2012-10-28 62 27

Location

About 20 km south from Kuopio, 10 km from my home (as the crow flies). The hashpoint lies about 50 meters from the nearest gravel road. The terrain is most likely forest, although it could have been cut down, too. Nevertheless, it should be easily accessible this time of year as the surface of the ground is already frozen due to temperatures below zero having prevailed for a few days, but there isn't any snow yet.

Participants

Tilley, Mrs. Tilley

Plans

This is a nice hashpoint for a Sunday morning trip. Forecast promises sunny and crisp, -4°C, winter weather, perfect for adventuring. Will definitely go there by bike. Mrs. Tilley also says she wants to come, she needs some exercise now being officially on maternity leave.

Updated Tilley 14:56, 27 October 2012 (EDT) : The weather forecast now says -8°C for the morning and -1°C for the afternoon. This will most likely be a Frozen Hash :)

Expedition

Some equipment needed for hashing

In the morning there was some cloud cover, so the temperature was "only" -4°C. However, this meant that it would most likely remain about the same, as the Sun could not raise the temperature. There still wasn't any snow, the Eastern part of Finland had somehow managed not to get any snowfall, which was rather surprising. Of course this made our trip easier, I didn't even have to change winter tyres to our bicycles.

Hashcot seems happy to start the expedition!

We ate breakfast and prepared ourselves to journey packing some hot drinks in thermos bottles, bicycle repair kit, a couple of thermometers and a lot of batteries for the GPS.

First few kilometers seemed to take a long time and the hash didn't seem to get any closer at all, as we had to navigate through the suburbs in twists and turns. Then we finally left the town behind and started cycling along the bigger and straighter road. Finding the right turns was easier this time than last time, and the hashpoint closed rapidly.

Horses have got their winter coats on already

The last 3 kilometers was gravel road, and the surface was a bit bumpy. Amidst the usual barking dogs we drove past the scattered houses and surprisingly quick arrived to the small wooded hill beside the fields, that contained the hashpoint.

Didn't lock our bikes, we trusted the dog-walkers wouldn't steal them

Here we had to dismount and leave bikes to side of the road. GPS signaled we had only 50 meters to venture into the forest. This forest was not as hard to walk through as the last hashforest, and we were quickly at the hashpoint.

Hashpoint-pose

We drank some hot chocolate from thermos, took some pictures and wrote "The Internet was here"-note to a piece of paper and left it hanging on the three. We noticed that the digital thermometer apparently didn't work at freezing temperatures, as the two different gauges (for inside and outside, one sensor being in the device itself and the other on the end of the cable) had more than 3 degrees difference, showing about 5°C and 1,5°C. We therefore dismissed them both and looked only at the analog thermometer designed for fridge and freezer, and that one showed -4°C. We thought this was enough proof for a Frozen geohash achievement, as we were starting to feel quite chilly ourselves after the warmth from 15 km cycling trip started to fade. It is funny how only -4°C feels so cold at the beginning of the winter, while in January these temperatures would feel quite warm.

Hashfood!

Hashfood found its way to our wok.

On the way back to our bikes I found a surprisingly well preserved chanterelle. This was probably due to the autumn being very warm until this week, when temperatures suddenly plunged below the freezing point. That's why the chanterelle had not decayed into wet slush, which happens when temperatures zig-zag around freezing point for a long time. I collected this hashfood with joy. There is something very intriguing about people going to random locations calculated by a hashfunction and guided by satellites hurtling around in space - and foraging their food from the nature there!

Additional photos

On the way, leaving town behind
Soil!
Hashpoint almost at sight! It's on the hill which is in the right edge of the picture.
Hashcot and the devices.
View from the hashpoint. The usual dull-looking Finnish forest.
The Internet was here!