2013-05-24 44 -115
| Fri 24 May 2013 in 44,-115: 44.2111066, -115.9442957 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Location
In the mountains north of Crouch.
Participants
Plans
The hash here looked somewhat more reachable than usual today, so I decided to try for it.
Expedition
This expedition didn't go terribly well from the start. I got off to a later start than I had hoped to for this expedition. And of course driving up to the area of the hash took longer than expected as well. And there was no place to park near my first choice location to climb to the hash. But I did find a spot to park a couple of miles further down the road. I'd hoped to reach the hash before 7pm, but as it turned out, it was just past 7 when I parked the car, with a bit over a mile of mountainous forest between me and the hash point. Still, there was a spot where the climb up to the appropriate elevation looked not too bad nearby, so I set out up the mountain. At first, there was something of a trail heading in roughly the correct direction, so I made decent time. But about half way up to the elevation I was shooting for, the trail petered out, so I was hiking through trackless forest. My plan at the time was to get to roughly the correct elevation, and then hike along the slope around the mountain to the hash point. The hash point was located at about 800ft higher altitude than where I had parked. I climbed about 700ft in my first 0.4 miles or so of walking, then turned to follow the slope as planed. However, occasional patches of heavy undergrowth made for very slow progress. As 8pm approached, I'd made it about 0.75 miles. I was about half a mile from the hash as the crow flies, but probobly closer to 1.25 miles by my planned route. And I was beginning to lose the light. At that point, the slow progress, rising numbers of mosquitos, and the prospect of trying to navigate terrain in the dark which was moderately difficult in good light was enough to make me turn back.
If I had arrived in the area an hour earlier and/or found parking nearer my first choice location for the climb, I may well have made it. But since neither of those things happened, I'll have to mark this down as the failed first attempt to get this difficult graticule.
Photos
The hash point is about half a mile in that direction. However, note that the camera is pointed about 35° upward from horizontal in order to see any distance up the slope.
