CCARS12

Well it was a great day of geocaching on Saturday! We did 21 caches in just under 12 hours including a couple that were not part of the CCARS12 new releases. We met up at Carburn Park in the Southeast where we spent about 90 minutes doing a trash pickup (also known as a CITO or Cache In Trash Out). If you are ever looking for a park for a family outing this is a nice destination. There are lots of picnic tables, a pond with ducks in it, a river to walk along or wade in and some nice caches to hunt down. We thoroughly enjoyed our walk along the riverbank looking for garbage and were quite impressed not to find all that much to pick up. We found our first cache in the park and, because it was not a CCARS12 cache we were able to look for it before the noon opening of the event.

We did several caches in the south of Calgary in areas I had never been before and this reminded us how caching can take you to places you might have missed even in your own city. And it is certainly a great way to get to know a city you have just moved to.

We looked for a cache called Pirates of the Elbow Treasure Chest and were rewarded with these amazing views. This was just South of the Glenmore Athletic Park and North of the Glenmore Reservoir. There were some steep climbs involved in finding this treasure chest but we came up with the goods and the kids enjoyed their loot!

Just West of this cache is the Weaselhead Natural Area and we saw herons, geese and a few deer down on the flats as we looked for a Murder in the Park cache and Rowlf the Dog cache.

One of our favourite caches of the day was called Go Fish and required us to actually fish the cache out of its hiding spot. Even the grown ups enjoyed this and we had to use our ingenuity to create a fishing device from what we had with us.

Did any of you take part in CCARS12? Have you done Caching events in other cities? Let me know what your favourite events have been. I'll share more of our big cache day later this week.

CCARS12 puzzle caches

If you are taking part in the CCARS event this weekend in Calgary now is the time to try to solve as many of the puzzles related to the puzzle caches as you can. The puzzle cache descriptions and puzzles were posted earlier this week to give everyone a chance to solve them ahead of finding the actual cache.

I have only solved and found a few puzzle caches in my history of geo-caching as I am not sure how to approach some of the more complex puzzles. I think we need to ask for a class in puzzle solving for the next how-to class in geocaching. I'm sure I would not be the only one learning something there.

For a look at some of the puzzle caches ready to solve go here. Good luck!! And see you on Saturday!!

CCARS12 Geocaching Event

Getting excited about the upcoming weekend of geocaching on May 26th and 27th in Calgary! We will be starting with a Cache In Trash Out (CITO) gathering where we find some caches and pick up garbage in a local park at the same time. This is the traditional way to start a CCARS event and we always get a good turnout with lots of enthusiastic hands filling up bags of trash.

CCARS stands for Calgary Cache and Release Spring event. Cachers from Calgary and the surrounding area are madly working on creating new caches to hide for this weekend event. The caches must fall into certain categories and will be judged by those who find them. Awards will be given for the best caches in each category and for over-all favourites. This is a fun event and a great way to meet other cachers and to increase your list of found caches.

For more information on the kick-off event go here. There will also be a midnight gathering on the Saturday night for anyone who is interested in doing some night-caching or just celebrating their successes of the day. Go here for more info. And finally there will be a wrap-up gathering where the awards will be handed out and stories told of amazing finds and amusing searches. Go here for more info on the location and time of the wrap-up.

I'm hoping to cache with a few friends who have just started geocaching and have not yet taken part in any events. If you are interested in joining us please leave a message here in the comment section. Would love to have you along!

Spring into geocaching

We have been having some nicer weather in Calgary this week and I have managed to get out twice to grab a few caches. Adding some smiley faces to our 'found' list felt great after a slow winter with not much geocaching going on.

On Friday I just had time for one hunt and combined it with a walk for our chocolate lab. I had tried to find this multi-cache before and had found the first stage but did not know how to attempt the second stage. After reading a little tutorial on projecting a waypoint with your Garmin GPS I managed to complete the second stage of the cache hunt and found the final container. And Scooby got a great walk when I went a kilometer in the wrong direction before realizing what I'd done!
There are many of these rocks walls (pictured behind Scooby) in Calgary and frequently the cache you are looking for will be hidden in one of the spaces between rocks. The only problem is being brave enough to stick your hand in and retrieve the cache or move the smaller rocks to see if the cache is behind them. I am quite certain one day something will bite me when I reach in so I am very careful!
The final cache for this multi-cache was in a recess between some rocks (not shown above) but I had a view of the cache container before reaching in. I had to be quite stealthy because there were several muggles (non-geocachers) nearby but I managed to sign and replace the cache quickly.

Today while my daughter was at a birthday party, I talked the old goat into doing a few caches in a nearby neighbourhood. We found two small caches and a micro cache before heading back to pick up our daughter. The micro cache was down in a ravine near a footbridge and we were surprised to see that there was still lots of ice and snow in the creek there. Luckily the cache was not under the bridge and we did not have to test the ice or get wet. We did have to disturb a spider from the cache and I was grateful the littlest cacher was not with us as she would have screamed and ran!

I am looking forward to doing more caching as the weather continues to improve. Even if I have to sneak them in one search at a time!

How to Hide a Cache

Just a reminder that if you want to learn how to hide a cache that is a bit different (non-traditional) there is a class this Saturday afternoon at the CNIB building in Calgary. This will help you learn how to make puzzle caches, multi-caches, and hides that are not your everyday lock'n'lock under a tree! And these skills will help with the upcoming CCARS event in May.
For more information on the Saturday class click here.

Location, Location, Location

The amazing, relaxing time we had in Cuba was diminished slightly for me because of a poorly placed cache. When we planned our trip to Cayo Coco, Cuba for Spring Break, I was very excited to find out that there was a cache hidden just beyond our resort and would be within walking distance for the three of us. This would be our very first time geocaching outside of Canada! I eagerly printed descriptions and photographs of the area (no GPS allowed in Cuba) and checked to make sure the latest logs confirmed the cache was found recently. I took along a travel bug to leave in the cache and made sure I had a pencil and extra notepaper just in case.

On our second day in Cuba I convinced my daughter and husband to accompany me on my quest for the cache. We had a beautiful walk along the warm beach, put our sandals back on and started searching the area where the cache had been placed. There were plenty of muggles (non-geocachers) and a couple of tourists taking photographs, but no cache. We searched and searched and turned over rocks, and crawled around in the sand, but nothing was found. The area really looked like there had been recent demolition.

In a fit of desperation, I e-mailed the cache owner and asked him to check the cache and let me know if it was still there but he e-mailed back and said he could not get there until the next week. He also said that because of the busyness of the area and the fact that Cubans are keen to pick up anything outsiders leave behind, this cache was often missing and that I should just leave another container and some paper where the cache should have been. I am afraid the owner of that cache has missed the purpose of the game. Or at least the rules. If you cannot find a cache you do not just make another to leave in it's place. There is a chance we were looking in the wrong place or that the cache was really well camouflaged and we just could not see it. But if the cache is in a place where it keeps getting destroyed or taken, then a new hiding place should be found so those looking for the cache are not disappointed and the owner does not need to keep replacing it.

So we returned to Canada with colour in our faces, relaxed and renewed spirits but no out-of-country finds. Maybe this summer we'll go caching in the states.

Geocaching at Nose Hill Park

I had a day to myself while my daughter is at Brownie camp and I decided to combine a dog walk and some geocaching this afternoon. Took Scoobydoo and her frisbee to Nose Hill Park where the air was cold but didn't stop lots of people from being out enjoying the spring day. Unfortunately we only found two caches before my free Geocaching app for iPhone lost its satellite feed and wouldn't come back. I did get a photo of one cache container which is a large plastic tube (about 16") containing lots of good swag for trading. Since our grass and plants still don't realize spring is here, the cache was covered very neatly with sticks which actually made it stand out quite well. In a couple months this will be well hidden by longer grasses and undergrowth.

Tomorrow I am still hoping to attend the workshop on how to hide a cache as my family is anxious to do a good job on our first hide. I'll post anything interesting I learn!