Snow Caching

January 10, 2003

I mean...it's hard enough finding something buried under leaves..under snow too? do any of you out there do it? it seems a little beyond my skill at this point...

January 10, 2003

I was caching yesterday and found one in the snow, it was a 5 gal pail in a grove of trees. It was pretty easy to see, with only about 6 inches of snow on top...So , you never know until you get there, what you might be able to find...some are in trees, up against the base of trees, in hollows of....Good luck and at least try it once..

If people persist in trespassing upon the grizzlies territory,we must accept that the grizzlies,

from time to time,will harvest a few trespassers.

-- Edward Abbey

January 10, 2003

I took my Daughter and my Nephew out in the beginning of the month. There was about 10 inches of snow on the ground where we were. It took us about 45 minutes to find the cache after we got to the site. You just have to make sure you mess the place up a good bit so you can't really follow your tracks.

January 10, 2003

I thought the same thing, but gave it a try anyway. Yes it's harder, and I've racked up a higher percentage of not-founds. But the woods are a completely different place in the winter, and you can combine the hunt with a ski trip, snowshoeing, sledding, or snowmobiling. It's been fun, if a bit more of a challenge. Why not hide some snow-friendly caches yourself to keep the game going? That's what is happening locally, with several "winter" caches posted in the last two or three weeks.

The only problem I've found comes when the cache is in a location that would be difficult to pinpoint even without snow. Put a foot of snow on top of a difficult cache, and it becomes nearly impossible to find. So I've been sticking to lower rated caches that have very specific clues to find the cache. My not founds were in areas with iffy GPS reception and many possible hiding spots. I had gotten in the habit (before winter) of leaving the clues encrypted and hunting without them most of the time, but in the winter I find I need the extra help to zero in.

January 10, 2003

It's an excellent time to find those surrounded by water or marshes.

January 10, 2003

I don’t know in what area you live but if you only have 6 inches or so of snow on the ground that shouldn’t slow you down to much. On the other hand if you have between 2 and 3 feet of snow on the ground that’s a different story. If it’s a small Tupperware container the chances of finding it under two feet of snow are slim. I try to find caches that are winter accessible or give me something in the description that tells me it might be snow friendly. I also don’t take any long hikes on over 6 inches of snow. Wintertime caching is also best done with someone else for safety reasons. If all else fails there is always virtual caches. Just don’t veg.

2k · January 10, 2003

Went geocaching in the snow over christmas. The first one was in about 1 1/2 feet of snow. This was tough. You have to hope that your GPS gets you close cause you got to dig out the snow in the area before you have any chance at all. As it happened I saw an interesting rock formation and found it there. The second was in about 3 feet of snow. The hardest part was getting to the cache. Once there it was under a tree so it wasn't as hard. It was a lot of fun, but your chance of failure looks to be very high.

Lost? Keep going. You're making good time anyway!!

January 10, 2003

Take a look at the type of cache you're hunting as Rusty said. If it's a 1-quart clear tupperware with a white top, you may want to pass. If it's an ammo box, a few pokes through the snow may find it.

One last thing, be careful around water. Sometime that appears frozen may still be water underneath and not be able to support your weight. Basically, just use your common sense and keep some rope handy!

- Dekaner of Team KKF2A

24.7k · January 10, 2003

The hint helps a lot since at best it narrows down where to dig through the snow. It's a lot harder though. You can't look for the normal clues you would see.

Wherever you go there you are.

January 10, 2003

Went home (to mooch food from mom and dad) over Christmas, and dragged dad along geocaching in the snow. What a blast. The kids loved it!

Someone out there... Cache a million bucks please. I've got three weddings to pay for sometime soon...

38.2k · January 10, 2003

Froggers, you apparently live in NJ. We can do anything here. Snow make things harder sometimes and easier others (follow the tracks). The point is to get out there. It's a great excuse to get outdoors.

"Paternalism is the greatist despotism" - Emmanual Kant

January 11, 2003

Someon ejust found my Fire Tower cache in SW Ny in 3 feet of snow. It can be done.

January 11, 2003

I've been in serious withdrawal over the past couple of weeks. Since Christmas we've had around 3 ft. of snow where I live, so I've figured caching was out until it melts a bit. The last one I found I was helped immensely by the footprints and digging of the person who had arrived before me. After reading some of these posts I've decided that it's worth a try even if I come up empty handed.

January 15, 2003

I tried to find one, but it was really buried, nothing a shovel wouldn't help, but I forgot my shovel. I'd do it again, but next time I'll bring snowshoes and a shovel!

elifish

January 15, 2003

LIke the famous slogan suggests: Just do it!

Read on:

In our area of Michigan, we have between 4 and 6 inches of snow on the ground. It makes for a slightly more challenging game but certainly not enough to keep us inside. If you’re up to the challenge, definitely go for it but dress for the weather. Remember, you will most likely do at least a little digging for the cache on your hands and knees. For a little different twist, try it at night.

Indy and I went out tonight for our second attempt at finding a cache we couldn’t find a week ago with no snow and in broad daylight. We had been out for part of the afternoon and simply weren’t ready to quit yet. After slugging down a mug of coffee and a couple of Granola bars we headed out. It was about 20º F and forecast to drop to 8-10 above. We didn’t have a long hike from the truck but I don’t like taking chances in the middle of several thousand acres of wilderness. To be safe, I phoned my wife and told her where we would be.

At 19:00 I parked the truck, suited up, and saved our position. I double-checked the cache coordinates, and we began our hike in. There was no wind, not even a breeze. Although it was mostly cloudy they were thin clouds and very high, allowing the moon to filter through with enough light to show the way. Although it was still on the ground, above me, the clouds were racing by at a furious rate. Every few minutes the sky opened to reveal a brilliant moon throwing enough light onto the floor of the forest to make it seem as though a light switch somewhere had been flipped. I saved my flashlight for the actual search for the cache. After hiking about 1/2 mile in, up a slight grade all the way, we stopped for a break. I admired the dimly lit vista spread before me. I was standing at the edge of the Devil’s Soup Bowl.

The “Bowl” is a crater carved out of the earth by retreating glaciers at the end of the last ice age. There are many such craters in this area but this is the largest at 110 feet deep and 900 feet across. Imagine several giant coffee cups set side by side, surrounding a huge travel mug in their center. The rim of each cup touches the one beside it, and forms a ridge, a great circle, running from cup to cup to cup, with no beginning and no end. From where I stood, the Devil’s Soup Bowl laid before me, a smaller bowl directly behind me, and more bowls on either side of me.

The moon filled the woods with shapes and forms that would become hidden with the return of the sun. Each tree and its shadow brother formed stark trapezoids against the iridescent the snow. On a windy night, the forest would be full of the sounds made by the sway of a thousand trees. But this night, I heard only the sounds of my own breathing, a jet more than five miles above me, and the call of an owl. The jet soon passed, the owl became silent, and when I held my breath, there was nothing. Indy waited quietly but I was in no hurry to allow even the snow under my feet to interrupt that great peace.

For generations before the invasion of white settlers, this was the land of the great Chief Noonday and the people of the Ottawa Nation. Standing alone in a silent forest that will always belong to them, it was easy to feel their spirits moving about me. Easily, I allowed myself to see them treading quietly along this very ridge, in a single file making their way to the next village.

After standing there for a few minutes I felt the cold begin to seep in. I zipped up, shouldered my pack and we took to the trail again. The cache was only a 1/4 mile or so away. On our first attempt, we came in from another direction and went through the Devil’s Soup Bowl. Through it. As in down 900 feet on one side and up 900 feet on the other. According to my receiver, I could have sworn the cache was at the bottom of the bowl. With just enough snow on the ground to make it slippery, it was treacherous going down. Getting back to the top was murderous, snow or no snow. I envied Indy’s four legs.

On this trip, I was familiar enough with the area that I could find the general location of the cache without using the GPSr. On our way out after the first attempt, I discovered that a trail ran almost directly between the truck and the cache site. I guess I’ll never know what caused me to go to the bottom of that hole the first time. I hope it isn’t an omen.

We arrived at the cache site and and tried again to home in on the cache. It was supposedly hidden between the “dead tree trunk frequented by woodpeckers and the old stump”. Problem was, there were two dead tree trunks frequented by woodpeckers and a woods full of old stumps. I narrowed the choices down to one of the woodpeckers favorite trees and drew an imaginary radius of ten feet. Indy was off chasing shadows somewhere so it was up to me. Oh well, it’s not in his nature to be helpful, I figured as I took off my pack. Every little mound of snow that I thought might be hiding an ammo box was a possible cache. I used my boot to scrape off the snow and if that didn’t immediately discount it as a possible cache, I kneeled on one knee for a closer examination, On several occasions, a single knee wasn’t quite enough and I had to get down on all fours to dig and scrape with both hands. All to no avail. Every clump of suspicious looking brush had been rattled, I had looked under every log I could move, and had scraped enough snow to make the area look like a small war had been fought.

It was time for a Granola bar break. Nibbling on the frozen bar, I wandered around the circle going tighter and tighter toward the center, or the woodpeckers’ favorite. This wasn’t easy because the woodpeckers’ favorite happened to be on one of the ridges I mentioned earlier. Ten feet to the north or the south of the center of my search radius and I was over the edge of the ridge and on a slippery slope. Moving around was difficult. I went back up to my pack to dispose of the Granola wrapper and take a drink of water. As I stood there sipping the near freezing water, I began to consider coming back another day. It was getting late, and supper was probably waiting. I happened to shine my flashlight at the ground just a foot or so from where I was standing. Three small logs laid neatly side by side; a little too neatly, I thought; parallel to a larger, heavier log. In the crack between two of the smaller logs, I recognized the yellow stenciling of the United States Army. The logs had become frozen to the ground, to each other and to the larger log, so that when I scraped the snow off with my boot earlier, nothing had moved. I had discounted it and moved on to the next possible hiding place. After kicking them loose, I moved the three logs aside and finally uncovered the cache. I took nothing and left my signature piece: a $2.00 Canadian coin. The log book was almost full but I found a spot to squeeze in an entry. Indy was waiting to get back; it was past his supper time. To me, a warm truck was beginning to sound almost as inviting as a warm supper. I repacked and covered the cache, noted the date, time, and temperature in my notebook and shouldered my pack for the hike back out.

Never lose an opportunity to go caching!

Cheers,

Yanke

The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth.

January 16, 2003

Hey, I gave my husband a GPS for Christmas this year, and I think it was a good idea. We are totally hooked. We'll cache in just about any weather except POURING rain. I figure the weather only gets better from here on out, so if we don't start with excuses, then we won't use them. We live in MD, but have also cached in PA in about 18 inches of snow. Finding was a little more challenging, but we didn't even really worry about it. Actually, we were more worried about covering our tracks!

Now, I could see where a little more planning, and a long stick, might be required for more SNOWY prone states.

January 16, 2003

I hit a cache up in Minnesota around New Years. It was great! No leaf cover to degrade the signal, and the mosquitos weren't near as bad as they are during the summer!

January 17, 2003

All this snow talk is making me cold.

January 17, 2003

Us Cachers up in New England, have the same snow problem!!!! Check out our Snow Post!Old Man Winter

Hey where are you folks from?

See you in the woods!

Natureboy1376

January 17, 2003

I just checked my snow cache, Come and Get it, in Lassen and was pleasantly surprised to find it perfectly accessible even with 5' of snow on the ground....I meant this to be a true level 5, so it's much harder then my Shasta Challenge cache.

Now if only someone would go for it.....

I plan to put a couple easier, post hole caches, out in a few days, for the kids and folks that cant spend a small fortune on winter gear....

____________________________________________________________

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

January 26, 2003

and got some pretty good advice here.

X is for X, and X marks the spot, On the rug in the parlor, The sand in the lot, Where once you were standing, And now you are not.

January 26, 2003

I decided today to stop whining about the cold and snow and just get out caching again. With the winter we're having I'd be waiting until April otherwise. The other footprints leading to the cache took a lot of the challenge out of the hunt. On the other hand, it reminded me once again of what I enjoy most about geocaching -- it gets me outdoors to new places. It wasn't the find and the ammo box full of McToys. It was hearing the crunch and squeak of snow under my boots, breathing crisp air, looking out of the woods to see dozens of ice fisherman talking outside their huts. I ended up with a string of Mardi Gras beads in my hand and a great big smile on my face. Yeehaa!

---------------

Where am I going? I don't quite know.

What does it matter where people go?

Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow-

Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.

-A.A. Milne

4.7k · January 26, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Last Lap Gang:

Now, I could see where a little more planning, and a long stick, might be required for more SNOWY prone states.

i bring an old broom. it's got lots of uses.

it doesn't matter if you get to camp at one or at six. dinner is still at six.

January 27, 2003

we can plan our cache hides around the weather. We hide and then that night get a dusting of snow such as last night to make the area pristine again.

Wags, Russ & Erin

January 27, 2003

I did a snow cache recently I had to dig around in several plases as the cache was in a tupperware box covered in leaves unfoutunalty there were lots of mounds that looked like potential hiding spots I actualy walked right by the cache a few times before I found it

More to see, More to do

January 27, 2003

we were up in NH a week ago, but only for a few days...we opted to do some winter hiking, with gps in hand..those cold temps. sure suck the life out of those batteries..

January 27, 2003

What is this ''snow'' you speak of?

What Would Yoda Do?

February 7, 2003

Has struck again and turned that 1/3 into a 3/5,but I will be out there tommarow caching in Rhode Island, Any other NewEnglanders out there that are going to snowblow the driveway after they return from caching???

See you in the woods!

Natureboy1376

1.3k · February 7, 2003

If someone has just logged that cache you want to find, then it's REALLY easy: just follow the footprints of other geocachers...

Regards,

February 7, 2003

I think if someone followed my footprints I wouldn't help. being a newbie I've been making tracks all over the place and moving things trying to look for the cache

More to see, More to do

2.7k · February 12, 2003

I just got my 400th Find up in the mountains...a 12-mile roundtrip hike to a snow-capped summit. Had to use the snowshoes the last two miles and total elevation gain was slightly over 4000 feet. The cache itself turned out to be in some rocks above the snow so that wasn't a problem. I did bring gloves and a small shovel just in case though. Here's teh cache link: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=53482

[This message was edited by evergreenhiker! on February 12, 2003 at 10:00 PM.]

2.6k · February 13, 2003

I started this hobby on last October, but I got my GPSr in my hands at halfway of November. By that time the first snow had already fallen here. I thought I could REALLY start seeking caches only when the snow starts to melt in April or so, but I had a nice surprise realizing that this can be a winter sport too.

At least most caches here in Finland have been hidden in a way you can find them 365/12.

- All you need is a sick mind and a healthy body. -

February 13, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Yanke:
I took nothing and left my signature piece: a $2.00 Canadian coin. The

Great story! Would you like to buy a roll of Toonies? I'll sell them to you for $2 USD each = $50 USD !!! LOL!

Curiously, why do you use the Toonie anyways? Where do you get them?

Cheers,

Rob

Mobile Cache Command

February 20, 2003

What a great chance to use that old metal detector you bought on impulse at Radio Shack and have never used!

Hopefully the cache is in an ammo box, or if it's in a tupperware, someone's left coins.

-Digrat

Snow Caching

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