If geocaching was around 100 years ago

[+Shiggaddi]

Today marks the 100th anniversary of Roald Amundsen's FTF to the South Pole. If geocaching was around then, he'd be very happy with his FTF. Scott would have found it a few weeks later, and be gutted at being beaten to that FTF, but would never make it back to log his find. And a few years later, Shackleton would have logged a DNF, as his transport failed.

[+Croesgadwr]

I've just read that entry to my wife...her answer was "How did they know it was the South Pole?"

Well, what could I say other than "his sat nav told him"...

[+drsolly]

... then instead of a GPS, we'd use a sextant and chronometer, and with those we'd navigate to within a few miles of GZ. The hint would have to be very specific. You'd never run out of batteries.

[+MartyBartfast]

Well I think when you got there the pile of sticks & stones would be easy to spot.

[patdhill]

Well I think when you got there the pile of sticks & stones would be easy to spot.

He'd have been gutted if it was a mag nano on the metal post that marks the pole though ;-)

[+mellers]

If geocaching was around then...

I think it kind of was around, wasn't it? - in the form of letterboxing (or was that a bit later). I remember trying to explain geocaching to a friend of mine by saying it was a bit like a high-tech form of letterboxing... at which point she got very sniffy saying it was all far too easy with a machine to tell you where to go. In her day, it was all maps and compasses and bleak moors... (cue speech about "when ah were nobbut a lad, we 'ad t walk 5 mile to pit...")

 

I did try to explain that often we're looking for something the size of a fingernail, but she wasn't to be swayed!

[+The Blorenges]

Well I think when you got there the pile of sticks & stones would be easy to spot.

 

... unless that was a penguin nest.

 

 

[+Graculus]

... then instead of a GPS, we'd use a sextant and chronometer, and with those we'd navigate to within a few miles of GZ. The hint would have to be very specific. You'd never run out of batteries.

Ah... bit stuffed if it was cloudy then.....

 

Chris

Graculus

Volunteer UK Reviewer for geocaching.com

UK Geocaching Information & Resources website www.follow-the-arrow.co.uk

Geocaching.com Knowledge Books

[tony and carina]

Today marks the 100th anniversary of Roald Amundsen's FTF to the South Pole. If geocaching was around then, he'd be very happy with his FTF. Scott would have found it a few weeks later, and be gutted at being beaten to that FTF, but would never make it back to log his find. And a few years later, Shackleton would have logged a DNF, as his transport failed.

 

My Bold

 

But that would mean that he was the second person to the pole, as someone had to leave the cache there for him to find.

 

Tony

[+MartyBartfast]

 

But that would mean that he was the second person to the pole, as someone had to leave the cache there for him to find.

 

 

Naah, virtuals were still allowed back then.

[+Pharisee]

The hint would have to be very specific.

 

"Under the yellow snow", perhaps?

[+Original A1]

And a few years later, Shackleton would have logged a DNF, as his transport failed.

And a few years EARLIER (1902), Shackleton would have logged a FTF with Scott and Wilson, but his body failed 97 miles short.

 

Fancy being 97 away from a cache and it being a "near-miss"!

 

[+Palujia]

They didn't have tupperwear boxes then either - they would have had to re-solder the tin after signeing the log !

[+t4e]

Well I think when you got there the pile of sticks & stones would be easy to spot.

 

... unless that was a penguin nest.

 

 

100% impossible

[+Fianccetto]

Well I think when you got there the pile of sticks & stones would be easy to spot.

 

... unless that was a penguin nest.

 

 

100% impossible

Polar bear nest, then?

[+mellers]

Well I think when you got there the pile of sticks & stones would be easy to spot.

 

... unless that was a penguin nest.

 

 

100% impossible

Polar bear nest, then?

AH yes, the lesser spotted, nesting, Polar bear - flies south in the winter, you know.

[Copepod]

Recently, 3 of us watched all the episodes of "Frozen Planet", each Wednesday night. One of us (Running Penguin) being an Antarctic engineer meteorology projects who thinks all penguins are vindinctive little bleeps who peck your knees and s**t in meltwater supplies, another is a non-caching marine biologist, just moved back to Antarctic research after a few years in Irish fisheries, and me who has counted Antarctic copepods down a microscope, worked on Antarctic met records, land beetles, sea urchin gonads etc, spent 2 summers in Greenland, 1 in Svalbard and 1 in Falklands / South Georgia.

 

So, you can perhaps imagine some of the banter and laughter among the wonder and delight at the filming!

[+The Blorenges]

OK... You made me google "copepod".

 

As two of you are geocachers and have visited a variety of Very Cold Places what's the most extreme "cold place" cache that you've been able to find? Or does the work and peering at those copepods take up all the available time?

 

(I refuse to believe that "penguins are vindinctive little bleeps who peck your knees" but thanks to Frozen Planet we now know that some of them are cunning little pebble thieves.)

 

MrsB

[Copepod]

OK... You made me google "copepod".

 

As two of you are geocachers and have visited a variety of Very Cold Places what's the most extreme "cold place" cache that you've been able to find? Or does the work and peering at those copepods take up all the available time?

 

(I refuse to believe that "penguins are vindinctive little bleeps who peck your knees" but thanks to Frozen Planet we now know that some of them are cunning little pebble thieves.)

 

MrsB

 

Mrs Blorenge - hope your life feels better for knowing about Copepods?

 

Running Penguin doesn't do much caching these days, preferring adventure racing etc. He wouldn't find Adelie penguin attacks quite so painful if he worer trousers instead of shorts around Rothera!

 

I only cache occasionally when I get the chance between work - not looking at copepods these days, but working at country park & countryside reserve, marshalling (unpaid) at adventure races and occasionally competing, but somewhat limited since a knee injury caused by falling down a cattlegrid on Dunstable Downs at 2am on 25th July, while putting out signs for a cycle sportive - only one organsier and me to signpost about 150 miles route. I couldn't even walk to the caches near the Gateway Centre after that!

 

My visits to Greenland, Svalbard and Canada were all before geocaching started, and I was too busy with scientific fieldwork & youth leadership to do any caching in Falklands or South Georgia. Consequently, I've only caches in Scotland and England - my first caching experience was when Running Penguin was working at a marine lab near Oban.