Winter Geocaching Considerations
After publishing this post on Geocaching in the Saskatchewan Outdoor & Environmental Association’s Fall Newsletter, Envisage, I was contacted by a middle years teacher who wanted more information. Together, Paul & I exchanged email with the hope to bring teachers together for a Saturday morning workshop. Our winter weather turned frigid and the workshop hasn’t materialized yet. In preparation for this meetup, and for future reference I gathered resources on geocaching and compiled them on the wiki, GeoCachewithKyle.
Frustrated with the weather and having a hankering to try winter geocaching, I decided to spend time in the forests, and on the trails, of Duck Mountain Provincial Park with my brother. Searching for caches in the winter certainly proved difficult and I had a few key learnings from the experience that I need to share. I hadn’t adequately prepared the information from www.geocaching.com. I did write down the coordinates correctly and the name of the cache but in most instances I neglected to write down the clues or specific details. Next time I will put more time into this front end of this process. I was naive to think we wouldn’t need the Google Map printout, which would have been handy at times. Having only previously cached in non-wooded areas I was unable to foresee the affects the trees would have on the GPS reading; had I been thinking, I would have packed a compass to back up my conscious and negate the fear that we may be walking in circles. Had I better prepared the trip we would of had a much higher success rate than 1 out of 4 caches. With all this being said, it was certainly fun to skidoo the trails, high step through thick snow, tramp across frozen marshes and enjoy the sounds of the forest.
I made a short clip of our experiences that day.
Give it a watch.
This video also highlights a few more things folks should consider about geocaching. Both safety and ‘leave no trace’ principles are a concern at different intervals of the experience. At one point I slip and fall, and other point shows us nearly mow over a young sampling. Reflecting on the experience brings these issues to light. These two principles must be at the forefront of planning such an outdoor excursion.
