2025-01-11 42 -88
| Sat 11 Jan 2025 in 42,-88: 42.4687783, -88.1875912 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Location
The middle of a small almost-loop made by Gold Finch Trail in Illinois' Chain O'Lakes State Park.
Participants
Plans
I planned, initially, to leave right after I got off work at 8am. I would've got there at ~8:45am and been home with time enough to sit around, possibly read, and then go to sleep.
Expedition
We start slightly unconventionally. By the time the end of my work shift came around, I entirely forgot about the hash. I was making to leave, warmed my car up a touch so I was not really, very cold while driving home, and then set off. During the very first turn of my workplace's driveway I accelerated too hard, fishtailed, and ended up in the thicket. Please see the photo in the gallery as I find it quite comedic.
It took three hours, calling in a coworker who was not working, and much frustration, but we were able to get my little (long; big) grand marquis free of it's grass, dirt, and small tree prison. As far as I can tell, thankfully, nothing it wrong with it.
I went to get gas (i was below empty!) and then remembered "Oh, hey, geohash, I should do that!"
So that is why I include the short spun-off-the-road preamble. If I hadn't driven from the road, got stuck for three hours, and finally gotten out? I would not have got the hash. I would have remembered it halfway home and said "A shame, maybe another day". The car-crashing was integral to the hashing and thus, included :)
I set off for the point! I did not remember where it was specifically just that it had trails around it. So when I pulled into the Chain O'Lakes State Park I was surprised to learn it was a state park! I expected a little forest preserve or perhaps a weird field. It is really quite beautiful there.
I parked, put my boots on, scarfed up, and walked down Badger Trail for a bit until I hit the interconnect to Gold Finch Trail. There was an interesting fenced off cube just in front of the interconnect. It was quite old and disused; the fence wire making it up was very rusted, the posts had sagged and leaned, and the sign on it had fallen mostly off. I forgot to take a picture of all of it, but the sign is below. It is very hard to read so I have transcribed it at the end. It was quite interesting! It has the word Exclosure which Firefox does not think is real.
Anyway, I walked past the deer exlosure and continued towards the kind-of-center of the almost-loop that the section of trail I left was trying to make. I tried to follow what I will call "wind veins" (paths of blown down grass) and other looks-like-paths as to not trample too much. I made my way to near the center, but not the hash, and found a wide clearing of flattened grass. It didn't look like it was wind-blown, but trampled from multiple directions.
I continued on to the point. When I arrived I found a small rectangle of trampled grass. Again, it looked like it was crushed from multiple angles and not just blown by the wind. I mentioned this in the Geohashing Discord and Tarasaurus had said the same has happened to her back in August, 2024 (2024-08-04_41_-87)! That she found a mysterious trampled patch of grass right at the point. It's very spooky and very cool. The ninjas, they are here!
Standing directly on the spot that was trampled gave me a 0.17ft distance. The accuracy was ~50ft, but it was putting me equal distances around the point as it updated. I feel very strongly that the trampled area contained the point.
I tried to walk directly forward to get back to the trail, but ran into a wall of thorny branches. I did not like this, so I continued along the tree-and-thorny-branch-wall until I found somewhere that looked less dense and painful to escape to the trail. I succeeded and made it back to my car.
Geohash done! It was exciting.
Mostly-fallen Sign Transcription: "This exlosure prevents deer from browsing the vegetation within the fence. By excluding deer we can better measure their impact on the parks vegetation. The information collected will help determine the best management alternative to protect the rich diversity of plants and animals living at Chain O-Lakes Start Park"
Photos
I was stuck here for three hours! It was exciting and annoying and kind of entertaining
Deer exclosure sign
I love this photo. It's beautiful.
Proof gennyble made it to the geohash.
