Difference between revisions of "2009-05-08 49 -120"

Revision as of 04:13, 12 May 2009

People met here. Played Twister. Saw deer. Write up later.

Location

Up a hill, across Highway 3 (Crowsnest), 1.3 km from Stemwinder Provincial Park campsite, east of Princeton.

Participants

Planning

Robyn and Rhonda have been meeting each other at or on the way to geohashes ever since Rhonda joined the sport, and Vancouver is such an active graticule that the two have each met a number of geohashers. Meanwhile Juventas has been geohashing since July 2008 but due to the sparse population and remote locations in his graticule, has never met another geohasher. He posts spectaular photographs of rugged scenery, and eye-opening accounts of his attempts to reach remote locations, so clearly he was up for a challenge. In the interest of geohasher camaraderie and increasing connectivity on the Meetup graph it was time for a road trip.

We started planning this trip a few weeks ago. We decided that it would involve overnight camping, ideally to earn the at-that-time-unclaimed Camping geohash achievement. While we were still negotiating a mutually free weekend, an ideal camping geohash came up in Bellingham and Robyn and Rhonda went and did it, but Juventas still needed the achievement for his portfolio, plus Robyn and Robyn needed more practice camping. We settled on May 9th/10th, but it's very difficult to make detailed advance plans for a geohash, as we wouldn't know where it was until the weekend arrived. Juventas lives 450 km away from Robyn and Rhonda, with six different graticules on the road in between, so we decided that when the weekend coordinates came out on Friday morning we would discuss them and choose the best one(s) in between in which to meet. There were no known geohashers in the intervening graticules.

Coordinates are announced on Friday at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time, so we woke then and started searching for points that were accessible and possibly appropriate for camping. Juventas had maps and local knowledge of the graticules closer to him, so Robyn and Rhonda concentrated on the graticules closer to them. Princeton looked achievable on the Friday, and Juventas said that Kelowna was doable, so Robyn and Rhonda decided to go to Princeton on the way to the Kelowna area. Then Juventas, who had taken Friday off, said he would meet the women there. We arranged a rendezvous at Stemwinder Provincial Park, and started the road trip.

Expedition

Robyn

My purist vision of geohashing would have us specify no other meeting place than the geohash itself. I have this sustained image of people from different places climbing up different faces of the same mountain and slowly converging on the same otherwise undistinguished point. But romantic notions take second place to safety, and it's a much better idea to meet at the base of the mountain and all climb it together. That way no one gets eaten by a bear, or falls down and is never found again, except maybe by a bear.

I packed the car with a small inflatable boat, some rope, a lifejacket, a tent, two sleeping bags, a couple of knapsacks of different sizes, a stove, fuel, a warm jacket, raingear, a couple of changes of clothes, GPS, compass, chalk, and a Twister game. I added my trusty hashscot T-Rex to the pile and drove to North Vancouver to pick up Rhonda.