Aug 5/2010 |
Geocache Activity 791 |
FIND 728 |
IDENTIFICATION
Difficulty 1.5; Terrain 1.5; size small; Creator: lovelace and crew Date First Hidden: 4/16/2009 Date Last Found: 7/28/2010 Description easy to find, park and walk. Hint Comments
PLANNING
I created a set of 6 searches in two Provincial Parks. I then added another 8 searches for backup in the event that I finished searching for the first six and still had time on my hands. The goal was to add 2 more provincial parks to my total for Alberta. Eventually I will have searched in almost all of the parks in the province that have caches. This promises to be a full day, with lots of driving to and from the search areas.
OUTCOME
9:10 am I have my first find of the morning. I left Lethbridge at 7:10 am and had parked the truck by 8:40 am. I was familiar with the walking path from previous birding trips to this area. I soon realized that the cache area would be close to a birding observation platform. Once I arrived at the platform a quick check put me close to the fence line and I soon noticed a small mound of rocks. I carefully moved one of the rocks and sure enough I could see the container. So far so good. I then removed the remaining rocks and carefully lifted the container up from the depression. Boy, was I startled! There was a good size garter snake lying underneath it! Fortunately I know what they look like or I would really have been concerned.
Here is my posting to the geocaching.com website:
I was familiar with this part of the trail from a couple of previous visits while birding. But this was my first time here since I began geocaching. I had little diffficulty spotting the cache and was careful as I removed the rocks. But I still was startled when I picked up the container. There was a good size garter snake lying underneath it! It took a couple of minutes to size up the situation and then it quickly moved up and out of the depression and disappeared in the grass. I was not looking forward to replacing the container on top of it. TNLNSL. TFTC. Here are a few photos:
view near beginning of path
path is in excellent shape
bird viewing platform in the distance
cache site with first rock removed
the yellow curve is the garter snake
container
sign at the birding platform
I am now 1/1 for today.
