't take the highway, we stayed on a backroad that ran along side the highway and did 11 caches on the way to Merrit, thru Lac Le Jeune.

We found a cool Cryptex cache called "Cryptex at Lac Le Jeune". You first had to find a brass Survey Marker to get info for the code on the Cryptex.

The survey marker can also be found on "waymarking.com"

Further down the road we stopped at a cache, that I have stopped at several times in the past when driving thru here. It is a cache that is up on a ledge about 50 to 60 feet up off the road. I have contemplated doing this cache many times, but have not gone up, either because I was by myself and thought what if something happens to me on my way up or coming back down. Well, today was the day!!!

Here I am heading up to the cache.

 

Here is a picture of Susan down below waiting for me.

Me with the ammo can!! Yay, finally complete!!

A total of 1,745 Km's round trip over three days, I only got 42 caches, one of which was an FTF, 30 were Traditionals, 7 puzzles, 2 Multi's, 2 Earthcaches, and 1 Virtual. We also completed a 10 stage AL that was one of the Trans-Canada Highway Lab Series. Not very many caches in total but most were very cool and memorable, and I got all the info I needed to get my Adventure Lab ready to publish.

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!!!

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!

VEGAS BABY!!!

Headed to Vegas on May 13th and I've already been planning which caches to grab while there. Since I have been several times, I have found quite a few of the really good ones with lots of Fave points. Hoping maybe in the last 2 years since I have not been there, I might have some new ones to get!! But more of that next month!! 

Well that's it for this month,

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65