A sunny day that held till after work, a few extra hours of daylight, a caching buddy and a Jeep all adds up to finding 6 caches tonight! YIPPEE!!Brother Ken (MRTJ) met me after work and we made the most of the good weather tonight, knowing that we were in for another few days of rain that would drown out any caching plans for the next few days.
Stop #1 was a cache called "Move Along, Nothing to see here". This cache shows that you can place a cache anywhere, it just may not be very scenic or much of a walk to get there.
In this case the cache was placed at the side of a busy road where a large culvert diverts a creek under the road. The cache is aptly named, there is nothing to see here, just a cache to find.
Stop #2 was on Heritage Mountain in Port Moody at a cache called "Winds of Destruction", and this cache area highlighted some of the wind damage done to the trees in Noons Creek Park. This is a linear ravine park that covers the length of Noons Creek as the creek runs north to south. The trees, and the nearby houses, were a reminder of how close one can be to an unfortunate event like having a tree fall on your house!
Stop #3, still in Port Moody, was at a cache called "Trolling for Treasure". This was a simple find but again illustrates that: a) you can put a cache anywhere, and: b) you'll always discover new places you didn't know about. In this case it was a new off leash area for MRTJ's geo-hounds.
Again there was ample amount of wind damage to the trees in this small park; this winter we have had more wind storms than usual, and several were more severe than in past years.
Stop #4 of the night was in North Burnaby at a cache called Toon Tunes. This is one of those very creative caches were the cache page far exceeds the norm. In this case the cache owner, known as Scruffster to his adoring fans, has made up a puzzle on the front page that you have to answer before you can determine the co-ordinates for the cache hide itself. The puzzle consists of old Saturday cartoon pictures, and you have to match up the cartoon with it's theme song. You click on the theme song link, listen to the theme, and try to tell whether it's the theme from The Fab Four, or Wacky Racers, or Josie and the Pussycats, or what ever! Let me tell you, some of those were hard!
The trail to the actual cache location starts off well enough, but as you walk towards the cache it's evident that this is another area that suffered wind damage from the past storms.
Above you can see MRTJ using his best limbo maneuver to squeeze under a fallen tree, without getting bit by the branches and holly trees just to the left. "Does anybody recognize MRTJ from this angle"?The cache hide itself was good and sneaky; so sneaky that this was the third time back for me trying to find it. The previous two times were in the failing light of the day, (first time in the pouring rain), but the third time back was the lucky visit. Armed with the cache page and the clue, and a big hint from Scruffster, we were successful.....YAY US !!
Stop #5 was at Burnaby Lake, at a cache called "Deer lake Brook Crossing". This is the spot were Deer Lake Brook, which flows from nearby Deer Lake, empties into the larger Burnaby Lake. The cache was hidden in the tried and true spot of under a bridge; cachers love these places as they are out of site of the ordinary folks, are almost never disturbed, and are dry hiding spots for the caches.
From the trail we got a seldom seen view of Burnaby Lake from the south; the more popular trails are on the north side of the lake, and along the east end were you can rent canoes for the day.
Stop #6 was the last stop, and we did this one at dusk. "Wrong Side of the Tracks" is the name of the cache; the cache name no doubt inspired by the many times the cache owner has had to sit and wait while a slow moving freight train goes by. The cache is hidden along side the Brunette River where the river meanders through an old industrial area.
This was the second time back to this cache for me, the first time the water level was high and the small "marsh" area where the cache is hidden was under 4 inches of water. How ever, it was a lovely lunch time walk the first time; along the short trail I spotted a young Bald Eagle circling the river, and a Great Blue Heron was perched on one leg at the edge of the river while it waited for an unsuspecting morsel to swim by. Numerous song birds flitted from bush to bush, and somewhere a Red Winged Black Bird let it be known he wasn't happy with me being in the area.
Tonight was different, the only seranding MRTJ and I had was by the tractor trailer trucks going by, and a couple of rather large Rottwiellers guarding a nearby business.
This was the last cache that we did tonight; by now it was 8.00 PM and the sun was gone. We had hoped to get done 4-5 caches tonight, we actually found 6, plus an extra one for MRTJ that I had already found, so we we were quite content to call it a night.
Now, back home for a late dinner, write up my cache logs on GC.com, whip up a witty blog entry for you folks to read, and then look to see where I can go caching on my next outing.
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