2012-03-06 42 -72

Tue 6 Mar 2012 in 42,-72: 42.4937127, -72.2551977 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

This is in a state forest about 100 yards off a paved (but unplowed) single lane road to the northeast of Quabbin Reservoir. The road seems to serve as only an access point for the forest, and is likely unaccessible by many cars during the winter.

Participants

• Todd

Expedition

Fail to the tune of about a third of a mile. This was the result of trusting a pair of coordinates typed into the Google Maps iPhone app. What's worse, I only discovered this when I got home from what turned out to be an unexpectedly difficult journey. There I was, alone, celebrating in the dark, in the middle of the woods, a mile and a half from a highway with very little traffic, being absolutely certain that I'd passed over the point. This was wrong.

The adventure started in Brattleboro, VT, where I work. After seeing the location of today's geohash, I decided it was too far out-of-the-way. Eventually I spontaneously changed my mind, despite mapping the directions to it and discovering that it would extend my already hour long commute back to Northampton to a two hour commute. I was leaving work late -- 6:30 -- and had downed a cup of coffee to ensure that I wouldn't fall asleep on the way home.

Even so, off I went. I changed my mind a few times, and then just decided that I would start driving towards it and re-route myself back towards Northampton if I changed my mind again on the way there. I memorized the simplest route I could see, and took off.

Twice on the way there I stopped because I had the sneaking suspicion that I'd just taken a wrong turn, and I was right both times. As I was approaching the destination, I kept my eye out for places to park. They were few and far between, as this was a 50mph highway going from almost nowhere to almost nowhere else with only a smattering of houses in between -- and much of it had a guard rail. I had the feeling from the moment I looked at the geohash in the morning that the road passing right by would be undrivable. When I finally got a look at it through the passenger window, I couldn't decide.

The road was an immediate dip from the highway, and snowy, but with intermittent dark patches that seemed to indicate dry tracks. The snow looked shallow where I could see it, but keep in mind that by this time it was well beyond dusk.