After 18 years of service my 1998 Jeep has taken a rest. In its place is a 2016 Ford Edge. My love of exploring has not changed, and at the root of all my travels is the love of finding something new.
It's on these pages I've written travel logs to describe my wanderings.
I hope you enjoy the stories ...
Spent a few hours on the Labour Day weekend geocaching on my bike; I picked the Pitt Meadows area as the views along the Pitt River dike system are wonderful.
The first few caches I did were along the bike path that runs aside the Lougheed Highway through Pitt Meadows. I parked near the Pitt River Bridge and took my time wandering along the bike path as I picked up the 6 remaining caches of the series (I had done the others on a previous trip). There was no rush anyways, as every 0.15 of a mile was a cache, so speeding to the cache hide seemed redundant.
Along the way I passed a bike rider riding one of those stand-up trikes, the ones that "V" out at the back and the rider stands on the boards and has to swing back and forth to create a forward motion.
The picture above is similar to the Trikke I seen, turns out the Trikke rider was none other than the cache owner MiniMan of the geocaching team "MiniMan and Karma". We had a good talk for a few minutes and he asked the basic question "you finding the caches all right"? I say "yeah, no problem", which was true...of course the next cache I go to look for I almost couldn't find.....I thought "yeah, just cursed myself" but it popped up in front of my eyes and the find was made.
I moved the Jeep further south along the edge of the Pitt River to be closer to the access point to the dike trail, less truck traffic that way as well. I unloaded the bike off the back of the Jeep, got myself organized and proceeded to find the first of the Pitt River Regional Greenway series..well actually it was the last one, as I was coming at the series from the back end.
Several Geocachers have gotten together to run a series of 21 geocaches on the dikes from Harris Road west along the Fraser River, then north along the Pitt River ending near the Pitt River Bridge.This provides an excellent series that can easily be done in one day as a long, long walk or as a good bike ride. You can complete a curcuit by heading east along the Lougheed Hwy, doing the caches I mentioned earlier in the article, then heading south on Harris Road through Pitt Meadows picking up caches along the way, eventually returning to your car.
That was a bit far for me today, so I was content on doing a portion of the series, gathering 7 of the dike caches and 6 of the Lougheed Hwy Stroll series. I finished off with a few pick-me-up caches as I headed back home, happy with the bit of bike riding - geocaching - exercise I got to finish off the last weekend of the summer. My timing was perfect as dinner was almost ready when I arrived home....my tummy told me the timing was perfect as well
Have a look at the short video below of the areas I cached in today.....
I received a phone call from Cookie...Cookie Cacher that is, another geocacher whose name in her other life is Jeanine. Seems Cookie Cacher, who is much smarter than I, had been working on a puzzle series in the Bellingham area called N.U.T.S., and had solved approx 25 of the 37 in the series.
"Road Trip"? she says.....hmmmmm sounds good! This January has been so mild in the Vancouver area that you almost can't call it a winter; more like a mild Fall. Bad for the 2010 Olympics being held here, good for people like us geocachers.
So, road trip it is; 5.20 AM I'm up...no really, I can get up that early if I want to! I bomb out of Maple Ridge over to Surrey to pick her up, only 10 minutes late - not bad considering I'm only half finished my morning cup of tea..........and we make the few miles drive south to cross over the border into the U.S.A.
A 20 minute run down the I5 brought us to the turn off we needed by the Bellingham airport to start our day of caching. Our first cache is a multi-cache that showed we weren't quite with it yet, as it took a few minutes to figure out the trick to the math that we needed to figure out to get to the next waypoint. We ended up solving the quiz and found the cache in the first place I had pointed out 20 minutes ago when we first got onsite. At least we were right!
That "toughie" out the way, we rolled on doing some of the N.U.T.S. caches, mixed in with a few regular caches, as we made our way along the coastline heading for the old section of Bellingham known as Fairhaven.
Fairhaven is the original section of Bellingham, just like Gastown is in Vancouver. There are many brick buildings from the turn of the century, with just as many stories about the buildings and places in the old town. The surrounding areas are a mix of blue collar sections with the occasional old estate style subdivisions reminiscent of a wealthy time. Old stately houses on large lots located on wide, windy streets show off their eloquence like a fine antique. You have to drive slowly down these streets so as to take in the ambience of what it was like to live here 100 years ago when you were the cream of society.
These sections are what I was looking forward to seeing; the refinement of the 1900's shown in the subdivisions came after the early, rough and tumble days that defined the early downtown area of brick buildings.
Like many cities, early buildings made of wood gave way to wealthier merchants who built stronger brick buildings and planted their families away from the hub bub of coarse downtown, relocating them in the stately suburbs that befitted their stature in life.
There are so many caches in the Bellingham area that we spent the day zig zagging back and forth through various parts of town; from the old section of Fairhaven to the beach front parks, from the present day working class suburbs to the University area high up on the hill, we rolled along through out the day picking up caches.
The area is so cache dense that at times, we would stop and grab a cache, then Cookie cacher would say "the next one is 658 metres away". We would go grab that one, then she would say "the next one is 427 metres away". It seemed like you would jump back in the Jeep, drive a block over, then get out and grab the next one!
The areas that I liked the best, were the old downtown Fairhaven section, the Boulvard Park area on the water front, the old stately homes on their curved, private streets, and the big old houses high above the city on the hill just below the University. These were the most photogenic places, and the locations that told the history of the city as it grew from a mill town to a bustling metropolis where every one can find a home.
To know the history of your own town, is to be able to recognize the various parts of a different town, ones who's growth patterns echo your own. In the Pacific North West, on both sides of the border, many cities are like kin with familiar pasts and easily recognizable points of time in their lives as defined by the building's architecture and their geographical location in reference to the water front. Above all, most cities first took route on the water front.
Early First Nations used canoes to traverse the water highways, going from summer camps to winter homes, trading with neighbours along the way. The Europeans used the water to access the forests and the fur trade that the lands supplied. Later, the loggers used the water front to build mills and process the trees from the old growth rain forest. The salmon were taken from the water and processed at numerous canneries and shipped as far away as Japan and Europe by sailing schooners and later steamers.
Yes, every town on the West Coast starts off at the water's edge, the growth of the town and the height of the various industries in that town, are patterns repeated up and down the length of the Western Rain Forest spanning from California to Alaska. We in Vancouver are plumb centre, and our city's history is one repeated in a hundred other cities - as I said, "if you know your own city's history, you'll recognize the history of a sister city".
Cookie Cacher and I continued through out the day non-stop, having a short tail gate picnic at one of the small parks where we had just located a cache. Sandwiches were eaten quickly, washed down with a drink or two from the cooler, then we marched on looking for the next caches that appeared in our sights.
The day turned to early evening, we made the decision to pass on the caches that required you walking into larger parks as we did not know the access points, nor was it easy to pick out trails and side trails in the dark as readily as it was during the day.
We opted to instead concentrate on easier caches that were close to the road or were simple drive ups where we could stop in well lit areas. Even then, when we first made that decision at 5.00 PM, we still found a dozen or so more caches until I finally called "TIME" at 7.00 PM.
We still needed to get to the border, sit for a half hour or so in the line up, have dinner, and then drive home. As Cookie Cacher did not have to work the next day, it was me who had to call it quits and aim the Jeep north towards the 49th parallel.
The stats on the day were;
16 hours on the road, 46 caches found for me, 49 for Cookie Cacher, not so many miles on the Jeep this time, and some where in all of that I hit my 2,000th find!
Jeanine was an awesome navigator, as she worked not just the GPS to find, read, and locate the next cache, she also read off the street by street navigation from her GPS. Having her in the shotgun seat definitely made for a much smoother day and contributed to our high cache count at the end of it all.
Thanks Jeanine for another great day of geocaching!
Had a chance to get out caching today for the first time in 3 months - lots of rain, lots of cold, lots of dark, lots of work, and a touch of laziness all conspired to keep me off the hunt. Finally a semi-sunny Sunday rolled around, a couple of phone calls lined up two of my brothers, Bowser98 and MrTJ, for a day of caching in the Vancouver - Burnaby - New Westminster areas.
We had approx 30 caches on tap for the day, we ended up with 22 done which was a fair total for an easy day of caching and just having a good time. We started off in Vancouver at a cache in Everett Crowley Park called "Butterfly Garden" in a not so busy area of the park. The garden looked a bit forlorn in the midst of winter, however it would be a great attraction for butterflies in the summer. Bushes that butterflies find appealing are planted here to attract the winged wonders.
Near the garden was a sign board titled "Pollinators' Paradise" affixed to a 10 foot tall, very wide stump. Atop the flat part of the stump were 4 open faced boxes, lying on their sides. During the summer these would be used by the native "Blue Orchard Mason" bees; the artifiical nesting site is meant to encourage the bees to nest here, as well as to inform park growers of the importance of pollinating bees.
Above: "Skaters, strap on your helmuts"!
Next up was a puzzle cache that MrTJ had already solved and found, that Bowser98 had partially solved, and I didn't have a clue but was quite happy to go along for the drive and make the find as well. The cache was called "I see da nine". No hints or spoilers from me about the cache, other than to say there was a neat downhill sidewalk next to the cache that I just know skaters would love to test their skill on.
Above: "Tranquil Trail"
"Tranquil Trail" was next on our list, just off Marine Drive not far over the border into Burnaby. The cache was along one of those small urban trails that cut through a green belt to join one main artery with another. In this case it went from the old Marine Drive south along side a small creek to emerge at the new 4 lane Marine Way where the majority of the traffic now speeds along. The trail was a nice respite from the noise of the traffic, and Bowser98 even managed to do a bit of CITO/clean up of the water course as he jumped down into the creek bed to remove a piece of discarded construction material that may find itself employed as a unique cache container.
Above: Bonsor Park Cenotaph
After our walk along the trail, it was time to head back into the city, at least into the traffic. On the south side of Burnaby is Bonsor Park; in a corner of Bonsor Park is a small plaza with a Cenotaph commemorating our countries fallen soldiers. These are neat places to visit, as like many others, we would probably have ignored it unless it was Remembrance Day. It's good to be reminded of what our armed forces sacrifice so others can have a day where their biggest concern is finding the well hidden nano cache in the plaza.
Another interesting cache we found was in the north-east corner of Central Park on Kingsway. Central Park itself is a 90 hectare urban park founded in 1891. The park's natural highlights are its immense Douglas Fir, Western Hemlocks, Cedar, Poplar and Maple groves. Many easy walking trails crisscross the park, granting easy access to the half dozen or so caches hidden in the park at any given time.
Today we were after a cache in the Jubilee Grove, a small garden area created in 1935 with the planting of a ceremonial Oak tree from the Royal Forest at Windsor in England. In 1939 an archway was created to create an ornate entry into the gardens off Kingsway using the "rope twist" hand carved sandstone from the original Vancouver Club first constructed in 1893. In the early 1990s the Jubilee Fountain was restored and a garden walk created for the benefit of those visiting this small corner of the Central Park.
We grabbed a couple more urban caches in small parks and pathways that ran between streets as we worked our way down towards BCIT and a number of caches hidden around there. One of them was a well disguised micro tucked away on a parking lot pay station. The cache was tricky to find, the other tricky part was that there is a security camera very close to the cache; you can't help but think you are being watched as you search for the cache. Any minute now you expect to see the security guards driving up to give you the third degree. Luckily I got my eyes on this one in just a couple of minutes, which made us all happy....no handcuffs for us!
We finished the half a dozen caches in the area, then moved a few blocks away to a cache called "A Kodak Moment". The cache was located a small creek area right behind the Kodak building in Burnaby. The area is surrounded by industrial buildings and there didn't seem to be any easy way in other than entering through a small green belt and doing some mild bush whacking down to the creek, then follow the bank of the creek along for 150 feet. Either that or trespass through private industrial properties; at least that's the only way we could find in.
The cache was hidden halfway up the bank of the creek on a soft slope of clay; while we enjoyed the quiet solitude of a Sunday when the surrounding businesses where closed, the crows in the trees were not happy with us. This area is very close to Still Creek which runs east to west through Central Burnaby. Still Creek is one of the few remaining habitats where crows can congregate in numbers; as a result thousands of crows roost in communes. At the end of the day, it's not uncommon for the sky to be filled with crows as they wing their way back to Still Creek and the surrounding areas to roost. Lucky for us a murder of crows were in the trees all above us, telling us how we were intruding in their home.
Cache found, log book signed, cache re-hidden, we bid adieu to the crows and wandered a few blocks away to Broadview Park for a quick cache hidden at the lower end of the park next to a small creek. The same small creek in fact where we had just found the previous cache! Had to smile as we were signing the log book, as it doesn't seem that long ago I was on my 5 speed Mustang bike taking advantage of the rolling hills to get up a fair bit of speed as I hurtled towards the very same trail I was now standing on, a short 40 years ago.
With memories put back on the shelf for another time, we headed into East Vancouver to do a few caches around the Rupert and 1st Ave area. #1 was at Sunrise Park, where the usual thing happened that fellow cachers will identify with oh so well.........we get there, and not 50 feet from the cache area are 2 young girls wrapped in sleeping bags enjoying the view over Burnaby and the North Shore Mountains as the sun began to go down. Arrgh.... oh well, lets go have a look.....
Turns out the cache was retrievable from its hiding spot with the benefit of a large tree to be used as cover. Good! Finding the cache made us feel a lot better.
Another cache a few blocks away at the Rupert Pitch and Putt golf course took us a few minutes to find, at least we had the area to ourselves. The night had fallen, and the last of the hackers had drifted away as we approached the cache area. A few minutes of looking had Bowser98 making the discovery of a well disguised micro cache - another reason for us to smile, we found the cache!
This was the last cache of the day for Bowser98 as it was time for him to start heading homeward. MrTJ and I did the same, only we had a few more caches on the pile to do as we meandered along our way.
We aimed for New Westminster and a cache that was MIA last time we looked; "Match Point" was located at the tennis courts in Simcoe Park. Perfect I think, no one playing tennis in the dark. What I wasn't counting on was a couiple of hooligans and their dog hanging around in the dark, in the park, right at ground zero!!
"GREAT" I say in annoyance to MrTJ; oh well, lets saunter over there to see if we can annoy them enough they move away. Turns out the hooligans being here was a good thing, as it was none other than Pollywoggg and Helen & Theo with the cache in hand. As we got closer and I tried to figure out who and what these guys were doing in the dark, the tell tale glow of a GPS screen gave away their identities.
We had a good chat with our fellow cachers and decided to do the next two caches as a team. Well, at least that's what they thought. I was more of the persuasion I'll let them do the hard work and find the caches for us! :)
First cache we went to was fairly easy, especially with 4 pairs of eyes. Good thing to as it was the cache called "The Bus Stops Here", and yes the bus did stop there a couple of times while we were looking. With all of us looking we found it after a few minutes, signed the log and then moved on.
We caravanned over to a cache co-sponsored the province of BC and the BCGA; these series of caches are called Blue Sky caches as they promote both environmental awareness and the beauty and history of BC.
In this case, the cache was hidden at the New Westminster museum located on the grounds of Irving House.
Our timing was poor as the historic Irving House and the museum was closed for the night, but we were still able to wander around to the museum at the back of the property and find the cache. The New West museum is one of the oldest museum sites in the province; it dates back to the days of Gold Miners, steam boats on the Fraser, and New West being proclaimed the second capital of the new province of BC. On display was a stage coach from 1876; neat to see what at the time was the main mode of overland transportation.
Above: our caching companions in New West.
Theo on the left checking out the garden, Pollywoggg in red holding the cache, Helen checking her GPS for the next cache, and MrTJ signing the log book.
We chit chatted for a while before we parted ways, all of us enjoying our short term caching team. MrTJ and I headed east again towards Maple Ridge, picking up a couple of more caches along the way in Coquitlam and Maple Ridge just to round off the night.
By now it was getting on and a late supper would be in store for us, which was a lot better than no supper at all. We ended the day with 22 caches found, fellow cachers met on the hunt and 3 brothers who enjoyed a day of being together doing something we all love to do.
I hope to have more fun days like this soon; it never fails to recharge the soul.......
Video and our route are at the end of the story. You can click on the video to watch now, or you can click on the link for EveryTrail to go to my EveryTrail page and see the actual tracks of our trip. You can also view elevation gains and mileage: you can even "play" our trip route by clicking on the arrow just below the graphs!
On Saturday Oct 24 Ken and I headed south into the U.S. to meet a group from PNW Adventures group. This group is into exploring back roads and off road areas in the Pacific North West.
We met up with the group in Lyman on Hwy #20 a few miles east of Sedro-Wooley, arriving with only 3 minutes to spare before the official departure time. Not bad timing considering we drove down from Maple Ridge BC to be there for 9.00 AM!
We piled into our 4X4's, 6 vehicles in all, and headed further east on Hwy #20 looking for Baker Road which would take us into the Mt Baker National Forest. As it turned out, we wouldn't have any use of the 4X4 side of our vehicles today, as the roads we chose were either paved or well groomed, moderately inclined gravel forest service roads.
We explored several roads that ended in mountain bowls; we checked out a snow mobile area, and drove up to a small parking area that provided an excellent view of a nearby glacier. At least that's what we think we did. The pockets of low hanging clouds obscured our view of the glacier, which, according to Mark, the trip leader, is something quite beautiful to see.
Down the mountain road we went, back to the main paved road that ran north along side Baker Lake, and followed the road past the end of the paved section until it too turned into a groomed FSR. We went as far as the end of Baker lake, were we spent some time enjoying a late lunch, the scenery, and some good company.
By the time we got back on the road it was nearing 3.00 PM, time for Ken and I to say good bye to the group and start our journey back north.
Ken and I geocached as we headed back west along Hwy #20 to Sedro-Wolley, then cached north along Hwy #9 as we headed for the border town of Sumas. It was near 7.00 PM by the time we crossed back into Canada; a few more caches in the Abbotsford area finished off our geocaching for the day.
We got back home around 8.30 PM, an early day compared to some of my recent road trips! :) Time enough to have a late dinner, log our caches, and get to bed at a reasonable time.
Videos and my GPS tracks at the end of the trip report.........
Stu and I decided to take advantage of one of the last remaining good weekends of the year and set our sites on the Merritt area. It would be one of those long day trips where we would log 764KMs, 13.5 hours in the saddle and only 10 caches to show for it, but we got a months worth of enjoyment on the day.
Stu (geocaching name "Scruffster") and I (geocaching name "tjguy98") met up in Maple Ridge, just outside of Vancouver BC, loaded up the Jeep with the necessary survival items (2 GPS, a sandwich and a credit card) and took off down the road at 6.00 AM, lots of time for a day of caching and back road driving.
I wanted to drive a few roads in the Merritt area that I liked so much one more time before the weather changed for the worse; Stu was quite happy to come along and see some of the historic areas around Merritt, and of course we had to throw in a few caches here and there just to keep up the pace.
Our first stop was at Bridal Falls Provincial Park, just east of Chilliwack. The sixth highest falls in Canada drain the north slope of Mt. Cheam, which rises almost 7,000 feet above the Fraser Valley. In the park were two caches we planned to find; one was a cache placed last year in conjunction with B.C. Parks, this one was called "BC Parks GeoRush 2008 - Bridal Falls". The second cache we had in mind was part of this years version of the BC Parks program to encourage people to come visit the parks; this one was called "Bluesky - Bridal Falls Provincial Park". The term BlueSky is in reference to the Parks Ministry encouraging the public to think about "going green" in how they get to a cache location, as well as going green in their every day life.
Caches found, we jumped back in the Jeep and continued our eastward trek, turning north just after Hope as we followed the Coquihalla Highway, provincial hwy #5. As soon as we did this, we were on a historic path; we were now following the path of the old railway known as the Kettle Valley Railway. The railway originally ran from Hope up the Coquihalla Canyon to Brookmere, then through the Interior to Kelowna, then headed south crossing the border at Midway.
Our next stop was along the KVR rail bed just west of Brookmere; the rail bed is now part of the Trans Canada Trails system and in some parts is driveable or rideable on quads and motor bikes. This section was for quads only, as a nearby old train trestle was blocked by a post not allowing cars any further. As it was, we did not need to go any further either, the cache being located along side a quiet section of the the Coldwater River. "BlueSky - Coldwater River "S" Bend" cache was tucked away just down the trail in a picturesque location.
The railbed ran straight through this section, and you could see where the cliff was sliced to allow the tracks to pass. The river itself was a great area where small pools formed in the "S" shape of the river, making me think some fisherman would have good luck here.
From the Coldwater River we we shot north on the Coquihalla Highway through the Great Bear Shed and on past Zopkios Ridge, which is made up of huge granite slabs and soars bare of trees high above the highway. We went as far north as Merritt, and turned east along highway 97C for a few miles till we reached a roadside information kiosk explaining all about the surrounding grasslands. "Grasslands" you say? Why yes, we had left the Pacific West Coast bio zone, transited the Alpine area of the Coquihalla Summit, and were now in the Interior Dry Lands of south central BC.
The kiosk and the surrounding park area was dedicated to Laurie Guichon, a member of the pioneer farming family of the Merritt area. Laurie Guichon spent much of his life as a guardian of the grasslands and gave back to the community in many ways. The park was a way of recognizing his contributions, and to help pull in people to the area was a cache placed here as part of the Gold Country series. This series highlights historical areas near 6 communities in the southern interior of the province; this series is also funded by the BC government through its community funds to help revive the economies of hard hit cities.
This cache was also the start of what we would be exposed to most of the day; wide open spaces where your vision can stretch for miles or only as far as the next gentle rolling hill. A big change for us city folks from the West Coast where forests of cedars are the norm.
Our next cache was on the outskirts of Merritt, at the edge of the Merritt airport. "Ranchlands Cache" was accessed by a dirt road that ran along the airport, then turned the corner at the end of the runway and dead ended into a small parking area. From here were were treated to a view that extended in all directions; we could see the dry grasslands across the valley, we could watch the flow of traffic heading north along Hwy #5 to Kamloops, or another stream of traffic heading north-east along Hwy# 5A also towards Kamloops. Hwy# 5A was the main road to Kamloops before the new 4 lane super-highway opened, taking over the title of Hwy #5.
Back in the Jeep we also took the older route of Hwy 5A on our way to our next destination, the Quilchena Hotel. The hotel was built in 1908 in hopes that the KVR would be built through Merrit, traversing the east side of Nicola Lake and then up to Kamloops. Well, that didn't happen, instead the KVR only came as far north as Brookmere in the Coquihalla Valley, then turned south to Hope. The Guichon family (remember that name from the earlier Guichon Grasslands cache?) missed out on the railway traffic, but were able to capitilize on the stage coach traffic, and the tourist trade, as Nicola Lake was a popular destination. Poor economic times forced the hotel to close in 1917, but re-opened again in 1958 much to the delight of generations to come. You can read about the Quilchena Hotel here.
Time to take a step backwards a few miles as I almost forgot to mention the town of Upper Nicola.
Before the ranching town of Merritt came into being, the First Nations people in the area lived in two communities, Upper Nicola and Lower Nicola, the names coined from where the villages were located on the Nicola River.
Our first stop in Upper Nicola was at the historic Nicola Cemetery; framed by a lovely old fashioned entrance, the gate to the cemetery was chained shut. Rather than just jump the fence, we respected the communities wishes and viewed the old grave and their tombstones from the outside.
Just up the road was Upper Nicola itself, a small town that at one time was the capital of the valley. The area consisted of a sizeable population, as evidenced by the court house that still stands today. Just next door is historic Murrary United Church, built in 1876. As with many small town churches, there is an old grave yard on the church property. Here we found many graves dating from the late 1800's. The church itself was beautiful in its plainness, a small working ranch land church serving a blue collar congregation. Small wooden doors were chosen to secure the threshold, and a large bell in the belfry still had it's rope attached that the minister would pull to summon the congregation to worship.
OK folks, stay with me, we're jumping forward again a ways up the road.....
At this point we switched gears, so to speak. We moved from a caching mindset, to a more wordly mindset of looking at the land with an historical eye. We put away the caching papers, and headed north to Douglas Lake Road, a dirt road that would take us into the heart of cattle country. And you can't get much closer to cattle country than this - The Douglas Lake Ranch. The ranch is the largest working cattle ranch in BC; in it's past it supplied all the beef for the workers who built the CPR across Canada. We toured the local ranch "town" which consisted of a couple of dirt roads and employee housing. I call it a "town"as it really was a town unto itself. For the hundreds of staff and their families, this was the town they came to; the town contained a school, a church, a general store, and even had it's own Canada post office! You can see a web cam of the ranch here and read about the history of the ranch as it works through it's second century of operations, 120 years and counting.
From the Douglas Lake Ranch we retraced our steps along Douglas Lake Road until we came to a small First Nations settlement. Officially the area is known as "Douglas Lake Indian Reserve #3", the local natives know this area as "Spahomin", the word to describe the reeds in Douglas Lake that the natives used for weaving to make baskets to carry their goods.
This was also the location of the intersection of Minnie Lake Road and Douglas Lake Road; this time we were headed south along Minnie Lake Road. The new road was picturesque in its own way; instead of giving us views of wide open valleys, we were now on a bit of a roller coaster ride as we went over hill and through the dales as the road wend its way through the old bed of what once was a glacial lake. The entire area known as the Douglas Plateau, gets it's topography as a result of glaciers that flowed north to south through the valley, creating the long shallow Douglas Lake surrounded by glacial features that an amateur geologist would love. Lateral morraines, end morraines, terminal morraines, drumlins, eskers, kettle lakes and glacial erratics were all evident in our drive through the open country side.
We wound our way south as far as Minnie Lake, where we intersected with the Pennask Lake Road and followed it westward towards Nicola Lake and Hwy 5A. Try as we might, we could not make good time through here as we were continually stopping to get out and enjoy the vista that surrounded us. From the occasional cattle guard to the open range pen stocks, everything let us know we were in cowboy country, where real life was played out on the open range lands.
Eventually we made it back to Hwy 5A, leaving us on the edge of Nicola Lake. We headed back south to the town of Merritt and, switching back to caching mode, did a few in-town caches. The one we liked the best was another Gold Country cache called "Merritt View Point", and that's exactly what this one was. Located high atop a hill on the north-east corner of Merritt, a short scramble up from the parking lot gave you an eagle eye view of the city of Merritt.
The golf course was directly below us, the city lay at our feet, across the valley the open range lands started their run north back up Nicola Lake towards the vast holdings of the Douglas Lake Ranch, to the south-east the 4 lane super highway known as the Coquihalla started its run south to the alpine area of the Coquihalla Summit before it plunged down to Hope, and to the east was the green land of a well irrigated farmer's field that seemed to be have one foot in the grasslands bio zone and one foot in the montaine terraine bio zone. Quite the view point indeed; from this one sight we could view 3 different climates that help shape the BC landscape into what it is today.
Back down the hill, we turned west out of Merritt along Hwy #8 as we headed for Lower Nicola, one of the older townsites that existed before Merritt came into its own. Here we stopped at a small country intersection for an easy micro cache; but more importantly, we were back on the pathway of the old KVR at a small whistle stop known as Coyle. Today there is nothing here to advise that there was once a mighty train that came through here on its way to tackle the rugged mountains on its journey to the far end of the line. Too bad really, it would be neat if all these small forgotten places has historical signs to remind us of what once was.
We shot up Hwy 97C for a few miles as we went in search of another Gold Country cache called "Craigmont Mines". This cache was placed across the road from Craigmont Mines, a large producer of copper in its prime. It has all but ceased operations, the only activity being the recovery of media grade magnetite from the mine tailings to be used in the creation of steel or as an abrasive added to cleaning products.
Cache found, stickers retrieved for our Gold Country book to mark which caches we have found, we headed back down Hwy# 97C to Hwy #8, turned west again, and went up the next road heading for the top of Promontory Mountain, a wind swept bare peak at 7,000 feet high.
The black top road quickly turned into a forest service road, complete with uneven gravel, the occasional trench dug cross ways on the road to minimize water damage, and even a downed tree or two edging you off the FSR and making you squeeze past them. 6K later, after many switch backs, we arrived at the top of the mountain to find ourselves back in winter. Down on the Coast, my wife was enjoying a nice sunny day in out backyard in 18 degree sunshine; Here on top of the mountain, we were in a cold wind, temperature down to 6 degrees C or so, and patches of snow on the ground. Even the picnic table had snow on it, with one large icicle melting and dripping it's liquid life blood onto the cold ground.
What made up for the trip up the mountain road and the cold, wind was a cache, of course, and a great view back down the Nicola Valley to the town of Merritt some 10 K away. The cache we came for was another Gold Country cache highlighting the significant geological and biological nature of the area. Some of the flora on the mountain have specifically adapted to grow in the harsh mountain climate, and are rarely found else where.
The geological foundation of the mountain stretches back to the Upper Triassic period with intrusions dating from the Lower Jurrasic period. Many formations and rock types associated with volcanic activity can also be found on the mountain; buried amongst the rock formations are marine fossils from when the mountain top was once part of an ocean floor. That type of vision is hard to wrap your head around; how could the bottom of an ocean, thousands of feet beneath the sea, become the top of a 7,000 foot mountain? Our small human minds have difficulty grasping the enormity of our world.
Cache found, pictures taken, back in the Jeep we go to warm up and start our descent back down to the floor of the Nicola Valley. The trip down always seems so much quicker than the trip up for some reason.
This was the last cache of the day, as we were running out of daylight and nearby caches. We headed into Merritt to gas up the Jeep and gas up our tummys for the long haul back to the Lower Mainland.
We only found 10 caches on the day, but as much as we enjoyed the caching, the history and the views of the Merritt area far outweighed the caching fun.
My thanks to Stu for being such a fun shotgun partner, and for his excellent "live" video shooting taken from a bouncy Jeep on grass land roads.
My Merritt trip on EveryTrail.com; download my route to retrace my path or click on the map to zoom in on the trip.
Crazy Canyon Caching is an excellent name for this trip report as the whole day fits into the category - just crazy!
Here's the stats on the day; 22 hours on the road, 770K, 12 Gold Country Caches for Cookie Cacher, 12 more for me to obtain my 24 caches required for the Gold coin, a total of 60 caches for me and 66 for Cookie Cacher!
Videos and the GPS route of the day's trip, uploaded to EveryTrails.com, can be found at the end of the write up.
THE STORY
I had been up the Fraser Canyon two weeks ago with Stu, AKA Scruffster, as we blasted our way through the canyon one early morning on our way to Cache Creek to arrive just in time for the official late morning kick off of the Gold Country Geotourism event. The event was being held in 6 cities, Cache Creek, Clinton, Lillooet, Lytton, Merritt and Logan Lake, all in an effort to promote tourism in the area.
All that morning, we kept on passing caches that just begged us to pull over and find them; with broken hearts we passed them by, knowing full well we would be back here soon answering their call. This Saturday we were back, only instead of Scruffster being in the shotgun seat, it was Jeanine AKA Cookie Cacher.
Cookie Cacher had been asking to go caching with me for quite a while, and today seemed like the right time for me to make good on my promise of a day of caching together.
We met up in Maple Ridge at 6.00 AM, me almost sleeping in and waking up only 20 minutes before we had to meet. We met up, both of us semi-awake, loaded Jeanine's stuff into the Jeep, and cruised east out of Maple Ridge aiming for the Fraser Canyon.
We did a couple of caches just north of Hope as a way of warming up on the day, then made our way to Emory Creek area where 4 caches awaited us.
One of the caches highlighted the Emory Creek area, explaining how there was a townsite here in the 1880s; it boasted of 13 streets, two hotels, nine saloons, a brewery, blacksmiths, a general store, and residences. It soon became evident that the CPR would make Yale the terminus of the railroad, and by the 1890s no sign was to be found of Emory City.
Also in the area is a Provincial historic signpost explaining the significant contribution of the Chinese in building the original Cariboo Road, and later the railroads.
We found the 4 caches in the area, then moved on to Yale to look for caches there. In Yale there are several historic places, suchs as the oldest church in BC still on it's original foundation, Lady Franklin Rock, named after Lady Franklin who toured the world while her husband was on his expedition to the Artic.
Another little know fact is that, in 1868 there was a meeting of 26 delegates from all over the colony of BC who were dissatisfied with the colonial government. This convention did much to stimulate popular support for the idea of the Colony of BC uniting with Canada to become a province of Canada.
We finished up in the Yale area, then moved north on our journey, grabbing various roadside caches that highlighted the best scenic viewpoints in the Fraser Canyon, or otherwise little mentioned historic areas.
Another of the more historic spots was highlighted with a cache placed on a trail; not just any trail, but an HBC Fur Brigade Trail.
This one was placed a short ways up the trail next to Alexandra House. Alexandra House was a road house on the original Cariboo Wagon Road, and the fur brigade trail predates the road house. The original road house was torn down and the current one built, supposedly using one or two of the original road house walls. Hard to determine which ones were used, but even so, the current building is pretty old as is.
The cache was located about a 5 minute walk up the trail from the noisy canyon road, but you might has well been 100 miles from anywhere. The trail leads over the mountains into the Coquihalla Valley, on through the Voight Valley, then cuts across the Douglas Lake Ranch holdings on it's way to Fort Kamloops.
In it's heyday, the pack trains of horses were an incredible site; 500 horses packed with large 80 pound bales of fur on each side, requiring 150 men to run the pack. The First Nations people would watch this procession go by in amazement; never had they seen so many "English" men at one time.
In the Gold Rush days, there were two kinds of white man; those that came from America were called "Boston men", as many of the gold seekers came from Boston. Every one else was called an "English men", as most of the non-Americans were English.
This was a great chance to stretch our legs and provided the wonderful experience of allowing us to step back in time, if just for a few minutes, and imagine the sound of many hooves from labouring horses, intermingled with the voices of the packers encouraging their charges to keep moving.
Northward we continued, stopping at more viewpoints and scenic waterfalls till we got to Boston Bar, the site of a bar in the river first worked by American miners, hence the name "Boston Bar". Here we did a couple of caches aimed at highlighting the old suspended cable car that use to run over the Fraser River from Boston Bar on the east side, to North Bend on the west side.
Many an old folks have used this cable car, and can still vividly recall their trips. Years ago the cable car was replaced with a high level bridge to provide more permanent and improved access for the residents on the west side of the river.
In Lytton we came across our first Gold Country caches, where we started collecting stickers to place in our books. We visited a historic church, The Church of St. Mary and St. Paul, and the Lytton cemetery; we also stopped at the Lytton Jelly Roll, so called because, well...it looks like a giant jelly roll. The roll was created in an ice bound lake during the last glaciation period when an underwater landslide caused the sediment layers to slump away. Rather than breaking up and dispersing, the layers rolled up instead to look like a jelly roll.
With jelly rolls on our minds, we scoured Lytton for as many more caches as time would allow, before we headed north once again.
Next stop, beautiful Nicomen Falls; get ready for a great view of a tall waterfall seemingly coming out of a crack in the hill, and a steep short hike to find the cache. This one I looked forward to doing, and I didn't.....I'm no so good on uphills... :(
But, there was no way I was going to pass on this cache just because I had to huff and puff a little bit; besides, I was hedging my bets......I had Cookie Cacher along to perform CPR in case I over exerted myself... :)
As it was, a short, 2 minute hike brought us to the cache location...."well, that was easy"! "What was I whining about"? With cache in hand and cameras going, we took a few minutes to enjoy the area, before the calls of the caches up the road begged us to continue.
Into Spences Bridge we went, criss crossing the small town while we searched for caches at a cemetery, at the oldest Inn in BC, at a small camp ground on the banks of the Thompson River, and at a small cafe called The Packing House.
Caches found, it was time for a "time check"; it was 5.30 PM-ish.....oh boy, so many more caches to do, so much more ground to cover.
We raced towards Ashcroft picking off caches as we went, taking the time at each cache to enjoy the scenery. As much as we wanted to to the "dash and grab" thing, the vistas where just so beautiful we couldn't help but stop to admire the land and think of what it was like over 100 years ago. It might not be all that different now; the clear blue Thompson River cutting it's way through the surrounding lowlands of glacial till, vast morraines of gravel and sand left by the retreating glaciers 10,000 years ago. The low rainfall, hot sun, and poor soil combine to make this the land of sage brush and rattlesnakes.
We arrived in Ashcroft around 7.30 PM, knowing that we had two, maybe three hours of daylight left before we would have to make a decision; whether to quit at night fall, or break out the flash lights.
We did the Ashcroft caches as quick as we could, then moved up to Cache Creek to pick up the ones there. By now it was around 8.30 PM....what to do, what to do.....we still had a few more caches to do, and I was getting caught up in the Gold Country quest as I only needed 4 more caches to get my 24.
We made the daring decision to push through to Clinton to pick off the caches we could, specifically the Gold Country caches. It was after 9.00 PM by the time we got into Clinton, and we needed to break out the mini mag lights to find the caches around town, all the while trying to not be too suspicious waving flashlights around in a small town.
We grabbed the Gold Country cache at the historic St Peter The Apostle church by the light of the flash lights and got away from the church lest we looked like we were up to no good.
Back in the Jeep, we counted the Gold Country caches, I now had 23, I needed one more! ARRRGGHH.......
Oh well, by now it was after 10.00 PM and it was time to start heading south for the long drive. Visions of completing my Gold Country quest were fading as I realized it was not to be this day, and that I would just have to do another tour to the area.
Heading back to Cache Creek, Cookie Cacher says to me, "you know, there is another Gold Country cache called Hat Creek just 26K west of Cache Creek on Hwy #99"
I ran the logistics through my head, guesstimating how long it would take to drive out west, find the cache, drive back, and then dead head all the way back to Vancouver. I came to the conclusion that it was better to say "enough's enough", and head home.
Cookie Cacher gave me one more assurance that if I wanted to go grab the cache, she was willing......tempting, but nahhh....time to turn towards home. As we approached the turn off for Hwy #99, I was content to know that one more cache was waiting for me some where down that highway.
"Wait, what's this".....that adrenaline rush was starting in the brain and moving down my arms, and then into my hands....and then a 'force' over came me and I turned the wheel hard so that the Jeep's grill was now pointed west ward towards the last remaining cache.
I couldn't see Cookie Cacher in the darkened cab of the Jeep, but I swear she was smiling, knowing that I had felt the irrestible pull of "just one more cache"!
Down the highway we ran, highbeams picking up the curves of the road as it meandered through what I remember is a lovely small valley with farm houses filling in the loneliness of the land.
We arrived at a fork in the road, one sign saying Hat Creek Road....Cookie Cacher says "thaddaway 4K"....off we go on the gravel road, the Jeep's tires hugging the gravel around the corners keeping us safe. We come to one more fork in the road, Cookie Cacher says "Left" on Upper Hat Road, just one more K and then "STOP"!
We park the Jeep on the side of the road, leave the parking lights on to help us find our way back in the dark, break out the BFLs and plunge off into the bush counting down to the treasure 30 metres away. We end up going in circles for a few minutes before Cookie Cacher leads us to a suspicious looking wood pile; we grab the wood off the pile and YES, YES, YES!! there it is!! Number 24 of the Gold Country caches found, the day is now complete!
We sign the log, ensuring we grab the required stickers, I do a little bit of the "Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah" dance singing "uh huh, uh huh, oh yeah, oh yeah, complete with the arms and hip movements! Cookie Cacher is not impressed....actually I think she was trying hard not to laugh at me......
Back in the Jeep, back down Upper Hat Creek Road , then down Hat Creek Road as Cookie Cacher reads about the coal deposits found in the area, back down Hwy #99 to the turn off for Cache Creek, then into Cache Creek for a tank full of gas for the Jeep, and a stomach full of Momma and Sirloin Burgers for us.
We looked back on the day, thinking how 6.00 AM was so long ago, it seemed like yesterday, and it almost was. Stomachs full, we started back through town when I said to Cookie Cacher, "wait, there's one right there you can get".
So, here we are, in downtown Cache Creek, in the middle of the busiest intersection in town, right by the Dairy Queen, at midnight, finding our last cache.
OK, OK, that's really enough now!! Let's put away the GPS' and start home. And we did, back down along the Thompson River, through Spences Bridge, through the Thompson River Canyon, entering back into familiar territory when we once again joined the Fraser River at Lytton.
Down on through the Fraser Canyon we travelled, past caches that we found oh so long ago.... We spit out of the Canyon at Hope, now on flat land, and hightailed it back to where Cookie Cacher had left her car in Maple Ridge.
It was just before 3.30 AM that I dropped her off, I'm sure she didn't get home till after 4.00 AM. 22 hours on the road, a whole day come and gone in the search for little tupper ware containers in the bush...some how it all seems so normal to me! :)
It took me hours to go through and log the caches, and I'm sure it was the same for Jeanine, not to mention the pictures to download.
Still, if you asked me to go up country this weekend and do it again, I'd say sure! That is, if I'm allowed.... LOL
Videos below, as well as the GPS Route I made of the day and uploaded to EveryTrails.com
You can click on the map to go to EveryTrail.com and see more details. You can also change the map type be selecting a different map style from the drop down menu in the upper right.
Had the good fortune to do a road trip to Cache Creek for the kick off of the Gold Rush Event on this past Saturday. Cache Creek is one of 6 B.C. Interior cities that have benefited from government funds to help the local economy recover during this economic downturn.
Cache Creek, Lillooet, Lytton, Clinton, Logan Lake and Merritt were all part of the Gold Rush Geocaching program designed to bring tourism dollars into the cities.
Aprrox 72 caches were placed between the cities and surrounding areas, highlighting the historical locations and at the same time, bringing in a new wave of tourists, in this case geocachers.
I had the pleasure of sharing the day's journey with Scruffster, also known in real life as Stu. I have travelled a fair amount in BC, as have many other cachers, and know the lower part of BC fairly well. Spending a day with Stu is always a treat, first because he's just basically a great guy; second, sharing a road trip with a person who doesn't see this part of the world very often reminds myself of why I like travelling as much as I do. Stu's excitement is contagious, and it leads me into enjoying the trip that much more.
The gawd awful time of 6.00 AM was the pre-arranged meet time in Maple Ridge where Stu would leave his car and jump in the Jeep. That meant I had to get up around 5.00 AM, and Stu was up even earlier....I think Stu was up at 4.00 AM !
We met up, loaded Stu's things into the Jeep, and then set off eastbound and down on the Lougheed Hwy.
We did a cache in Chilliwack just to warm up, but we should have taken this as an omen; it was a real, simple hide, that took Stu and I the better part of 15 minutes! Sadly, our caching skills would not improve much on the day.
We then travelled up the Fraser Canyon, with Stu shooting video for me where possible and firing off his own camera when ever he could. We stopped at the old Alexandra Bridge, then stopped just up the road at the Alexandra Lodge where we took some more shots of the old building and made note of the start of the First Brigade Trail, a Hudsons Bay Brigade Trail that wound over the mountains into the Coquihalla Valley.
Back on the road we stopped again at Hell's Gate to have a look over the edge at the river and building complex down below. While filming here, the gondola cars moved; one went down and one came up; on the one coming up, a woman was sitting out on the structure of the large arm that attached the car to the cable. She was obviously a tech checking the cable for wear and tear; if you think it's scary enough inside the car suspended over the canyon, try sitting outside above the car in a seat barely big enough for your bum! Didn't seem to faze her though....
From there we basically made a bee line for Cache Creek to make it in time for the 11.00 AM dead line where they would hand out the locations of the caches. We arrived at 10.30, which gave us time to sign in, put our name in for door prizes, and eat some of the large geocaching cake made especially for the kick off festivities.
At 11.00 AM precisely, a book was handed out to the cachers; the book contained not just the caches for Cache Creek, but for the other cities as well. Each cache had two pages dedicated to tell the historical significance of the area so that we may appreciate the history presented to us as we looked for the cache.
The cache pages also had parking co-ordinates, and the actual cache co-ordinates, it even gives the cache co-ordinates in UTM. Plus, as an added incentive to those non-cachers, the cache is also designed as a letterbox type. That means, rather than being provided with GPS co-ordinates, you are supplied with a set of instructions such as "walk 10 feet past the last fence post, then turn right and count 20 steps till you reach a large boulder". This way, even non-cachers can still be drawn to the local historical locations and have a chance to re-live the past.
Having this book is a great idea; you can pick up the book from the local tourism office, then as you travel through the Interior of BC following the Gold Rush Trail, you can pick and choose which caches to do, at the same time be educated about the history of the province.
The benefit to the communities is that they have now created themselves as a destination point, rather than a drive-through town. This will pay dividends in time for the local business owners; here's an example I over heard from just one couple this weekend; they arrived Friday night, head a few drinks in one of the local pubs, went over to a restaurant and had dinner, then stayed at a motel. In the morning they got up, had breakfast, started caching, had lunch, gassed up the car, had dinner and then headed home to Vancouver. Each one of those businesses benefitted from the Gold Rush campaign as, more than likely, they would have not even stopped and would have carried on to another destination like Kamloops.
Scruffster and I cached the morning away in Ashcroft and Cache Creek meeting up with several other cachers at various cache locations as we all searched for the elusive treasure hidden by the local Gold Rush group. The morning passed quickly and soon it was after lunch before we knew it.
We met up with another set of Vancouver area cachers called MSthebrain and Pinky, and decided to travel together as we started thinking about a route home. We decided by heading south-east we could hit Logan Lake and Merritt, two other participating cities in the Gold Rush event. This enabled us to pick up 12 event caches on the day; 12 more and we can send away for a special prize which I understand is a gold nugget... "hmmmm....gold......"
We had a great day doing the road trip, we had a ton of fun doing the Gold Rush caches and learning the history of the areas, and we had absolute blast spending time with MSthe brain and Pinky, they made the long trip home seem so much shorter.
AND, we got to share their finding of their 3,000th cache...only we didn't know it at the time and I'm not sure if they did either! :)
The road trip ended up being 750 K and 17 hours long, but I would do it again in a heart beat if I could. It was the two things combined that make up the core of a geocacher; exploring the open road and exploring new areas and finding new caches. In other words, just exploring is what drives a lot of us; that curiosity to see and find something new!
A big thanks to the Gold Rush staff who put this event together, and congrats to their cities for having the foresight to look at a new form of low impact tourism.
I have split the day's journey into two videos loaded up to YouTube. You can see them watch here or by going to my YouTube page here to view them and other geocaching videos I have done.
ABOVE: Original timbers shoring up KVR tunnel in Princeton
This May Long Weekend was when the Great Coal Rush geocaching event was hosted by the Tulameen Turtles in their home town of Tulameen.
The event area was in a radius of 50 kilometres from Tulameen itself; caches were placed as far south as Princeton and as far north as old railway town site of Brookmere between Hwy 5A and the Coquihalla Highway. A total of 55 caches were on the list of ones to find over the course of the 3 day event.
MrTJ and I did not have the good fortune to be able to attend all 3 days, however we were fortunate enough to be able to attend on Sunday to do some leisurely caching during the day. Our goal was to cache in the Princeton area, then arrive and check in at the Tulameen Turtle lair in the early afternoon. Well, that was our goal....we can now where close with our timing.
We grabbed a few caches on the way to Princeton, then aimed for our first cache at an old Kettle Valley Railway (KVR) tunnel just on the edge of town. Here we met up with some local Vancouver-area cachers in the form of Catapult Jeff and Iron Maiden, Pollywogg, the Wild Wiggly Beanz, the 911Turbos, Scruffster, and Goaliegirl38.
They were just walking back to their vehicles after doing the two caches in the area; we planned on only doing the closest one and then carrying on. We said our "hello's" and said TTYL as they continued on and we went for the cache.
We found the cache quick enough, then headed to the next one on our list; and who did we run into again just as we arrived, and they were leaving? Yep, the "crowd" again..
For the next couple of caches we were a few minutes behind them, and they eventually waited for us to catch up so we could all travel together.
We headed south of Princeton to do 3 caches in the area of the old Allenby mining town; not much is there now but a few old concrete structures of the mill and concentrator. At one time this was a booming town, but like so many mining towns, you would be hard pressed to find much left with a casual look.
The good thing to happen from all this, is that there are indeed many mining areas in the region, and if you look hard enough, you will find many structures still standing, especially in the Blakeburn area in the hills above Coalmont.
The whole idea of this event was to highlight the mining history in this part of the province, and to share the history with fellow cachers. The Tulameen Turtles did an excellent job of that this weekend.....
Back in Allenby, we found the first two caches soon enough, then continued onto the next one down the hill. This one was called "Standing Wall Sinking Shaft" and it was located at the base of a wall of volcanic rock that had extruded from the earth. All around this wall were several mine shafts that were beginning to cave in, making the area a bit dangerous to search in. The shafts just looked like large holes in the ground, but I'm sure there was a lot more of the "hole" beneath the layer of earth that we seen.
ABOVE; wall of volcanic rock
We finished off with these caches, did a couple more in Princeton, then headed for Tulameen while working on a multi cache called "Meet the Cachers". This was a Turtles cache that brought you to cacher's neighbourhoods in Princeton, Coalmont, and ended in Tulameen.
We met several of the cachers along the way, and stopped and had pleasant conversations with them. The final was located on the edge of the Tulameen River, a pretty spot indeed.
Back in Tulameen it was now almost 6.00 PM, and at 6.30 PM the group was scheduled to meet in front of the web cam in beautiful downtown Tulameen to have a group photo done.
Not all cachers were able to make the photo op due to time constraints, but we had a good representation of the weekend gang.
Right next door to the web cam location was the hall were we met to have a pot luck dinner, and man was the food good, and plenty of it. Don't know how all these people staying in tents or pop up campers managed to make such good food, but they did...
Kris and Jordy, AKA the Tulameen Turtles, presided over the night's affair as door prizes were given out, and the poker players in the cacher group turned in their best hand from the envelopes they had picked up at various caches. Each envelope contained playing cards to make up your poker hand.
The prizes were awarded, the night wound down, and the folks in the hall gave Kris and Jordy a very, very well deserved round of applause saying "thanks" for all your hard work on an event that was beyond belief. Every one has been raving about the good time they had searching for caches and learning the rich history of the area.
This event has set a very high bar for any caching events to follow - again congrats to Kris and Jordy on a fantastic event that came off without a hitch.
After the event MrTJ and I said our goodbyes to our caching friends, then began the long haul back down to the Lower Mainland. The trip would take longer going back then coming up, as the mountain roads are not as safe to drive fast in the dark as they are in the day. One of the reasons I was in no rush as the number of deer in the area is high and they all seem to come out at night.
Between Tulameen and Princeton, as space of 18 miles, we counted 55 Mule deer, many wandering on the highway. Wouldn't want to bump into one of those on a blind turn...
We arrived back in Maple Ridge around 1.00 AM; I dropped off MrTJ, then drove home and dropped myself off into bed....the Jeep can wait till morning to get unpacked....
This event did live up to its name...."The GREAT Coal Rush"
