Event Calendar for the Northwest Region

October 26, 2012

Hi All,

First Off, thanks to Shop99er for all his manual labor for the last 6 years working on the calendar...

Below is a link to a Google Calendar that has all the published events for the states that this forum supports, as well as British Columbia (since it's only an hour away from me, I wanted to see them as well. )

It has little different look than the previous calendar, mainly because this is an automated script that pulls what it can out of the PocketQuery and I'm too lazy to do any per-event customization. A link to the actual cache page is provided if you open the full details of the calendar event.

My goal is to update the calendar weekly (sometime during the weekend since thats when the PQ runs), but I'm sure things will get in the way on occasion...

Google Calendar

If you want to load these events into your PC/Phone/?? yourself, below is a link to all the ICS files (per state and all together). I've used these in Outlook 2007 and my iPhone with no problems. Have not tested anything else, so YMMV.

ICS files

Lastly, if you want to create any of these on your own (other regions, only the events you care about, ect), please contact me off list. I'd be happy to provide the scripts...

-Stephen/TheWinterTrio

October 26, 2012

Pinning topic and welcoming TheWinterTrio to the status of Keeper of the Event Calendar.

3.8k · October 26, 2012

Thanks for taking the calendar over.

October 26, 2012

:laughing: The beginning of a new 'ERA', welcoming aboard, as Shop99er slowly sails into the Sunset. A new arisen has come forth as each begin a new Chapter in their journey.

Good Luck to all.......

3.8k · October 27, 2012

The beginning of a new 'ERA', welcoming aboard, as Shop99er slowly sails into the Sunset. A new arisen has come forth as each begin a new Chapter in their journey.

Good Luck to all.......

I'm not sailing off to anydamwhere. :laughing:

3.7k · October 27, 2012

Way cool. Thanks to TheWinterTrio for taking the baton from Shop99er, who did a great job for many years. Love the new Google calendar, and have already bookmarked it.

My initial reaction to the listings:

I thought Washington had a fair number of events, but those Canadians make us look like slackers!
Abby had an event on Oct. 21? Say what?

:lol:

Edited October 27, 2012 by hydnsek

1.8k · October 27, 2012

When Shop99er maintained this, and when I remembered, I'd send him a message with the dates of my upcoming events up to a year in advance. Pocket queries would be a bad choice, because my events don't typically get an event page until about six weeks before the event. Should I do the same for you? (Or, since I'm asking here, would you mind pulling them for this first round from the list in my profile?)

Edited October 27, 2012 by travisl

October 27, 2012

If big events like these are being planned well in advance of the publish, I'm happy to add in a placeholder event in the database. I'll just need to remember to delete it when the real event is published..

I have added the 4 from your profile (through Sep 2013) that have dates into the Calendar.

{EDIT}

To add on to this, even if your just planning a hike/paddle with a big bunch of people (like the one to GCD a while back) and have no intention of publishing an official "Event", I can add it to the calendar maunally.

If you are going to publish an event that you want up beforehand and you have an Unplulished GC Code for it, I woule like to have it.. While the URL Link won't work, if I add it to the calendar with the proper GC code, it "should" automatically update the information once it is published.

-TWT

Edited October 27, 2012 by TheWinterTrio

3.8k · October 29, 2012

Way cool. Thanks to TheWinterTrio for taking the baton from Shop99er, who did a great job for many years. Love the new Google calendar, and have already bookmarked it.

My initial reaction to the listings:

I thought Washington had a fair number of events, but those Canadians make us look like slackers!

Abby had an event on Oct. 21? Say what?

Apparently you missed a staff meeting?

November 20, 2012

Hi All,

I just added a few URLs to each Event page that will open GZ in Google Maps or Apple Maps on an IOS device. yuo could then have it give you directions if you need them...

I checked it with my iPhone and in Outlook and they seem to work for me. I don't have an Android device to test.

-S

December 19, 2012

So it will automatically populate in the PQ now that I created an event? This is my first event cache, so I wanted to make sure.

December 19, 2012

So it will automatically populate in the PQ now that I created an event? This is my first event cache, so I wanted to make sure.

Yes, Once it's been published, it will appear in the PQ I receive the next Saturday morning. The PQ is set to grab all active events in the Northwest Region and BC. At that point a GSAK macro will update the Cities/Counties/URLs and create the ICS files that I upload to Google. (Probably Saturday as well).

-Stephen

December 19, 2012

Awesome Possum!

2.4k · October 27, 2013

This is great!

thanks for keeping this up for us!!!

You're probably working on it now, but just wanted to mention that this event just got published:

Geocaching goes to Space event

I didn't see this one on your calendar.

It's okay if this one stays small because it's not a huge venue, but I wanted to put this out there for those who can't get to Groundspeaks evening event and want the souvenir. I didn't see any events close by besides Groundspeak's event, so I wanted to have another local option.

I hope everyone who wants to is able to make it to an event.

October 27, 2013

An event so close to home, but I'll be working to far south to make it up at lunch time... Arg!

Looks like it was just published a few days ago... I run the PQ to load the events on the weekends, so anything published during the week should make it up by Sunday as long as I'm not out of town...

-TWT

This is great!

thanks for keeping this up for us!!!

You're probably working on it now, but just wanted to mention that this event just got published:

Geocaching goes to Space event

I didn't see this one on your calendar.

It's okay if this one stays small because it's not a huge venue, but I wanted to put this out there for those who can't get to Groundspeaks evening event and want the souvenir. I didn't see any events close by besides Groundspeak's event, so I wanted to have another local option.

I hope everyone who wants to is able to make it to an event.

3.1k · November 25, 2013

I know most folks don't make Alaska their destination for winter travel, but GeocacheAlaska!'s 2013 Geofest is on! This is the 9th annual celebration, so if it isn't on your calendar for this year, put it on for the 10th anniversary!

http://coord.info/GC4R64Q

January 26, 2014

I recently added all Mega events (even outside the northwest) to the Calendar.... Since they don't change as much, I'll probably only update them every month or two....

-TWT

3.8k · April 20, 2016

Noticed that there hadn't been any posts here in 2+ years, so I looked at the calendar.

Far as I can tell this is still being kept up.

April 20, 2016

Noticed that there hadn't been any posts here in 2+ years, so I looked at the calendar.

Far as I can tell this is still being kept up.

Yep... I've been trying to update every Friday.. I've received a few direct messages about adding events that I won't get via the PQs, but otherwise it's been pretty quiet..

-TWT

April 23, 2016

Noticed that there hadn't been any posts here in 2+ years, so I looked at the calendar.

Far as I can tell this is still being kept up.

Yep... I've been trying to update every Friday.. I've received a few direct messages about adding events that I won't get via the PQs, but otherwise it's been pretty quiet..

-TWT

I use it every week to plan out our weekend adventures. If an interesting event is happening, we often head to that area and cache before/after the event. We have found some pretty good beer and food going to these events. Sometimes I wish Alaska was closer so we could drive to it. One cacher I work with, stops by to ask about upcoming events. I keep trying to get him to use the calendar, but so far, he has found it easier to ask me about them. :rolleyes:

Keep up the good work.

Terrible Ts

3.7k · February 7, 2017

Noticed that there hadn't been any posts here in 2+ years, so I looked at the calendar.

Far as I can tell this is still being kept up.

Yep... I've been trying to update every Friday.. I've received a few direct messages about adding events that I won't get via the PQs, but otherwise it's been pretty quiet..

-TWT

You da man, Stephen! Thanks for continuing to maintain this. I'm going to give it a shout-out on the Caching Northwest Facebook page.

7.4k · January 3, 2019

I noticed that all all regular events scheduled after the first of the year are missing from the calendar. Are there plans to keep this calendar going into the new year?

January 9, 2019

Hmm.. I guess I haven't payed attention to the actual event count lately. I take a look and see what's wrong...

EDIT: Looks like the PQ had an end date of 12/31/2018, so moved that to 2020. Next run (Friday) should get all the new events on the calendar...

-TWT

Edited January 9, 2019 by TheWinterTrio

January 23, 2019

Hi All,

With the recent update to Event Listings that now contain Start and End times, would you prefer to see the events on the Calendar listed during the time they are happening, or keep them all at the top of the day with the Start/End time in the notes?

-TWT

7.4k · January 23, 2019

I've been waffling on my answer to your question. It's helpful to see all of the geocaching events together at the top of my calendar, but my workflow is to copy the ones I think I might attend to my own personal calendar and then edit the time and location to be the precise location and time indicated in the event. I'm still going to have to edit for location, but including the time will remove at least that part of the process. I guess my answer is I don't know.

January 24, 2019

Thanks for the reply. I'll wait and see if there are any other opinions before I make changes to that...

Also, about the location.. I just made a change so that the Coordinates show up in the "Location" field and the City/State are listed just below the Host and Maps links in the details. So, when clicking on the location in the event, now I get mapped to the actual spot. Hopefully that covers that piece of editing... (Although it will only be effective on newly published events, as google doesn't seem to overwrite the details when I import a new file overtop)

7.4k · January 24, 2019

Awesome news about the location info! Your efforts are appreciated!

January 26, 2019

It looks like the coordinates actually did update this time, so all the location settings are now GZ instead of the city name. But now I have a question... What are you copying these into that the location field helps? And does what I changed help?

I pull up the calendar event from my iPhone Calendar App and I don't see a show map option. What I usually do is click on one of the links I added to the body of the calendar event that opens either apple maps or google maps..

Thanks.

-Stephen

January 27, 2019

Events with times after mid-afternoon are starting to show up on the wrong date. For example, my event GC82TPZ WSGA 48 North - All aboard the Love Train is on Feb 9th, but the calendar is showing as Feb 10th.

January 28, 2019

Hmm.. That's odd. Let me see where things have gone sideways....

January 28, 2019

In looking at GSAK, it shows it on the 10th as well. The GPX file is listing the time in (I think) UT instead of local (recent gc.com change?) so it looks like GSAK can't deal properly with that... I'll post the issue on the GSAK forum and see if there are any easy solutions....

-TWT

January 28, 2019

Well, Looks like the TerribleTs already reported it in the GSAK forums...

-TWT

January 28, 2019

I was able to fix it with my calendars over on https://www.wsgaonline.org/calendars/wsga/48north/

I ended up extracting the date and time from the short description and using that. Hopefully GSAK or GS will fix it for those that don't want to spend the time writing code to pull the date from text.

January 29, 2019

A temporary fix is to refresh the Event Caches via the API before creating the files. It still gives the old date format. I'm guessing that will get "fixed" at some point, but for now it's an easy work around. I just updated the calendar and the Event is now showing on the 9th...

Edited January 29, 2019 by TheWinterTrio

March 26, 2022

All,

I've changed the times for the "local" events so they are listed on the calendar in the proper time period, instead of all-day events. NonNorthwest Mega, Giga and Maze types are still are listed as All Day.

Can anyone living in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana or Alaska tell me if events in your area are listed at the proper time? I'm not confident they are being shown properly due to the time zone change, but being in Washington, I can only check the Pacific time events.

Thanks.

-TWT

Edited March 26, 2022 by TheWinterTrio

October 25, 2024

The Start/End times have been messed up by a recent update by GC.com (The time/date info was being pulled from the Short Description)

One of the GSAK GURUs is working on a macro to get that info back, but until then you may see the events back to full day events...

-TWT

October 29, 2024

Ok... You can ignore the last post.. Event Start/End times are displaying correctly again on the Google Calendar. **The exceptions are Mega/Block Party, those I have always left as full day events as I didn't want to try and figure out all the time zone stuff for them all over the world...

-TWT

7.4k · January 3

I have noticed for a while that no 2025 events are appearing in the calendar (short of some Block Parties and other big events published months ago in 2024). Is this just a glitch, or is this most helpful resource no longer available?

January 5

Argh... Sorry about that. I hadn't checked the PQ in (evidently) a few years and it was set to only go to 12/31/2024... I updated the PQ and re-ran it, so will get that updated soon...

-TWT

7.4k · January 6

Thank you!

Event Calendar for the Northwest Region

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