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Mar 7/2010

Geocache Activity 590

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IDENTIFICATION

GCVM91

Come Sit By Me

N 49° 00.463 W 113° 27.895

Difficulty 2; Terrain 2; size regular. Creator: geezer55 Date First Hidden: 4/23/2006 Date Last Found: 3/3/2010
rural

Description
This cache is located at Police Outpost Lake, Alberta. From the cache go down the hill to the lake and sit awhile and take in all the sounds from the lake. At Police Outpost Lake there is an area for camping, hiking and fishing. The camping area is usually quite busy during the summer months. There are hiking trails that take you for a look into Montana and to where the Northwest Mounted Police set up one of their first outposts. There is hiking around the lake where you can see all kinds of bird life. From bald eagles, osprey, sand hill cranes, grebes and other geese and ducks. The lake is stocked with rainbow trout so bring your fishing gear. In the area you can also see elk, moose, deer, grizzly bear and black bear. Come and enjoy the area as much as we do. The cache is a 2 pound peanut butter jar which is filled with all kinds of goodies. There is also a first to find prize. Be gentle with the hiding area as we don't want the spot damaged. Please do not leave food or scented materials in cache as it may attract wild animals!

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PLANNING

I have had my eye on a few caches in the south-west corner of the province for almost a year. With the weather ideal, and with cabin fever, I was itching to get some fresh air. So I made a quick decision this morning to hit the road and see what developed. I downloaded 5 caches that I had never tried to find, 3 in Police Outpost provincial park and two others that were within 20 miles of this park.

I am also keeping track of the caches that I find that are located within Alberta's provincial parks. There is a new cache (GC222BN) with the following challenge: to find a cache in at least 60 Alberta Provincial Parks. There are 75 parks in the province and 65 of these have at least one cache in them. So far I have only found caches in 3 of them. If I find one in Police Outpost provincial park my total will rise to 4.

OUTCOME

I turned out my BT-335 data logger as I left Lethbridge and followed the directions from my Garmin nuvi to the nearest cache - GCVM91 Come Sit By Me in Police Outpost provincial park.

I arrived at the park gate, only to find it closed. While I was sitting there deciding what to do next, a truck came out of the park and across the field beside the gate. Hmmm. I checked the ground and it was still frozen hard, so it did appear passible. In I went. No problem. This got me about a kilometer closer to the cache site when I encountered a snow drift that did not look passible. From there I walked to the site.

The cache was located on a sheltered down slope toward the lake and was thus in about 2 - 3 feet of snow. I was able to see where others had walked and followed these tracks to the cache vicinity. It only took another 10 minutes to locate the container, but the snow was frozen solid and I had some difficulty wiggling the container out from under the log that it was hidden behind. I thus had my first cache of the day, and my total number of provincial parks is now 4 (only 56 more to go).

Here is my posting to the geocaching.com website:

A beautiful spring-like day. The previous melting had formed an ice cave around the container. It took some work to wiggle it out. TNLNSL. No muggles and no wildlife of any size or description today.

Here are a few photos:

view from road approaching the park (Chief Mt. in center)

path to cache site

cache is near logs

container

container

warning

snow drift in front of truck

I then noticed that the next cache was further into the park from this location so I began walking toward it. After about half a kilometer, and with still at least that much further to go I encountered a couple of signs saying Keep Out due to bear activity. Clearly the signs were from last fall, but I was beginning to move into dense bush and I was not sure when the bears in southern Alberta begin to awake from hibernation (it turns out to be about now). I decided to leave the area for another day.

I am 1/1 for today.

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GCVM91	Come Sit By Me	N 49° 00.463 W 113° 27.895
	Difficulty 2; Terrain 2; size regular. Creator: geezer55 Date First Hidden: 4/23/2006 Date Last Found: 3/3/2010	rural
Description	This cache is located at Police Outpost Lake, Alberta. From the cache go down the hill to the lake and sit awhile and take in all the sounds from the lake. At Police Outpost Lake there is an area for camping, hiking and fishing. The camping area is usually quite busy during the summer months. There are hiking trails that take you for a look into Montana and to where the Northwest Mounted Police set up one of their first outposts. There is hiking around the lake where you can see all kinds of bird life. From bald eagles, osprey, sand hill cranes, grebes and other geese and ducks. The lake is stocked with rainbow trout so bring your fishing gear. In the area you can also see elk, moose, deer, grizzly bear and black bear. Come and enjoy the area as much as we do. The cache is a 2 pound peanut butter jar which is filled with all kinds of goodies. There is also a first to find prize. Be gentle with the hiding area as we don't want the spot damaged. Please do not leave food or scented materials in cache as it may attract wild animals!
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