2015-11-25 60 5

Wed 25 Nov 2015 in Bergen: 60.2792589, 5.5843808 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

I'd like to start by thanking GoreTex and the Norwegian Turing Association for making this hash possible.

Location

Well... 500m off the road, not too far from home? I'd like to define a new unit of measurement here and that is 1 hash-meter, or for those in the US, a "hash-mile". I think you all know what I mean.

Participants

• Phi-loci-raptor

• That creepy feeling you get off the trail when you realise you're deep into a hunting area wearing all black.

Expedition

Never learning from my mistakes (visions of orienteering at highschool), I park (11:45 am) at the closest point to the hash on the road and try to get directly to it. After clambering up for what seems quite a while I look at the phone - then down - and realise this is NOT happening. (see pics). Screw you contour lines - mother nature's bitch!

Trying not to injure myself on the way down, I go back to the car (12:15 pm) but drive to a sign a few hundred meters down (south-west) the road which points to a trail. Unfortunately the trail is not actually marked on the website [1] so I don't know where it goes, but it is marked by streamers hung on trees along the way. Refusing to be MNB, I decide to take the trail to get higher and then see how it goes from there.

Needless to say, this was not a quick hash! I did not take too many screenshots along the way but have drawn some sort of approximation for the trip. I took the trail towards "Strandfjellet" which I am yet to find on a map. It started I am not sure how close to the end of this trail I reached but after reaching the ridge/high point, I thought it best to focus on the hash given that I had no idea where the end of the trail was and the limited daylight hours. I did get to an obligatory high point pile of stones and a hunting cabin so I may have been quite close. (13:45 pm). From the start of the trail it was probably about 1 km distance and 350 m elevation, from a starting point of 75 m at the road.

I should mention at this point that the trail was pretty wet, as were my gloves. I was covered in wet plastic and Goretex and praying they would be sufficient for what I was about to do.

Unfortunately I did not take a screen capture at the top of the trail, but I was near to the top end of the most eastern branch of the stream and approximately 550 m from the hash but on a much closer elevation.

From there it took me just over half an hour of bush-bashing to cover the distance to the hashpoint and then some more circular bashing to zero in. It seemed like longer. By this stage I had passed a camouflaged treetop hide and was becoming aware of the fact I was walking around along in a hunting area wearing all black. I unzipped my jacked a for a while thinking a flash of aquamarine might help but then it started to snow. I was also aware that I had to make it down the steep hill by either retracing by steps all the way back or taking a gamble and trying to head straight down and intersect the trail to get down before dark.

By my calculations, it takes at least 4 times longer to cover such a distance than on normal ground. 15 minutes and only 75 meters!? And even worse going up a slope even on a trail. Hence my new term: hash-meters.

Although slightly grey and "damp", there were some nice open areas to gain some ground and I came across the two lakes that could be seen on the map which was I was pretty excited about. That was also when the snow started which was the first for the winter so also a little exciting despite it melting right away.

As you can imagine, I was absolutely relieved and satisfied to find that my efforts resulted in a successful hash!!

After taking a few pics and screen shots I proceeded with my plan: "down, careful, stay on a track" in a diagonally downwards way back towards the trail (knowing already what was directly down towards the road - sheer ROCKS!). I was very lucky to intersect the trail again at one of the stream-crossings and ended up back to the car some time just after 15:15 pm, wet, happy, hungry and thirsty!

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  Looking up at the hash point from the road

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Achievements

Phi-loci-raptor earned the One with Nature Geohash Achievement by reaching the (60, 5) geohash on 2015-11-25.