Cache Mania

For me geocaching is the ultimate mix of three elements: technology, outdoors and citizenship.   When it comes to the technology what could be cooler than using a hand held device that receives signals from space!  The various geocaching websites are pretty cool too.   The outdoors is equally easy to understand.  Those satelite signals only penetrate so far into buildings, we are forced to go outdoors if we want to Geocache. Citizenship is a little less obvious.   

I could have said friendship or even fellowship but there is something about geocaching that makes me think of citizenship.  Complete strangers place something they have bought or made at some location that is at least slightly inconvenient for them so that others may enjoy the search.   The people that find these containers by-and-large leave them as they find them.  If that’s not being a good citizen I don’t know what is. 

The fact these geocaching citizens often gather to exchange ideas, swap stories and track down the people that hide those devilishly hard to find geocaches makes attending geocaching events worthwhile.  These can be local events or large regional geobashes.  All of them tend to be fun if that is your goal. 

Here are my five reasons why you should attend geocaching events:

1. You will get hints on how to find those tricky geocaches that we all have trouble with form time-to-time. 
2. You will learn about geocaching etiquette.  The only way we can continue to enjoy this activity is if we collectively follow proper protocol and etiquette for placing and finding geocaches.
3. You will discover some geocaches that you will enjoy finding. 
4. You will get tips and advice on gear, techniques, safety and other practical tidbits that will make geocaching more enjoyable.
5. You’ll have people to tell your stories to.  Just like fisherman have the “one that got away” stories geocachers all have the “I couldn’t find it … until” stories.  These are fun to share. 

If you think of some reasons I missed then please share them in the comments section below.  I look forward to seeing you at a geocaching event sometime!

Tags: Geocaching Events
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The Portuguese Swamp, a protected wetland in Cambridge, Ontario.

The Portuguese Swamp is a Provincially Significant Wetland, most of which is owned by the City of Cambridge with some parts privately owned. The Portuguese Swamp is bound on the south by Burnett Ave, to the east by Townline Road, the west by Can-Amera Parkway and to the north by a residential subdivision.

The swamp supports a number of significant species of plants and herptiles and the diversity and size of the aquatic components provide habitat for amphibians. Amphibians and reptiles have survived on the planet for some 350 million years, but world-wide populations have declined just in the last two decades. Amphibian and reptile declines may indicate both local and global environmental change. Although population declines have been documented in areas close to human activities, even more alarming is that populations have also disappeared from pristine wilderness areas.

The name was chosen in the mid-1980s when the Ministry of Natural Resources first evaluated the wetland as provincially significant using their wetland evaluation system. The name was used as a locator reference for the swamp which was accessed from the rear of the Portuguese Club on Townline Road prior to the residential development around the swamp. There are now a series of trails that border the Portuguese Swamp.

In 1989 the Portuguese Swamp was cited as a reason that a new subdivision should not be allowed to proceed as it would isolate that subdivision from the rest of the city. This objection was noted but did not stop the construction of the Mattamy Townline subdivision which started in 2002.

The residents of the Mattamy Townline subsequently forced the Cambridge City Council to investigate what can be done to control nuisance mosquitoes within a two kilometre radius of the Portuguese Swamp.

The City’s Community Services Department provides maintenance services through an agreement with the Grand River Conservation Authority, which provides wetland management services.

Tags: Cambridge, Wetland
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I didn’t buy my eTrex legend for geocaching. I bought just because I thought GPS was a cool technology. A friend at work introduced me to the idea of geocaching and with eTrex in hand I decided to give it a go. The eTrex was a good entry level unit that allowed me to try geocaching. I doesn’t have all the features of more recent units but it will certainly do that job.

My first experience with the unit was a complete failure, operator error! I did not enter the coordinates correctly and I was way off the actual cache location. Thank goodness for GPX format files and writing directly to the unit from the caching website. Once I corrected my own error I tried again with greater success. That was the last time I used that unit as my primary geocaching GPS. Between that second find and when I started Caching again I had purchased a Garmin GPS 60SCx.

Pros

• Inexpensive
• geocaching.com compatible
• rugged
• long battery life

Cons

• Black and White screen
• Low resolution
• serial connectivity only (needs a USB to serial connector)

Tags: eTrex, Garmin, review
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The Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx is my primary GPS for geocaching. You would this this unit was purpose built for geocaching the features are so easy to use. It even tops the Garmin

Colorado in it’s abitlity to easily add waypoints on the fly.

Pros

• Long battery life
• Clear bright screen
• Geocaching specific features
• On the fly waypoints
• Delete waypoints directly on the unit

Cons

• Not designed for paperless caching
• Does not support on-board pictures
• No wireless functionality

Tags: 60CSx, Garmin, GPSMAP
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The Wilfrid G Crozier reserve has played an important role in preserving the beauty and ecology of the Niagara Escarpments. The 4-hectare reserve straddles a section of the escarpment near Milton. Donated to the Ontario Federation of Naturalists in 1972 by Wilfrid G. Crozier, the reserve allowed the Federation to appear before hearings on the Niagara Escarpment Plan as not only an interested party, but also as a landowner.

This reserve, though small in size, straddles the Niagara Escarpment, from the field which fronts on Highway 25 below the bluff, to the bluff itself, to a field above the rock edge. The cliff at this point is not high, but it is typical of escarpment outcrops in this region. Much of the surrounding land above the escarpment is forested, and the Bruce Trail passes through the middle of the property. [Hilts 1984]

The escarpment face, except for the top five metres or so, is mostly buried behind a talus slope. Plants that have managed to gain a foothold in crevasses and on ledges include such uncommon species as 

Slender Cliff-brake and Walking Fern. Spikenard, Selkirk’s Violet and Spotted St. Johnswort are other interesting plants found on the property. Here, the escarpment rim is dominated by Eastern Hemlock with a scattering of Sugar Maple, Paper Birch, Eastern White Cedar, White Ash, and Red Oak. The cliff-edge forest extends about 12 metres back from the face and then opens into old field again.

Above and below the short cliffs that divide the reserve in half are old fields that have been tilled. In the recent past, these fields have been used mostly for grazing and hay mowing. Now they are good examples of old-field succession communities. A very open cover of young trees such as White Ash and White Elm gives way to mostly shrub cover – Hawthorn, Staghorn Sumac, Chokecherry, Raspberry and the like – as the visitor moves away from the base of the slope.

Geocachers can help ensure places like the Wilfrid G Crozier reserve exist by supporting organizations like the Ontario Federation of Naturalists.

Tags: Conservation
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