2024-12-21 41 -88

Location

On a trail in a residential neighborhood in Bolingbrook.

Participants

Haberdasher

Expedition

I wasn't really expecting to go to this hashpoint--there was nothing major stopping me, but I don't drive, and it's a bit far to ask my parents to schlep me, even on a day when we didn't have any other big plans. But when I asked my mom, "Hey, any chance I could talk you into going geohashing in Bolingbrook?" Her response was "Sure, if you'll go grocery shopping with me." Well worth the trade-off in my book.

We actually ended up running a few errands along the way--donating some stuff to a local thrift store, sending a return back to Amazon, and then after the hashpoint, shopping at two different grocery stores. All stuff that was good to get done, at any rate.

We headed to the hashpoint after dropping off the donations and return, but before the grocery shopping. Not too far from the hashpoint, my mother griped that she hadn't known it would be quite so far into Bolingbrook, and she might not have agreed to our deal if she had known. Oops. Well, she didn't ask for clarification either...

I knew going into it that the hashpoint could be reached from near a trail that itself could be reached where it popped out in between two houses in a residential neighborhood. Turns out that the trail in question is lengthy, and there's more than one spot where that description could apply in the area, but with the help of the GPS we found the right spot without too much trouble.

I hadn't been expecting the trail entrance to have a big red sign warning of coyotes being present in the area. The sign made me realize that I couldn't really do a ton to defend myself if a coyote did actually attack me. But then, we've got coyotes in my neighborhood too, and they've never bothered me, so why should this be different? Still, a disconcerting way to start the on-foot portion of my geohashing expedition... and it did make me wonder how much good that sign really did, with its vague warning of a rare and unpredictable danger. A bit like "ice falling" signs there. What are they expecting us to do to prepare ourselves, exactly?

Anyway. The trail itself looked nice enough. I could see a park not too far away, but the hashpoint was in a different direction, where the trail branched off to the left. The branch in question was right next to a sign about pollinator habitats which I probably would have read, but the sign was almost entirely covered in snow, and I didn't really want to get my gloves covered in snow by brushing it off.

The trail itself wasn't covered in snow, at least. I had thought it would be, given that we'd had snow fairly recently and it hadn't warmed up much since then, so it melting away wasn't happening too fast. I guess the black asphalt kept the snow off of the trail itself.

Along the way I bumped into a milepost stating that I was .75 miles along the trail, though I'm not sure what starting point it was referencing. But I did nominate that milepost to be in the Niantic Wayfarer system, which was a nice little bonus.

I got close to the hashpoint without too much trouble... but found that I couldn't get closer than 5 or 6 meters while still on the trail. And while the trail itself was snow-free, I couldn't say the same about the dead, frozen prairie grasses that lay off the trail. But I hadn't come that far just to be scared by a little snow and a few brambles, so I plunged ahead, tramping through the snow and dead plants until the Geohash Droid app announced that I had made it to the hashpoint. It was only a few feet from the trail, thankfully, and neither myself nor my clothes got injured in the process.

It's an odd little area there. As shown in my Stupid Grin photo, the big suburban homes in the area are still clearly visible from the trail. But the trail itself still feels calm, quiet... in other seasons, it'd probably be a beautiful place to look at the greenery and watch bugs and birds flit around. Even in winter it was pretty, and a nice place for a walk. Under different circumstances, I'd like to walk that whole trail's length rather than just the small snippet I covered to get to and from the hashpoint.

I mentioned the snow, but not the cold itself. But as a (slightly belated) weather app screenshot shows, it was several degrees below freezing during my hashpoint attempt. I didn't feel the cold too much, as I was nicely bundled up and it wasn't a terribly long trek, but it was definitely a cold one. One of the coldest days we've had so far this winter, actually. Though that says as much about our winter so far having been unseasonably mild than about the actual temperature that day...