Cold Weather Considerations

[Guest Mike_Teague]

I was just reading the logs for a camera cache in MA... Turns out someone's discovered another little thing people might want to consider..

 

Ink pens will not operate when frozen!

 

The visitor left some sort of hightech pen, but suggests pencils for when it's cold!

 

Good idea!

[Guest topografix]

How are you northern stashers & seekers dealing with snow? Should we be placing disclaimers on the stash pages? "This cache will be completely hidden from view when there is more than 3" of snowpack..." Or is it just part of the challenge? My FellsFolly cache in MA is a challenge to find in summer - I can't imagine what it would be like buried under a foot of snow. Maybe I'll post a waypoint for the center of my driveway and see if anyone shovels it out looking for treaure...

[Guest Ambush Bug]

When going for a cache, it would be a good idea to ask the person whose cache it is for an above-snowline-landmark, if that info isn't available on the site (although it usually is). Even without SA, there's sometimes a fairly large area you have to search around in... Beats wandering around in the snow.

 

Isn't it great that we're involved in a hobby that's so new that we're learning about how to deal with seasonal weather conditions as we go along?

[Guest CaptainCurmudgeon]

Ink pens will not operate when frozen!

 

I think we need to adopt the convention of the letterboxers: bring your own writing instrument. You can protect it from the cold and be sure that you can write in the log.

 

Of course, the LBers use stamps but the finder is expected to bring the stamp pad. I suspect that pads freeze and dry out even more rapidly than pens.

[Guest bobert]

I just started doing this, and have instantly become addicted. But I see this as an issue that could very easily be resolved, so I want to put in my two cents.

I recently encountered this very problem, a cache at 4200 ft. completely covered in 3-4ft of snow (I think it was anyway).

Though the snowshoe up was great, it was very dissapointing to be faced with either leaving empty handed or digging out 200 square meters of a snow packed hilltop. Not to mention the extreme environmental impact I would have caused and the dissapointment of my fellow snowshoers and hilltop adventurers as they crested the hill.

So I think a very simple solution is to say in your cache description whether or not it is above snowline and if it would even be feasible to search for it under snowpack. Surely this could be done is a way that would not give up the cache's location.

[Guest Betty]

A person could combine the activities of snowshoeing, geocaching and metal detecting to find an ammo box under the snow.

[Guest mtnsteve]

As an avid x-c skier and snow camper the idea of winter Geocaching is exciting ....I also know the problems with digging up equipment stashes even when I know where I buried them...this is not something I want to try with a Geocache, no mater how accurate the readings may be. Some places around here the snow pack can range between 6 and 30 feet deep!

 

One nice thing about the winter around here, you can be only a few feet off a road or trail and be reasonably assured that very few people will stumble on your site....I am thinking about doing a couple caches with the container hanging in a tree. I may try and camouflage the cache with a pillow cover or something else so that it is not obvious or an eyesore.

 

I also see this as adding new meanings to the rating scales... are you snowshoeing....if your x-c skiing, do you need to be an advanced skier or will a beginner be able to ski there safely...what is the avalanche hazard....a 1 star difficulty/terrain rating could easily become a 5 star rating.

 

Looks like it's back to the rating thread.

 

Any other ideas about how to do this in the winter?

 

[This message has been edited by mtnsteve (edited 11 July 2001).]

[Guest mfratto]

We will be hauling in our current caches and deleting them from the site come October; depending on how soon winter sets in, we may pull the canoe one before that (so get while the getting's good). We will probably go back out over the winter and hide a few new ones, maybe, or will just wait for Spring.

 

Mauri, of Mauri and Mike

[Guest Lou C]

quote:

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Originally posted by mfratto:

We will be hauling in our current caches and deleting them from the site come October...

---

 

Please, please, please, delete them from the site a while BEFORE hauling them in. Some people print up a page a week in advance. I know, woe unto them, bit it might help. Thanks

[Guest Markwell]

Oh, man. I do NOT want to think about what's going to happen come January. I'll be spending so much time in these forums and devising more and more difficult 5 terrain 1½ caches...

 

I'm gonna get a reputation of a sadomasochist.

 

I'm just glad I discovered GCing in March!

[Guest Cape Cod Cache]

Not too worried about snow-pack out here. We get the last remnants of the Gulf Stream, so it stays fairly warm as compared to 100 miles due west. A foot of snow in Worcester MA = 2 inches of slush on Cape Cod. But I say hang 'em high. I was thinking that some ingenuity such as running the line that holds a cache up through a few trees. ( ala MYST, turn on something, then find where it did something ) Think of seeing a cache dangling and no visable way to get to it. Tree clibing being the only alternative ( bring your own 10 year-old ). Also the consideration of low light, a pole with some SOLAS reflective tape for a night time flashlight hunt. Yup, this could be a really twisted winter gang ...

[Guest mfratto]

Yes, good point. We usually post changes to the northeast regional board, but this is well taken advice.

 

Mauri

 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lou C:

Please, please, please, delete them from the site a while BEFORE hauling them in. Some people print up a page a week in advance. I know, woe unto them, bit it might help. Thanks

---

[Guest Snowtrail]

Any the alternative of placing a cache in a gread place in winter only to find out in the summer it's smack in the middle of poison ivy.

 

Think about the surroundings year-round when placing a cache.

[Guest Exocet]

Actually, some friends and I placed our first cache in early February. There was a light skiff of snow on the ground then and no (real) surrounding vegetation.

 

Fast forward a few months and there was tons of little plants springing up and the cache was that much harder to find. Additionally, there were several little trails going right to it!

 

So, we just moved the cache a few hundred feet away and put new coordinates up. No big deal. That's why we have the ability to edit our cache pages.

 

In the winter time, visit your cache. If it's too hard to find (even when you know where it's at), put it up in a tree or something and update your cache page. Easy enough.