Gonzo-YT

I am here now and it looks to me like Edmonton has loads of caches, and lots of really good ones too. I am not sure why you would be concerned. If I lived here, I would have enough to keep me busy for the next 5-10 years, at least. I"m going skiing today and hopefully to find Strathcona Wilderness 1.1, which was placed Feb 3 2001 and seems to be the oldest cache in the area. If anyone knows differently, please tell me. It will make it a nice double, as I found the oldest cache in Calgary (Who Knows) last week. Regards, Anthony

Thanks for all the help, I'll be wandering around Nose Hills park tomorrow, three caches on the list. Watch for me at a cache near you! Regards, Anthony

Dunno, but your local caches will be getting some action next week when I get up there... In Calgary right now, on the laptop in the hotel room planning for some caching tomorrow. What is with this crazy weather? +14 and no snow at all, when I got off the plane I almost melted. And to think I brought my cross-country skis and my bunny boots! LOL... Regards, Anthony

I work exclusively in UTM. It's not much of a bother, especially since I can just download GPX files and let my software worry about converting between coordinates and UTM, or between different map datums. I use UTM on the GPS because I do map and compass work. It just makes everything a lot easier. If you aren't using printed maps, it makes no difference at all which system you use. Whatever you like. Regards, Anthony

I'm hard pressed to think of ANY caches around here that aren't snowmobile friendly. You'd need a lot of gas in the sled to get here though. Regards, Anthony

The only guideline that I follow is that I would never list a cache as 1/1 unless it was wheelchair accessible. That just comes from using the Clayjar rating system thingy. Regards, Anthony

If you want challenge, come to Yukon. You'd be doing well to find half of our 23 caches in a two-week trip. Don't plan on getting them all unless you have all summer. Regards, Anthony

Personally, I wouldn't care if my bug only moved 3 times a year if every single finder posted pictures and did something cool with it, like took it out for beer. Seriously though, I think people should keep bugs longer and do more stuff with them. I want stories, adventures, pictures, not some meaningless stat like travel bug miles. This is, of course, just my view. Regards, Anthony

If it's a short hike to a cache, I usually try to make it a longer one. Park somewhere else. Find a new route, or make your own route, preferably one that takes you somewhere you didn't expect to go. It's what I like to call "gonzo-style" caching. Getting lost always helps add on the miles as well, and I usually manage to do that. But seriously though, park somewhere totally different and just wing it. Or, park at one cache and walk to others from there. I do it most often in urban areas when I am travelling. Even if it is a park-n-grab, if you don't drive there you still have more fun. I usually find caches that are 3-5 km from the hotel and walk to them. One trip to Ottawa I rented a mountain bike and spent all day pedaling/walking almost 70 km for six caches when I could easily have rented a car and bagged them all in an hour or two. Just because there is an easy way doesn't mean you have to take it. Regards, Anthony

Winter caching is no different than any other caching. Know the cache, know the area, know the conditions, and decide if and how you can get there and if you think you can find the cache. If you don't know this information, you shouldn't be out there at any time of year. Plus, what about caches that can only be found in the winter, unless you have a boat? My two nearest unfound caches that had me waiting for winter: One from another cache done a couple weeks ago. When do you get to see this in the summer? Regards, Anthony

Whatever you do, never eat geoduck sushi. Trust me.

Out of five caches I have placed up here, I put that winter-friendly icon on four of them. My reasoning was that they are all located in lower alititude, wooded areas that are certainly accessible on foot. They involve some extra effort -- tougher walking, harder search, dress better, optionally skis or snowshoes -- but wouldn't require any special equipment or serious winter skills. The one I didn't list is on top of a peak. There you're looking at a lot of snow, not to mention a lot more possibility of danger for the unprepared, especially since it has a 15-20 km trip involved. To find it requires some serious winter travel skills and the right equipment. A person with these skills would know to do enough research to determine if they could get in there or not, and would make sure they are able to survive if something happens. Hopefully the rest of the folks will just wait until June when the snow is gone. It's hard to think of any cache that would be totally unaccessible in winter to people who have expert skills and equipment, unless it was frozen at the bottom of a lake or located on an island with unsafe ice to cross. So basically, I figure the criteria is: Would someone with the minimum level of outdoor skills required to find this in the summer be able to find this in the winter? It's certainly a grey area... One thing I noticed with those icons, if I wasn't sure about something or it's not really that important, I think it is better not to list that icon at all. Better to have people figure it out themselves. Regards, Anthony

I haven't been able to get a response from these orienteering folks. Is there a shop or something in Calgarywhere I can buy this map?

Panasonic FZ-3. Amazing camera with a Leica 12X optical zoom lens. Anyone who is thinking of buying a Fuji, Canon or Nikon should really check out this one or the FZ-20.

I find Starbuck most useful when it comes to bushwhacking. I tend to follow him and he'll usually find people or game trails that make it a little easier to get to where we are going. I don't know about finding cache containers, although you can certainly train a dog to do anything. Regards, Anthony

Tres cool... I don't normally do those oddball caches, but this one is a really cool one to do using a compass. I would use the GPS to find my starting point and then try to do the rest of it with compass headings and counting paces, then check to see how close I was to the actual waypoints. That one is on the list.

Perfect... I was hoping for an orienteering map. Thanks for the link. Now, to figure out how to get them to send me one. I love paper maps. Regards, Anthony

Hi All, I'll be down in Calgary in the first week of February. I plan to find the Who Knows? cache. It seems like there are like 15 more caches in that park. I normally don't try to find a lot of caches -- I like to pick a few that interest me. Anyone have recommendations for other caches in the area that I might want to check out? Preferably ones with longer hikes or more challenging terrain, and I don't do puzzles or any of that stuff. Also, is there a good topo map of Nose Hill park? Something that shows all the trails and has a UTM grid, preferably. I realize that I wouldn't need one, but I like doing map and compass work and I also like to collect maps from places I cache. Regards, Anthony

Personally, I would give up the mapping capability before I would give up the compass and altimeter. So yes, buy the Vista C. I love mine. A lot. Regards, Anthony

Wow, that thing is the greatest. I want one... I do have a couple of concerns though. One, they don't actually tell you what kind of battery life to expect. Two, I'd love to see a unit that can operate at lower than -20 C. Three, it seems like the software is proprietary -- not sure if it supports import/export from programs like OziExplorer, Fugawi... If it doesn't, it is useless. Regards, Anthony

Icefield Discovery and Billy Goats Gruff are both located deep in Kluane National Park (Yukon). We're talking 5-10 days on foot or by raft, along with some serious elevation gain. Icefield has only been found once in going on three years, and only by a group of non-cachers. Regards, Anthony

Yuck! If you ever want cache density overload, feel free to come to Nashville... My name is fly46, and I'll be your tour guide if you'd like me to be. If I ever make it down that way, I'll be sure to take you up on the offer. To be honest, I think I am very lucky. I'm more of a wilderness type -- I don't know if I would play if there were so many caches near me, it would take part of the game away. I also like the fact that I have caches in my nearest 20 that would take anywhere from 5-10 days for me to get. It makes you appreciate the value of a cache. I find that when I travel in the more cache-dense areas, I usually pick a few caches that pique my interest and I'll happily pass many other caches on my way there. Regards, Anthony

What I would most like to see from Garmin is a new version of the eTrex carrying case that is specifically fitted for the Legend C and Vista C. The C model screens are a little wider which means that it is hard to see the edges. The sides of the case could also be 1-2 mm lower, I think, as maybe the power and menu buttons are shifted a little. Still, this is still the best case going, IMHO -- the only time I take my GPS out of it is to change the batteries. Hopefully they come out with a new one. As far as the Vista C goes, I'm 100% satisfied. It does everything I need and does it better than I expect. Bluetooth would be a nice feature though... Regards, Anthony

23 caches in an area just under 500,000 square km. Regards, Anthony

Are you implying that we are irrelevant? I hardly think so! Irreverent, maybe... Speaking for Yukon, we had caches placed in early 2001, and right now there are 23 caches, over 30 if you count places that are closely linked to Yukon. Of course, we are talking an area of about 500,000 square km. Check out my Yukon caching page for everything you'd ever want to know. Our biggest problem is not lack of caches, but lack of local cachers. I am the only regular local, and the only one with more than a few finds. Our second most prolific cacher was a visitor from Newfoundland who found 5-6 caches this summer. We do get some traffic in the summer from tourists and summer residents who are cachers though. My other big pet peeve is vacation caches. People seem to think that, since there are so few caches up here, they ought to place one. Glad they cracked down on that. We don't need a million park-n-grabs at every pullout along the Alaska Highway. Really, I don't want to see too many caches up here. We have many that take a lot of planning and travel, anywhere from a full day to several weeks, and I look forward to spending the next couple of years finding every cache in the territory. Looks like there are some regular cachers in the Yellowknife area, and NWT has 17 caches. I don't think there is much happening in Nunavut -- 5 caches and only one has actually got a find posted. To bring this slightly back on topic, I think I've had 3 different approvers for the five caches that I've placed this year. Don't know if we have a "local" approver or not. Don't care either. Regards, Anthony