2009-10-17 64 18

Sat 17 Oct 2009 in 64,18: 64.3283133, 18.5769559 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

Looks like the hashpoint is located on top of a hill in the middle of the Västerbotten wilderness. We would know the details of the location better if we had actually reached it! :)

Participants

• Silver
• Korny

Expedition

Silver

So, finally we were going to do a geohash in my home graticule! Since this graticule consists of mostly trees and wilderness with some small dots of civilization here and there, the hashpoint ended up in the middle of nowhere. But it looked like a road passed nearby, and on the map there where no water or any other major obstacles in the area. The satellite pictures are low resolution over this area so it was mostly guesswork trying to figure out what kind of terrain we would be dealing with. There was something dark close to the road that we didn't really notice in our preparations - in retrospect we should have realized what it was.

The weather was perfect, cold and crisp with beautiful red-gold autumn sunshine poured out over the hills and forest. We found the small road that would lead us to the hashpoint, and this time it was an actual drivable road (not a horse-trail with practice jumps placed every ten meters) which took us to a place quite near the hashpoint.

When we exited the car we noticed some orange plastic bands tied to the trees by the road. Upon closer inspection the words "Älgjakt" (moose hunt) could be read on them. Stories of accidental shots killing foreign berry pickers and other people stupid enough to stumble into the woods in hunting season went through our heads, but after a brief discussion we decided to try for the hashpoint anyway. No hunters (or moose for that matter) could be heard nearby.

We trampled off through the snow-covered grass and into the trees. After a short walk we came upon that that blurry dark thing on the grainy satellite pictures, which was actually a wide stream that ran parallell to the road! We followed it downstream for a bit, but soon realized that there were no way to pass it other than going all the way back to the major road and then upstream again on the other side of the water. Not exactly the kind of light expedition we had in mind.

Instead we chose to gracefully give up. We went back to the small road and climbed up a hill on the other side of the road, made a small fire and grilled some sausages and "pinnbröd" (twist bread). After a while I got tired of sausage and experimented with grilling other edible things found in the backpack. Interesting discovery: most kinds of regular candy is improved in both taste and texture by being lightly grilled over a campfire for a couple of minutes.

We sat there until the sun went down behind the hill on the other side of the road (which probably was were our hashpoint was located) and then drove home smelling of woodsmoke and chorizo. All in all it was an awesome day, with great weather and nice company! The only annoyance is that we failed to deflower my home graticule.

Photos

Later.

Ribbons

Silver and Korny earned the My kingdom for a boat consolation prize by being prevented from reaching the (64, 18) geohash on 2009-10-17 by an impassable and unforeseen wide stream.