2009-12-24 40 -74

Thu 24 Dec 2009 in 40,-74: 40.6805756, -74.3902986 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

Watching Reservation, a short hike from Cataract Hollow Road.

Participants

• Jevanyn and son

Plans

With the extended weekend, I hoped one of the four geohashes would be accessible. This one was near perfect, landing in Watching Reservation, a mostly open land preserve in Union County. The satellite view confirmed that there was a complicated set of trails in the vicinity, so reaching the geohash was a simple hike.

Expedition

Things got slightly more complicated once I started the expedition. It being Christmas Eve, my wife was eager to get me out of the house so that she could wrap my awesome Christmas present. Which meant I had to take my son with me, and run a few other errands as well. She literally called me to pick up milk on the way home :-)

Also, there had been a significant snowstorm on Saturday, so there was still four or five inches of snow covering the trails.

When I arrived at the park, Cataract Hollow Road turned out to be a local-traffic-only road. Not quite a private road, but clearly not open to explorers. The entrance had a parking area, so that's where I dropped anchor parked the van.

With so far to walk, and so much snow on the trails, I ended up carrying Evan on my shoulders to the hashpoint, and back, while juggling my phone and my house-mate's camera, (uphill! both ways! with a bear chasing me, and a tack in my foot!) but we did reach it. :-)

Extras

As the geohash was only a mile or so from a friend's apartment, I called him to find out if he could meet me nearby, or try to reach the hash on his own after I did. In anticipation of his attempt, I left a marker at the site, at a secluded spot where it wouldn't be seen except by someone looking for it (see photos below). Alas, he was still at work until 4PM and had plans that night, so the marker is still there until such time as I drag him to the location at a later date.