Thursday, May 5, 2011 Lethbridge

5:20 am Morning Musings

The temperature is +5 C, with a high predicted of +17 C.

From the Environment Canada website:

Today Increasing cloudiness. 30 percent chance of showers this afternoon. Wind west 30 km/h gusting to 50. High 17. UV index 4 or moderate. Tonight Cloudy periods. 30 percent chance of showers early this evening. Wind west 30 km/h gusting to 50 becoming light overnight. Low 6. Normals Max: 17°C Min: 3°C

Today should be much like yesterday. Geocaching will take priority. I plan to look for 4 caches: one in Cardston, one in Waterton, one in Glendale, and one in Pincher Creek. Most country roads are soft and muddy so I will make sure that I am staying on paved roads. The one in Waterton will give me a chance to see how much snow is still on the ground. I am not sure if I will be able to search for the cache as the road may still be closed near the cache area. I will take my camera with me and will stop in at birding site near the Waterton park gate.

My general approach to geocaching is to set up 3 rural trips (yesterday I went east for about 80 km). Today I will travel west for about 100 km. Then I need to try a trip south for about the same distance. After that I will need to focus on special areas such as the Crowsnest Pass and Medicine Hat. Rural road conditions are a major concern at the moment. And snow cover is still a real issue for caches that involve trekking through the woods.

I am going to take my iPad with me on today's trip. There is an app that tracks my progress as I travel. But I think that I will be out of cell-phone coverage for much of the trip. I want to get a better sense of how this works. One of the weaknesses with relying on my GPS unit to direct me to a cache is that I often have no real sense of where I am. The iPad mapping apps should help most of the time as long as I am near main roads where cell-phone coverage is strong. I also want to see if I can develop a better strategy for urban searches using the "find caches near my present location" feature on the iPhone or iPad.

4:00 PM Geocaching

I am back from a full day of geocaching. Lots of driving, 5 searches - 4 finds (including 1 FTF - first to find), 1 DNF (did not find). I looked for birds but failed to see anything worth noting. I did see 5 mule deer in the Waterton townsite. I did try to take a few extra photos of the mountains.

GC2HJCR Take Another Swing At It

This was my first search of the morning. I left Lethbridge at 8:00 am and made this find at 8:50 am. The cache site was at the gate to a ball diamond. I was sure (always a dangerous perspective as it limits the alternatives) that it had something to do with the gate. The coordinates confirmed my view but a close look at the gate failed to reveal the container. I then had a very quick look at nearby possibilities but didn't see anything that looked promising. Back to the gate. This time I realized that two of the pipes might be open on the bottom. Bingo. I retrieved the magnetic container and was walking back to the truck to sign the logbook when a car stopped on the road and the driver yelled "Did you find it?" I assumed it was a fellow geocacher but it turned out he was the owner of the cache.

The container was inside this pipe, open at the bottom.

Here is my post to the website: "A perfect way to begin the morning. While returning to my vehicle another vehicle stopped and the fellow asked "Did I find it?" I said yes and he introduced himself as the cache owner and said this was the first time he had seen someone at the cache site when he drove by. SL. TFTC."

GC2TJ43 Limbering Along in Waterton Lakes National Park

The next stop was in Waterton Lakes National Park. I knew from the website that this may not be accessible due to snow. I also knew that it had not yet been found. There is always a special attraction when one realizes that this might be a FTF (first to find).

As I approached the turnoff to the road leading to the cache I noticed that the snow had melted and the road was clear. Once I was near the cache site I immediately spotted the location and soon had the container in hand. Opening it and looking at the log book indicated that I was indeed the FTF. Great. 9:40 am.

The weather was interesting - cloudy overhead but with a ridge of clear sky that occasionally allowed for bright sunshine to highlight the snow on the mountains. I continued to drive into the townsite and was surprised to see that a few of the shops were open. The Bayshore Inn was also open so I decided to celebrate and enjoy the moment and have breakfast. Dale does not live for caches alone.

GC2H1NW Glenwood Pioneers

Glenwood is a small village about 40 km from Waterton. From the web site description I was expecting some form of plaque or sign commemorating the first settlers to this area. I was not disappointed.

The web site indicated the container was magnetic. The nearest metal to the rock cairn was the post office. A quick glance behind the juniper bush and I knew I had my third find of the day. 11:40 am.

My next cache was a new cache in the town of Pincher Creek, about 50 km further west. It had been found once, a week ago.

GC2TTRW diamond cache

I searched high and low for about 30 minutes but was not able to spot the container. The coordinates indicated that the cache was near a path that went by a ball diamond. Hence the name? Unfortunately the coordinates were also near a fairly steep drop with a fast flowing stream at the bottom. One had to be very careful while searching.

I sent an email to the cache owner indicating that I was concerned about the location in case some young children tried to find it and suggested it be moved a short distance downstream where there was no danger. I also posted a note on the cache site indicating my concern. This is the first time I have posted such a note. I did notice that this is the first cache that this individual has set out so he/she may not have realized the possibility of young children falling into the creek.

Here is my note on the web site: " I spent the requisite 30 minutes but could not find the container. A shame as I needed a coffee. In my opinion this is not a good cache site for families with small children. Stay away from the steep banks near the creek."

GC8D57 Oldman Vista

This was a very old cache - it was created in 2002. Geocaching only began in 2000. It is a virtual cache, which means there is no container. One simply goes to the coordinates and obtains some information in order to answer a couple of questions which are emailed to the cache owner. Done.

I received an email back from the cache owner indicating that my answers were fine. This was my last search of the day. I had 4 finds to add to my life-total, bringing it to 958. It felt good to be getting back into the county-side.

4:30 PM Photography

Here are a few photos that I took while geocaching.

5:30 PM Model Trains

The package from MRC arrived. I now have my upgraded throttle and base station. The entire process of sending them to New Jersey, having them perform the upgrade, and sending it back to me took 5 weeks.

The next step will be to see that everything is still working. I need to verify that my Ship It! software is running properly after the changes to the Parallels software program. And I need to verify that the throttle and base station are working and that my layout is operational. The upgrades to the base station also give me access to some new software from MRC that involves computer control.