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Going to Canada August 2012


unkreativ.net

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Hi there!

 

I will go to Canada coming summer (August 28th till Sept. 15th). For Vacation and - of course - geocaching. Plan is to go to Vancouver, spend there some days and then via Jasper/Banff to Edmonton where I will also stay some days (lots of caches for me, WEM for my girl ;-) )

 

If you have any idea what place else I should go to, what caches I shouldn't miss and also if you can recommend some nice and not expensive (we both are students) hotels, I would ask you to share it with me :-)

 

Some months before I leave Germany I will strat to collect TBs that want to go to North-America / Canada and I can also take TBs with me back to Europe. And maybe I can even meet some of you folks?

 

So if you have anything in mind, just write it down here :-) or, if you think it might be off topic (recommendations for hotels, routes, what ever) please be so kind to write it down on unkreativ.net/wiki with the username gc / password gc

 

TIA

 

Stefan

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The national parks (Jasper, Banff, etc) are pretty much dead zones for caching thanks to years of bureaucracy. Mr. Watson's pictures above, however, nicely highlight a few of the rare exceptions.

 

Kananaskis Country (SE of Canmore) and most of BC are prime caching territory, where I try to spend most of my vacation time. That's assuming you like a bit of a hike with your caching.

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Hi Stefan,

 

There are many great caches in Edmonton and area! Just type Edmonton in the Hide and Seek cache tab, and then hit favorites. There are some Edmonton "Must Do" bookmarks attached to many of those caches that you can reference too. Some are puzzles, that you can start working on now. The North Saskatchewan River runs through the city as so do some large creek ravines so there is lots of wilderness and bushwhacking along the paved trails. Just pick one ravine and go. And there are two at WEM.

 

You can post on the Edmonton geocaching forums, http://geocachingedmonton.com/forum/, when you have some more specific dates and we can set up a meet and greet and hunt.

 

mwellman

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Hi all!

You can post on the Edmonton geocaching forums, http://geocachingedmonton.com/forum/, when you have some more specific dates and we can set up a meet and greet and hunt.

 

mwellman

 

Thank you. I'm pretty sure I'll be around Edmonton September 9th to 13th. As soon as this can be fixed I will post on the geocaching forum there.

 

Some of your tips are close to the trans canada highway and it seems to be very likely that I will take this from Vancouver to Banff / Jasper. But we are still looking for hotels: all the nice ones are very expensive. And I'm afraid a web-only-search from Germany will not show me the affordable & nice places to stay. So please feel free to help me there, too :-)

 

If possible I would like to stay at small familiarly places that will not cost me 200$ per night.

 

Oh, the same for Vancouver please: I'm looking for a nice but not expensive place to stay some days...

Edited by unkreativ.net
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Hi all!

You can post on the Edmonton geocaching forums, http://geocachingedmonton.com/forum/, when you have some more specific dates and we can set up a meet and greet and hunt.

 

mwellman

 

Thank you. I'm pretty sure I'll be around Edmonton September 9th to 13th. As soon as this can be fixed I will post on the geocaching forum there.

 

Some of your tips are close to the trans canada highway and it seems to be very likely that I will take this from Vancouver to Banff / Jasper. But we are still looking for hotels: all the nice ones are very expensive. And I'm afraid a web-only-search from Germany will not show me the affordable & nice places to stay. So please feel free to help me there, too :-)

 

If possible I would like to stay at small familiarly places that will not cost me 200$ per night.

 

Oh, the same for Vancouver please: I'm looking for a nice but not expensive place to stay some days...

 

yes, they definitely are expensive out there, and more so around the time you're going is considered "high season"

 

those are some of the places we stayed in along our route

 

Bighorn Motel

they have full kitchen and coin laundry, if you feel inclined to do some :P

 

West Edmonton Motor Inn

 

Pines Motel, Hinton

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Are you going to Edmonchuck for any reason other than WEM? If just for the mall I think you will be disappointed as it is nothing special. It is just another mall.

 

IMO, you are better off spending more time seeing sites outside of the cities in BC or Alberta.

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And I'm afraid a web-only-search from Germany will not show me the affordable & nice places to stay. So please feel free to help me there, too :-)

 

Try using http://www.tripadvisor.com/ for hotel searches and reviews. You should be able to stay in decent places below $100 anywhere. Look for Bed and Breakfasts as well as hotels. Quite often they are priced the same but the B&B's tend to be a lot nicer.

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Are you going to Edmonchuck for any reason other than WEM? If just for the mall I think you will be disappointed as it is nothing special. It is just another mall.

 

IMO, you are better off spending more time seeing sites outside of the cities in BC or Alberta.

 

Well, compared to the malls we have in Germany the WEM is gigantic. Not just huge. And I promised a visit to my g/f. Besides that we will stay with some friends @ St. Albert for a couple of days and I want to do some caching there.

 

And HELP I can't find any nice hotel close to vancouver. Found the Sandman, but the one at Richmond is... well, we better don't speak about it and the city centre is way to huge. Would like to find a cheaper version of the Granville Island Hotel ;-)

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Highway 93 runs between Banff and Jasper. I don't know about geocaches on it but it is a gorgeous highway that has athabasca falls, Sunwapta falls, the athabasca glacier, lake Louise, Johnstone canyon. If you keep going south you hit the Canmore area that has lots of caches.

 

I lived a block from WEM for 15 years; never viewed it as a tourist attraction. Now that we have moved away we go back a few times a year just for the tourist value of it.

 

There is a Lois Hole Park up by St. Albert that has some nice caches.

 

I also agree with a sidetrip to Strathcona 1 Albertas oldest cache.

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West Edmonton Mall was very cool. Mindbender was intense. One of the three killer rides I have been on, and I do mean killer. My daughter was not impressed when she learned the history of it after she we rode on it. The different theam areas are quite cool.

 

5643270389_da87c5eeab.jpg

Mini Putt At West Edmonton Mall by Keith Watson aka Keith Watson, on Flickr

 

5649834715_4c0aaff04b.jpg

Water Slides At West Edmonton Mall by Keith Watson aka Keith Watson, on Flickr

 

5658199886_a05f39da7a.jpg

Santa Maria - 2 by Keith Watson aka Keith Watson, on Flickr

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Okay...

 

thanks to your help and the help from some other friends, the route and hotels are fixed now:

 

We will arrive at Vancouver on August, 28th and stay there until 31st. I guess that might be too short for a place like Vancouver, but there are more places to go :-)

 

From there we will travel to Revelstoke (next Hotel) with a longer stop close to Chilliwack (caching @ Lake Cultus). We stay at Revelstoke until Sept. 1st and continue to Lake Louise. There we will stay 'til Sept. 8th and go to Banff and what ever we find. From there we will go to Jasper and on Sept. 9th we will arrive at Edmonton (St. Albert). We will be around there until Sept. 14th, when we will have to leave for Calgary, spending a last night on Canadian Ground and Leaving in the morning of Sept. 15th.

 

I started to make a list with caches I want to do (not all of them, sometimes one only for an area: http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=20e61d5f-b8c1-40ad-9e53-7aab2060da31

 

Any more tips from you?

 

And if anyone of you wants to show us the places where we stay from a non-tourist point of view: drop me a note. We would be very happy to meet some of you there :-)

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I remember going out years ago and staying in hostels. In Banff we stayed at the university residence.

I don't think Banff has a university. There is The Banff Centre, but I'd be surprised if it offers rooms to the general public, especially in the summer. Low cost options include the Banff Alpine Centre Hostel and the local YWCA. Some of the motels will have surprisingly good rates as well. Check the usual discount sites.

Edited by CanadianRockies
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You didn't say how you were traveling or which way.

A must do cache close to Cultus Lake is

Othello Tunnel

and

Othello tunnel historic walk

There are a few along the way to this cache as well.

 

If your taking the #1 this cache area is pretty neat

http://coord.info/GC1EZZC

If your taking #3

Shamless plug

Which takes you to very near this cache

Earth Cache

Edited by MercRocks
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Okay...

 

thanks to your help and the help from some other friends, the route and hotels are fixed now:

 

We will arrive at Vancouver on August, 28th and stay there until 31st. I guess that might be too short for a place like Vancouver, but there are more places to go :-)

 

From there we will travel to Revelstoke (next Hotel) with a longer stop close to Chilliwack (caching @ Lake Cultus). We stay at Revelstoke until Sept. 1st and continue to Lake Louise. There we will stay 'til Sept. 8th and go to Banff and what ever we find. From there we will go to Jasper and on Sept. 9th we will arrive at Edmonton (St. Albert). We will be around there until Sept. 14th, when we will have to leave for Calgary, spending a last night on Canadian Ground and Leaving in the morning of Sept. 15th.

 

I started to make a list with caches I want to do (not all of them, sometimes one only for an area: http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=20e61d5f-b8c1-40ad-9e53-7aab2060da31

 

Any more tips from you?

 

And if anyone of you wants to show us the places where we stay from a non-tourist point of view: drop me a note. We would be very happy to meet some of you there :-)

 

I see that you will traveling to Revelstoke. One of my favourite caches near the town is Moses Creek, a nice waterfall that I would have never found if not for the geocache there:

 

34106023-cd53-4e8a-bdb5-c0ac06fd35f1.jpg

 

I also see that the Mt. Revelstoke Virtual is on your bookmark list. If you have time I highly recommend the back country trails that originate from this location. The Miller Lake and Lake Eva trails are spectacular, but are a significant hike, that will require most of a day. Most people don't venture much further than the Revelstoke summit parking lot, but the hikes that start from there are very rewarding.

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We have a couple of unique puzzle caches in Vancouver. Our CacheDuino is a "reverse geocache" puzzle box. If it's something you'd like to try contact me via our geocaching.com profile.

As mentioned you should do the Othello Tunnels caches. Also further up the "Coquihalla" highway is Ladner Creek Trestle -

 

If you are traveling from Vancouver to Revelstoke via the Coquihalla/highway 5 there is a lake about 1/2 way between them, Lac Le Jeune. We also have a number of caches in that area. There is a nice B & B and a resort right on the lake.

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