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Coldest Caching


Mudinyeri

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Just wondering how many of you cache in "extreme" cold. Today, in Nebraska, the high was about 8 degrees Farenheit. (I've forgotten how to convert to Celcius.) A new cache showed up and the FTF must have been out when it was below zero. When I made it to the cache, the temp was about 6 degrees with -15 windchille (give or take).

 

What's your coldest cache?

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If you look at the actual engineering specs on most of our units, they usually really aren't rated to work well in those temps. I've cached in the low single digits with wind chills (which don't matter to electronics) well into the negatives. The LCD's get really squirreley and battery life gets bad, so it's worth some effort to try to kee pthe internal temp of your unit as warm as you can by keeping it in an inner pocket, making a careful bearing, returning it to your pocket, and then walking as far as you can before repeating.

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I wouldn't recommend caching in the nude at that level. It would not be a pretty sight.  :D

Caching nude at any temp is rude :D

 

Merry Christmas <_<

Now now... be careful about putting your value system on top of somebody else's.

 

Merry Christmas back atcha!

If you're a nudist, you don't have any pockets to put a GPS in and I live in Ottawa so at

this time of year there would be some very cold nudesicles outside in the woods.

of course it just finished raining during a sunny spell in January :P

very odd weather we're having right now.

 

Merry Christmas :lol: (again)

Edited by camo-crazed
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I'm a skier and have yet to encounter a day that it was too cold to ski. I've been on the slopes in -20 degree weather where the windchill was off the charts. As long as you're dressed for the weather it really doesn't matter. I've also backpacked in single digit temps and because I had the proper equipment it wasn't a big deal. Geocaching is no different. Dress for the conditions and the temp doesn't matter. Probably the coldest day I ever geocached it was 3 degrees when we started out. We even stopped for lunch after we found the cache. My iced tea was frozen solid though.

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i've never seen a day that was too cold to cache.

 

i have seen just one day that was too cold to ski. it was so cold and windy that it was difficult to move downhill. the snow was very crunchy and the wind was blowing upslope. do you know that feeling like you're standing on a piece of cardboard and trying to jump a little to push it forward? it was like that.

 

usually i like it when it's brutally cold and sunny, because auslanders coem and buy lift tickets and then stay off the slopes, out of the liftlines, and they spend plenty-o-money in the snack bar and other peripheral businesses.

 

i know which side my tax base is buttered on.

 

cold? fine. more runs for me. that one day was too much, though. i HAVE appropriate clothing. what i NEEDED was some additional gravity.

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Our log from one of our first finds: Centennial Creek

 

Great day for a walk in Centennial Park. Temperature minus 25 C and wind chill minus 45. We were bundled up and spent 2 hours looking for the caches in the Park. The cold weather did not bother us but it froze the moisture on my eyeglasses and played havoc with the GPS batteries and affected the readings.

The hard packed snow on the main trails supported us pretty well and the exercise kept us warm.

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Up here in Fairbanks, Alaska, summer is just six months of bad skiing and mushing :lol:. I've hidden five caches in the past six weeks in below 0° F temperatures and two of them have already been found, so there are a few hardy souls out and about up here.

 

Like prior posts stated, it doesn't really matter how cold it is as long as one dresses for it. I've mushed my dogs at -37° F, though it wasn't much fun for me or the dogs because they don't make a ski/sled runner wax that works to provide glide below -20° F, so it's like mushing on the beach.

 

Darkness and snow cover are probably the biggest challenges up here. The sun was up for a meager 3 hours and 10 minutes today <_<, so my headlamp has been getting a lot of use.

 

My Magellan SporTrak has been holding its own. I wear a bicycling vest with pockets in the back as my outermost or next to outermost layer. It stays warm in the pocket, yet still generally gets good enough signal to track our route. I also carry spare batteries in an inner front pocket.

 

Go on out and cache whatever the winter weather...the mental and physical exercise are great ways to help overcome seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

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Up here in Fairbanks, Alaska, summer is just six months of bad skiing and mushing <_<. I've hidden five caches in the past six weeks in below 0° F temperatures and two of them have already been found, so there are a few hardy souls out and about up here.

*Raising Hand*

 

I think I have decided that -10F is about my limit. That's the temp that my nostril hairs freeze and I just don't enjoy it lol.

 

I would have gotten your other ones but my brain is frozen and it would take too much energy that I don't have right now to figure out your clever caches!

 

Today (Christmas Eve) I have been here a year! WHOO HOO! And I still don't have good enough winter wear. I have my ski suit that was fine for skiing in Colorado but not warm enough for here. So I am hoping to hit some after Christmas sales.

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Thanks for all the replies! I had no idea this would be such a popular topic. Although the cache I mentioned above was my coldest so far I'm not averse to the cold. At 8 degrees I didn't even have my jacket/coat zipped or a hat on! :rolleyes:

 

Sounds like GPSr's, like many electronic, battery-powered devices start to struggle as the temps drop. I often carry mine in a pants pocket until I get really close, only checking it occasionally to ensure that I'm on track. I wonder if glove/hand warmers would help the batteries and performance at more extreme temps....

 

Keep your "cold cache" stories coming! <_<

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Right around freezing is too cold for me. I would do a quickie cache in colder weather where I knew I wouldn't be more than a 10th of a mile from the car at any point, but for longer or multicaches right around freezing is my limit. It is also a practical limit for my camera and GPS too so it seems pointless to be out in colder weather.

 

I agree one could sport extreme weather gear and be fine, I am just not that hardcore.

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January 21 by Marsha and Silent Bob (817 found)

#266 -- 1 of 1 for tonight.

FTF! -7 degrees, -25 with the windchill... Here I am in Blackhawk Park with my beard frozen, my gloves crusted with ice, my nose feeling like it was going to break off, and my maglight stuck to my tongue (thank god I have an Aurora headlamp now).

 

Here I am "enjoying" the cache that Kitch put out for my quarter-century birthday while he is yelling at me that I better hurry up because HE's cold! I was actually hoping that the longer I held out against the cold the more hints I would get :rolleyes: It didn't work too well :mad:

 

Start to finish was about an hour and more wandering around searching than hiking between waypoints <_< The park is open until 11pm so you night crawlers can get out there and do some legal night caching ;):(

 

The final was stocked full of goodies including RJ's infamous missing hat!!!

 

I was glad that Old Chicago in Eagan was so close by... I needed something to warm up afterwards :(

 

Thanks to Kitch for a killer birthday bash cache!

 

TNLN, TFTC,

Silent Bob

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Wimps.

peepwallA.gif

I was thinking the same thing! :)

 

As long as you dress warm, and if there's snow on the ground, dry, I have no problems with the cold. Last year we did a bunch in bitter cold with about 8" of snow on the ground. We went to mostly smaller parks, with 1-3 caches in them and no long hikes. Higher DNF percentage that day but oh well, that's fine. It was a great time and I can't wait to do it again this year. :D

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the temps here are in the -30C area,, much too cold for my gps!! is it not??

I have had it out a few times, and boy, does it drain the batteries fast!! That's why I was thinking of getting serious about 'geocaching' in the spring, when it's warmer on not only the gps, but my little fingers!! LOL and NO! I am not a whimp!! :)

 

missmod :D

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