2015-09-20 55 37

Location

That Geohash is located within the Losiniy Ostrov National Park (Национальный Парк Лосиный Остров), on a glade, near (but fortunately not within) some guarded place.

Participants

Alexey Nigin (talk)

Plans

Alexey Nigin initially wanted to get there by noon and meet other Geohashers.

Expedition

The expedition began at my countryhouse, which is located 10 km to the North of Geohash. At 10:43 I sat atop my bicycle, not forgetting to take useful things such as my phone, marker and candies. (In case you were wondering, I have switched from third-person to first-person narrative, but I am still the same Alexey Nigin.) I traversed most of the distance just fine: I rode the bike in my favourite hands-free manner, breathed fresh air and occasionally stopped to make a photo of something. But then the problems began to appear, replicate, breed and multiply at ever-increasing rate. To begin with, it's no secret that there are few good roads in Russian forests. I didn't manage to find one; fortunately, I got a pretty good substitute: a high-voltage power line. Trees below such lines are cut for safety reasons, so I could ride more or less normally.

At some point I realised that I should get off the road to reach the Geohash. (Definition: In Russia, a road is any place without trees.) I locked my bicycle and masked it with grass. The first few hundred meters walked on foot were easy: I just walked. But soon a wall consisting of raspberry plants (without raspberries) and nettle (also without raspberries) rose in front of me. Breaking through it was really hard: I fought for every meter, and my legs quickly became very itchy. All of a sudden, that horror ended and I faced a neat forest with grass at the bottom. "Ok, I will go there", I thought. Step, step, step, splash! I realised I was actually walking across a swamp. Anyway, wet legs were not such a problem for me, so I continued to go.

I walked and walked. At some moment, I saw a fence in front of me. The fence was too high to see what was on the other side, but in any case, it was certain that I shouldn't have gone there, and I didn't. After going along the fence (which was easy, as nettle refused to grow there for some reason) I reached a large glade, with the Geohash right in the middle. Nobody was there, so I had nothing to do other than the normal routine. Marker got glued, photos got taken, and I started a long way back.

5 hours and 22 minutes after the start, I, tired and thirsty, arrived back home to eat an abnormally large dinner. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and it was probably the most difficult physical exercise I have ever had.