2021-12-17 62 29

Location

In a forest near Jukolankatu road in Joensuu. About 400 metres from my home.

Participants

Kripakko

Plans

This point is very close to my home and on public property. Now I have good chances of scoring several achievements, perhaps on several expeditions:

Reconnaissance mission at midnight. As I write this, it is less than two hours to midnight.
After about half past eight, there is enough daylight so I can see without artificial light. I can try to build a snowman and do other silly things if I feel like it.
Sunrise at 9:28. Yes, I am not far from the arctic circle, and the winter solstice will occur in a few days.

We discussed a possible Frozen Hobbit achievement on Discord. While it will be theoretically possible (the temperature will be about −5 °C), I am afraid of how my feet will cope. I could probably run to the hashpoint barefoot and back home, but stopping twice to eat might be too much to take. I will consider it in the morning.

Expedition #1

I left for the first visit just before midnight. I got outside, and after a couple of minutes of jogging I was at the hashpoint. For some reason, I had a surprising amount of trouble finding it with the GPS receiver: the measured location jumped all over the place, and the GPS uncertainty was high, while it usually stabilises to 2–4 m. Regardless, I was able to get to a place where I could take photos for proof.

I will be back later today. I will need taller rubber boots since there was too much snow for my "winter boots", about 40 cm. The temperature was 0 °C, and it is expected to get down to −5 °C during the day. There was sufficient light from the street lights that I could see perfectly, but I will need to wait for the morning to get enough light for the camera.

Expedition #2

I had more serious things to do, so I decided to just make a quick visit at sunrise. I ended up inadvertently delaying my departure from home and arrived at the hashpoint at exactly the sunrise time of 9:28, which I had determined using XEphem. Suncalc.org, timeanddate.com and sunrisesunsetmap.com give sunrise times 9:28, 9:29 and 9:29 respectively. My Garmin eTrex 30 shows 9:27, but I guess we can ignore that.

I took a video of my approach to the hashpoint. It turned out to be not very great, so I will not publish it for now. At the very least, it needs stabilisation, for which I do not have time now. I took two snapshots from it to show how the hashpoint looked like and that I was there at sunrise time. I also brought my thermometer which showed that the temperature was −1 °C, not as low as expected.

There were criss-crossing tractor tracks in the forest, and I saw a worker working on the tractor a short distance away. Perhaps some forest maintenance work is done here currently. I did not want to draw his attention by doing anything peculiar, so I just took some photos and left. I could make snowballs with some difficulty, but I did not want to spend time building a snowman.

I decided against trying to get the Frozen Hobbit achievement. It was cold, snowy and slippery. While I would have been physically able to do it, I would likely have gotten my feet frostbitten. I know what it feels like, and I definitely do not want to feel it again.

Photos

GPS receiver at the hashpoint at midnight. The image is blurry, but is shows the location N 62.62078°, E 29.81023°, 3 m to the geohash, with a GPS uncertainty of 6 m.
Legible proof of location.
Proof of date and time.
Selfie at the hashpoint at midnight.
Arriving at the hashpoint. A blurry snapshot from the video.
GPS receiver at the hashpoint at sunrise time. Another snapshot from the video. The location is N 62.62072°, E 29.81011°, which is 6.1 m from the geohash. Eh, close enough.
Selfie at the hashpoint after sunrise.
My thermometer showing that the temperature was −1 °C.