Leap Here, Ice Walk, and other winter stuff.

Ma and I have always stayed very active in winter. So when we started geocaching, we didnt let the snow slow down our caching activities. Within a month or so of starting to cache in 2004, we snowshoed for about 4 hours in Kouchibouguac to get one cache.

This month we have been out every day: snowshoeing, cross country skiing, walking snowmobile trails, etc. We have teamed up with caching friends on many occasions to put on snowshoes and grab series of caches. One very cold Monday a few weeks ago (wind chill minus 33), we teamed up with Mr Chignecto Duo, and Belladan and globuf and spent a few hours in the woods in the Riverview area grabbing a bunch of caches. Another Monday we cached with a friend for about 6 hours picking up the winterkude caches, and caching up Trites road, and then we returned at night for the caching event. We have also been out for series with Belladan and his wife Rose-marie.

As I said, winter does not stop us. We live within 5 minutes of the Beaver Cross Country ski Club and we ski 3 hours or more at least 5 times a week. We decided to place 2 geocaches on the trail in places near where we had caches in the past. These caches will likely only be active in winter, so you may want to check them out soon. You can walk to the caches, as long as you do not step in the groomed trail. One of the caches may be of interst to you if you have children. It is a short walk from the parking lot and is located near a bird and squirrel feeding station. Here is the link to the Feathers and Fur cache

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=7e59cd61-3971-49d8-86e4-db6df1b84bc6

Every Monday we head to breakfast ($2.99) at the Casino at 7:30 and then head out for a 5 hours or more of caching and then head back to the Casino for late lunch ($4.99) or early dinner ($6.99). We usually spend that day with caching friends. We really forward to our caching Mondays.

Cachers who are trying to fill their calendar will want to get a cache or attend an event on February 29. We will be completing our calendar on that day. There are a number of events in NB on that day. Here in Moncton, Army.of.Two will be having an outdoor event late afternoon in centennial Park. Caches will be published in the park that day and we heard rumours of caching donuts. We will be ther and I am bringing our sleighs.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=9c8f8625-26e1-42d9-bf8c-e13ab9e09f34

And winter is the occasion for our Ice walk event. This year was the biggest yet with over 80 people attending. We had lots of help this year with donations of food, help in the kitchen, cache maintenace, etc. People were very generous again with their time and their food.

We had cachers from alll over NB, from parts of NS, including Cape Breton, from PE and two caching teams from QC. In order to get a full story you would have to read all the logs for all the cachers on all the 27 caches on Shediac island, and the 23 caches on Cocagne island, and for the many series in the area.

Cableguy looked at all the caches and grabbed many photos and made a slide show which I think you will enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISMZrokefQ0&feature=player_embedded

To us the Ice Walk is a chance for cachers to have an adventure. They show up at our place around 9 am, team up with cachers they may never have met before, and then put on snowshoes for maybe the first time of the year, or of their life, and then they spend about 6 hours crossing the ice and finding caches on an island.

Here are a few great logs from that day

Freedom Five (the math wiz of our group) had this one figured out. So Thanks to them I now have my first puzzle cache . This is the last cache of the day as our little group has found every cache. We started early this morning with Skull Island and now ready to head back to Ma & Pa’s. My bones are achy and my left foot is badly blistered and bloody but the experience and fun I have had with our group is priceless!!! Thanks Ma & Pa for all the work that you have put into most of the caches on this island!!!

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From chatelaine (maybe someone should put all her logs in order again t tell the story)

An amazing sight to behold, that cavalcade of vehicles making its way down that narrow little road on Edgewater. I doubt that much traffic has been experienced since Ice Walk 2011. The cachers heading over to the Island seemed to group themselves as they arrived – there was a small group probably 250 meters onto the ice by the time our group was forming.

We were a formidable group as we set forth, ten of us together (Olewaif and Big Bear, CoopSquared (times two), Al45, Perks19, Cableguy1, NBGamer22, Globuf and myself. Kent County Kitty caught up with us at Skull Island to make it eleven.) The going was very easy as we were able to follow the trail already blazed ahead of us, the sun was shining and not a breath of wind – thank you Pa, he promised to arrange that for me when I suggested that would make for a perfect day. Still, Skull Island seemed to rest itself on the horizon for a very long time. When Coopsquared indicated that we were already more than half way there I could have sworn the Island was moving itself further and further away. With 650 meters still to go, I was ready to start delayering – you sure can work up a sweat on those snowshoes. Did I mention, this was my first time on snowshoes since I was twelve (and they were made out of wood back then)? Indeed, after receiving thirty plus centimeters of snow just a few days earlier, I was scrambling to buy a pair yesterday so that I could at least figure out how to put them on before the actual walk!

As we were walking along the question arose as to what the markers were that we could see just off to the right of the island. No one seemed to know except for Al45 who sagely informed us that it marked where the last geo-cacher went in.

It really didn’t take very long at all to reach Skull Island but then came the dilemma. How to climb the cliff face – or better still – who to send up? Well Coopsquared won that honour – I mean with legs that long he really only needed to take a couple of steps up. Coming down was slightly more of a challenge but he heeded my advice (not sure how intentionally) and came down on his rear end.

First cache under our belts – its going to be a great day! TFTC.

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We headed across to ice with the Ice Walk Gang ’12 (IWG12) to find the caches of Shediac! Our pleasure it was to cache with châtelaine, Olewaif and Big Bear, Al45, Perks19, Cableguy1, NBGamer22, Globuf and KentCountyKitty. In all, we hiked 12.7 km over 5 hours 19 minutes… which made for a long day, but much better with a group of such awesome cachers.

The sign at this location has to be one of the best signs I’ve ever seen. A giant sign, approximately 4 feet tall and 12 feet wide. A small blue sign, about 6 inches tall and 12 inches long, at the bottom center saying “You Are Here.” And that’s all. No map, no other indication of where, exactly, HERE is. Thankfully, we’ve got GPSes to tell us where we are.

Thanks for the cache, and the event!

*****

I arrived at GZ to find the whole group milling about at water’s edge, basking in the sunshine, chatting with NicandAsh (who had reached this point from the other direction) and generally enjoying a social moment – some even availed themselves of the seating conveniently provided. At some point, someone questioned whether anyone was actually looking for the cache that had brought us to this point. Turns out Perks19 had gone searching and chose that moment to reappear, quite miffed because it took him longer to find the cache than he expected because the “magnetic” cache wasn’t. I’m thinking of how I can use that factoid to poke a little fun at the cache owner when I realize that Perks19 has managed to confuse me into thinking we were at the next cache. When I finally figure this all out, its Perks with egg on his face for having missed the question marks at the name of this cache and for looking for something that wasn’t. TFTC.

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