My Top 10 2016 Geocaching Moments!

2016 was a down year for some but for me it was a great year of Geocaching! Here's a list I made of the great experiences I've had this year so far.

10. First Earthcache Published

This year in addition to my first CITO event, I had two Earthcaches published. I had a bit of trouble getting an earthcache published a few years ago so I kind of gave up on making them. This year it was a big goal of mine to get one published and thankfully the first got published with almost no issue! I now have own a cache/event of every possible type.

9. Midwest Geobash

The Midwest Geobash was a new event for me this year and I went with the Geobears! The Midwest was located in Fulton County, Ohio. So we had a great weekend of Geocaching there. We took a great route down, visiting virtuals such as the grave of Nancy Drew writer Mildred Wirt Benson and the amazing Roche De Boeuf, a historic rock formation with an abandoned bridge passing right over it.

Roche De Boeuf with the abandoned bridge in the background

We also found the interesting Fossil Park Earthcache (although it was a unbelievably hot day so we didn't stay long). One of the highlights of the trip was Fort Meigs, a historic battlefield from the War of 1812!

Fort Meigs

The day of the Mega was a whirlwind tour of the area, grabbing a variety of cache types for challenges. The most interesting was probably the Traffic Jam Webcam cache which took us a while to track down.

At the Webcam

The final day was a wash out with pouring rain much of the morning. We ended up completing a challenge trail, visiting Bowling Green, Ohio and grabbing a whole bunch of virtuals before heading Toledo where the clouds parted and we were able to get some older caches including NovaNikki, a 2001 geocache in central Toledo. We look forward to going back to Ohio again sometime in the future!

8. Iron Man Challenge

 Back in May I wanted to get a 5 Terrain/5 Difficulty cache for May 5th (a 5/5 on 5/5), which was a segment for a challenge. I then saw that for the Iron Man Bingo Challenge I could complete the series with 4 more days of 5/5s and 15 Days of Unknown caches. That then snowballed into a 44 Day Puzzle cache streak. It was a great year for Challenges for me! 

7. Lennox and Addington Mega

Lennox and Addington has been a tradition for me for the past four years. Last year was cut a bit short so this year I was sure to spend the whole weekend. Staygold678, Farm.girl and I set out to complete the entire DLA Passport Tour and we succeeded. We also got an FTF on the amazing The Devil made me do it. Night Cache. The next day we joined forces with the Geobears and had a successful day on Amhearst Island despite the pouring rain!

Waiting for the Ferry at Amhearst Island

6. 100+ US Counties

This was another challenge cache focused run that turned out to be a fantastic adventure. I needed 5 more US counties to achieve the 100 US Counties challenge. While visiting my family in Pittsburgh for American Thanksgiving we went down to visit Frank Lloyd Wright's FallingWaters and the amazing Ohiopyle Falls! The journey to that got us Westmoreland County

Selfie with family at Ohiopyle Falls

From there we went east to the Top O'PA a 2001 cache at the highest point in Pennsylvania! This got us Somerset County. From there we went south into Maryland's Garrette County. Farm.girl got her first Maryland cache at the historic Casselman Bridge, built in 1813 in Grantsville.

From there we headed to West Virginia! On a limited schedule we had to pass on some visitor centre caches I had planned in Preston County but we ended up lucking out getting one of our Challenge caches just beside the border. Sharon12, Farm.girl and I then did a big power trail of challenge caches in Monongalia County as dark was falling which including a tough 30m elevation hill climb with wet leaves everywhere. The next day we took a route up through Ohio home and nabbed another 4 counties putting me at 104 US Counties total.

County #101 was the World's Largest Teapot in Chester, WV

5. Valentines Day Caching

Valentines Day this year wth farm.girl was a lot of fun. We went to the West Montrose Covered Bridge (aka the Kissing Bridge), the last wooden covered bridge in Ontario! We had a great day of caching around the area before visiting the St. Jacobs farmers market for lunch. It was a fantastic day.

At the Kissing Bridge with farm.girl

4. My Cacheversary

For my 6th Cacheversary farm.girl and I took a trip to Pittsburgh to visit Sharon12! We had a great time visiting The Most Radioactive Town in America and the interesting Room 266 Travelbug Hotel. We then crossed over into West Virginia for farm.girl's first West Virginia cache!

At the Room 266 Travelbug Hotel

After seeing Carly Rae Jepsen perform we went and had another great day of caching around Pittsburgh. Visiting the start of the Ohio River and the Primati Bros for lunch. Randycache, located at Randyland, was one of the highlights of the trip and if you are in Pittsburgh it is a must see!

With Randy at Randyland

3. ASP Geobash

This was my 5th year in a row of the Alleghany State Park Geobash! Unfortunately I couldn't stay for the Sunday this year but we made the most of my time there. Our route to the event took us through Erie, PA where we stopped at Pennsylvania's Oldest Geocache and then over to the NY State Corner Virtual. After checking in to our cabin we did a long night of virtual caching!

Geobears at the NY State Corner

The next day of the event we had fun doing your typical event things, shopping geocaching stuff, entering prize draws and lab caching. At lunch Ally mentioned to us the Kinzua Bridge and  I had a sudden flashback to a internet article about the Kinzua Bridge. The Kinzua bridge was a magnificent bridge that ended up being destroyed by a tornado. We had a fantastic time visiting this area and made for an awesome trip!

Geobears at the Kinzua Bridge

2. GHAGAFAP

GHAGAFAP has always been one of my favourite events and this was my 6th year in a row. We had a great time camping with the Geobears. We did a lot of caching in the area and did the amazing Cave Dweller Earthcache. We had fun collecting information for their games and even found some baby turtles.

Inside the cave

We all won some prizes from draws and then we had some dinner at their potluck. After it became dark we did a nearby night cache where we ran into a large porcupine. On the Sunday we had breakfast at the great DJs restaurant before heading ot the Wrap Up Car Rally. This was my first time at this event and it was a lot of fun. 

Honorable Mentions

Before going into the final I wanted to mention some caching days that didn't make the list.

• The Battleship Series by Ally&Joe where farm.girl, coalminefarmer and I got 49 FTFs
• Multi-cache Days with Oh Joy Oh Bliss I 
• Niagara Region caching with Ally of Ally&joe, especially getting the 1/2 Kahuna virtual and Niagara Parkway Tour Pt. 2
• Doing the Carni-Water Trail and Friendship Trail with the Geobears
• Completing Southern Ontario counties with Ally&Joe and Farm.girl
• Leap Year Day with the Geobears
• FTFs with Farm.girl
• GHGMC Winter Fun with farm.girl and dmlookhere
• The Hides of March

1. 10,000th Cache!

For my 10,000th cache I wanted a worthy milestone. The 25 kilometer Hilton Falls Loop multi fit that bill for me. farm.girl and I set out fairly late in the morning and got several interesting caches including the Hilton Virtual, Hilton Falls Waterfall Earthcache and Look Inside The Niagara Escarpment. 

With around 10 km left in the hike we had run out of water and the terrain was horrible, but we pressed on. I was run ragged by the time we were joined by Ally&Joe, Pixie&Bones. Pal and dmlookhere. We then finally got to the final just before nightfall for #10,000. What a tiring day. (I then had to race back home to get to work on time!). 

The Geobears in Seattle Part 1: British Columbia

In May of 2015 at the ASP Geobash/GeoWoodstock I was invited by a trio of cachers to join them on an epic adventure to Seattle, WA for the final Groundspeak Block Party. This quartet was made up of myself, Ally&Joe and Pixie&bones. We decided to call this group... The Geobears.

• Flight

We took a morning flight out of Toronto a few days before the event. It was kind of tiring but getting through security quickly and having some Tim's before the flight was nice. The flight itself was fine, one movie and a few drinks later we were landing in Abbotsford, B.C around noon. This was actually my first time ever in British Columbia (I'd been to the Columbia Ice Fields, that was as close as I'd gotten).

Looking back at our plane in sunny Abbotsford

 

After looking around the tiny Abbotsford International Airport, we went out and got our rental car. We just barely were able to pack ourselves into the car and posed for a photo at the local "Welcome To British Columbia" sign before continuing on.

• Mission

Since this was the first time most of us had been to B.C. for caching we decided to spend our half day caching around B.C., our first stop, Mission. You might now Mission as the home town of Canadian singer/songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen. So we did a quick look around downtown and grabbed a cache. Then we headed over to Frasier Heritage Park where we had lunch at the Blackberry Kitchen where we had a beautiful patio view of the surrounding mountains!

Nice view for lunch!

When then did some caching in the park, getting a letterbox on the same trails Carly Rae hiked on as a kid. After that we went and visited the Heritage Park Middleschool that Carly Rae went to as a teen (and performed in her first couple musicals) and then saw the Westminster Abbey Church. I hid my own cache nearby as well.

Clark Foundation Theatre, where Carly Rae Jepsen did musicals

Before leaving we stopped at the Mission welcome center to pickup some souvenirs.

• Virtual

Our first stop in the Vancouver area was GC3347 - King of the World virtual. This virtual was located in Harbourview Park, which was a unique park, as it was merely a strip of land along the Lynn Creek. There was a paved trail along it which led to the waterfront and a elevated lookout point. There was a wonderful view of Ironworkers Memorial Bridge and Vancouver harbour. We got our answers for the virtual and then attempted the traditional cache that was there but came up empty (it was indeed missing).

The view of Vancouver Harbour

• Bridge Wherigo & Bridge

We then headed north, up along the Lynn River to Lynn Canyon Park for the Wherigo GC1Q84F - Race to Place a Cache. The difference between the ditch-like Lynn River we saw at Harbourview Park and here with the canyon is amazing! People were in the river going down a natural slide. Because of a lack of parking, Ally and Pixie stayed with the car while Joe and I ventured on. 

Crowded bridge at Lynn Canyon

The Wherigo was a logic puzzle which was kind of tense and not for those with a fear of heights! We ended up having to cross the suspension bridge more than 10 times and one wrong answer would have forced a restart. Thankfully Joe had everything figured out and we made the find without a problem! While we were gone the girls made a find on their own too.

In the trees at Capilano

Next stop was another bridge, the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park which crosses the Capilano River. The park is a little pricey to get into but is really fun. In addition to the bridge there's a tree top canopy tour and a neat suspended walkway. Even though there's no caches, I'd highly recommend stopping by if your nearby. 

Suspended Walkway

•  Stanley Park

Our next place was Stanley Park, this massive almost island-like park was fantastic. We first went to Prospect Point, which had a amazing view of Lions Gate Bridge and North Vancouver. There we got our first earthcache in BC and a traditional cache. A struggle was trying to get GC51KDK - Flash and Dash to the Cache, our first mob-style cache. That website was buggy for us and took a lot of trial and error to finally get everyone online. The cache was thankfully a quick find once we had the coordinates.

View from Prospect Point

We continued down the road to GC3R2R1 - The Hollow Tree - Big Red for pictures before heading to GC3P382 - Deep Thoughts - In the Cathedral for our first multi-cache in B.C. While doing this one Pixie was attacked by a viscious banana slug! Okay, not really attacked but we all got a good laugh. Our time at Stanley Park was far too short, as we probably could have spent all day there!

• Canada Place

Next up was GC3WQYC - CPC (Canada Place Cache). Located at Canada Place, the cache is the most favourited geocache in British Columbia. The cache is fun and we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the harbour. We also got to enjoy a little bit of downtown Vancouver. Definitely need to come back sometime in the future.

Sunset at Canada Place

• Treehugger

Our final cache in the Vancouver area was GC1DD - Treehugger, placed on February 2nd, 2001 it's British Columbia's oldest geocache. By the time we got here it was the dead of night so we brought out the flashlights. This was actually a pretty tough climb but we got to the GZ and started searching. Since it was in the bush it was a tough find, I eventually saw there was a hint and after that it was a quick grab. 

• Border and Dinner

After that we headed straight for the border. We missed the Peace Arch Virtual unfortunately. We kept on the road until we hit Birch Bay (an outlet mall area) and stopped at a Jack-in-the-Box for dinner (my first time there!). We had a tasty dinner and grabbed a few nearby caches before continuing on to Seattle!

Goodbye Vancouver! On to Seattle!

• Statistics

Total Caches in British Columbia: 16

Cache Types:

Traditional

Puzzle

Multi-Cache

Wherigo

Virtual

Total Cache Types: 5

2015 Year End Review - New Posts in 2016!

Happy 2016 Everyone!

It's been several years since I last made a post and I've made a New Years resolution to start up again! 2015 was one wild and crazy ride. Some of the Geocaching Highlights:

• Going on a Geocaching tubing trip down the Credit River outside of Toronto!
• Attending the ASP Geobash and Geowoostock in Maryland! I did 15 States or Provinces over two days and got the oldest caches in New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts!
• Passing 8000 finds!
• A day in Washington D.C. with over 30 virtuals!
• Travelling to Montreal on a fun Rush roadtrip!
• Finding all 81 D/T in a month!
• Attending the final Block Party in Washington State! With my new group, the Geobears, we also went to British Columbia (and got the oldest cache there!) and Oregon (got the oldest cache there too and visited the Original Stash Tribute Plaque). We went on an HQ tour and went to the Going APE Mega!
• A ton of fun events including the Lennox and Addington Mega-event, GHAGAFAP and 2015's GIFF!
• Crossed a Lake on a Jet Ski to get a cache on Long Point!
• Got my most finds in a year with 2016!
• Met a bunch of amazing people! Including a certain special someone...

2016 looks to be an interesting year as well! New places to explore and caches to find. It's a Leap Year so that is going to be fun! There's the issue of Challenge caches and how Groundspeak will deal with them will be interesting too! 

Stay tuned for more posts in the coming weeks!