Scouting for a campground near Bragg Creek

On Sunday our little family took a drive to look for some potential campgrounds for future camping trips. We have lived in Calgary for five years but have not gone camping in the area, so we wanted to see what sort of sites are available. Our target area was south of Bragg Creek off of Highway 66, following the Elbow River. And since we were going for a drive, I thought we might as well pick up a few caches just for fun!

Our first stop was in the Redwood Meadows neighbourhood on Highway 22 before Bragg Creek.  To protect the townsite from the Elbow River floods a berm was built which makes a great walking path and happens to lead to two caches. The first one we sought out was On the way to Grandma's House (GC189XA). For a regular sized cache it was hidden in an unusual place but we made the find and headed off to Sherpa's Cache (GC17CF5). As we approached the trail head for this one, I glanced into the forest on our left and saw a beautiful buck laying beneath a tree enjoying the cool cover of the trees on this hot day. He was undisturbed by our presence and continued to rest as we passed by. The search for this cache was trickier and involved scrambling over rocks until the old Goat spotted the container. Inside the ammo can we discovered a travel geocoin ( SW#3's Shamrock) that we picked up to move along. When I entered the coin tracking number to log our find, I discovered that it had travelled to Europe, Eastern Canada, Hawaii and the southern USA and had ended up back at a cache just hundreds of meters from its origin!


Since we were so close to the Elbow River and it was a very hot day we went down to the edge of the river and dipped our hands and cooled off for a few minutes before continuing our journey.

We drove right past Bragg Creek as the line of traffic coming in and out was not inviting and continued on to Kananaskis Country on Highway 66. We stopped for a quick micro called Kananaskis Country Cache (GC12C97) right at the big sign for Kananaskis Country. The littlest goat jumped out of the car, walked over to GZ and plucked the cache from its hiding spot! She is getting to be an amazing cacher.

Just a few hundred metres away was the first campsite we wanted to check out and at the beginning of the path down to it, was another cache called Gooseberry (GCQM20). This one took a bit of walking around in the trees as the GPS couldn't get good satellite signals but eventually we found the spot and earned another smiley.

We checked out the campsites at McLean Creek and decided those would be the ones we try out when we get a chance to camp. Then there was just time for cooling off in the creek before heading back toward Calgary.

We made one final stop just before reaching the Trans-Canada highway and that was at a cache called Wolf Kubs Kache (GC3FK11) hidden by the Strathmore scouts. Parking near this cache was not allowed so the old goat and the littlest goat waited in the car while I made the trek to GZ to try my luck. This cache was easy to locate but hard to pick up. I had to use all my arm strength to retrieve it from its hiding spot and then repeat the process to replace it in the same spot! Should have sent in the old goat!

We are getting in more caching this summer by blending it in with other activities and taking opportunities to do quick ones when we can. They often bring us to places we never knew existed or ones that we have been meaning to get to but haven't taken the time. Where are you exploring this summer while you geocache?

Sunny Sunday geocaching

We got the jump on Family Day and spent our Sunday together geocaching in local neighbourhoods last weekend. The littlest goat decided she only wanted to do 3 caches, but after each one she said, "Well, just one more!" until we had done 6 caches and run out of steam. When we could not find the seventh cache we decided that was a good time to return home and relax!
We planned the searches to start with a large ammo can that had been found recently and was listed as a 1 in difficulty and 1 in terrain (5 being the hardest, 1 the easiest) so that our daughter would not get frustrated early. It turned out to be easy enough that she spotted the container first and was able to retrieve it herself. It had been placed by a Pathfinders group and had been well maintained.
On the way to what was going to be our second search I noticed a listing for a micro cache on the way. A micro is usually quite small (not as small as a nano!) and difficult to find although this one was listed as a 1 for terrain and 1 for difficulty. Turns out the terrain was definitely easy, even in the snow, but the difficult was more of a 2 since it was green and hidden in a tree. The old goat and I jumped out and took about 10 minutes to find this one while the littlest goat stayed in the warm car reading a book.

Our third search offered a walk in the aspen woods of an off-leash park. It was rated a 1.5 and 1.5 and we found the terrain a bit tricky due to ice but the cache relatively simple to locate. 

We decided to drive to a neighbourhood where we had never geocached before for our last three caches and found ourselves in MacEwen near Nosehill Park. This area has beautiful views of Calgary and is worth a visit. Only four geocaches hidden here and we found three out of the four. Not a bad day for winter caching in a cold climate!
In my next post I'll talk about cache containers a bit more. There are some really clever hides out there and I'm always curious to see what people will think of next. If you are a geocacher, post a photo of your favourite cache container!