2012-02-29 45 -76

Location

The geohash is in a pig farmers field off of Upper Dwyer Hill Road.

Who went

The Expedition

PhilRichard

This is my first geohashing adventure, I decided Feb 29th would be a good day to start being the leap day and all. I live in the graticule (45,-75) next to this one, and it was my intention to go geohashing there except when I got to work I realized the geohash in this graticule (45, -76) was closer, and I only had my lunch hour to get this done. I left the office at noon and drove 36 km west, the geohash was in a field about 100 m off the road. The field was fenced in by a short wire fence, on private property.

I saw a gentlemen enter a steel building at the edge of the property so I knocked on the door and was invited into the steel building by Mike (who owns the steel building adjacent to the field) to get out of the cold because it was -22°C with the wind-chill today. I briefly explained what geohashing was to him and asked if I could go into his field, however he said he didn't own that field, but the pig farmer across the street did, but he said that the field was always vacant and didn't think anyone would mind if I walked in it and took some pictures. He warned me however I should have brought boots, and to be careful of the barbed wire at the top of the fence.

In hind sight boots would have been smart but lucky for me the field is elevated higher up than most of the surroundings, so the strong wind prevented deep snow from accumulating. While the wind may have made the terrain easy to walk on, it also made it really, really cold. After jumping the barbed wire fence (which was made easy due to a snow removal pile), I walked looking to the geohash. On my journey through the field however a gust of cold wind blew a small piece of paper on which I had written the exact coordinates on, out of my hands.

With a quick phone call to a colleague at work I was able to get to the exact location. Thus ended my first geohashing adventure. I didn't look at the frozen geohash achievement before I left so I didn't bring a thermometer, but it was way, way below freezing!