User:Tilley

Introduction

My name is Matti and I'm from Kuopio, Finland. I'm 32 years old and I love outdooring in its various forms.

I'm a fan of xkcd, and read the famous(?) geohashing comic a few years ago, but then forgot about the whole thing. Recently I stumbled on geohashing again on xkcd blag, and were quite surprised how active community there is around geohashing even today. As I own a GPS device, I thought that maybe I could start geohashing too, it sounded like fun. My excitement was hightened when I noticed that no one had ever visited a geohash in my graticule, so there is even a Virgin Graticule award to be taken right away.

My hobbies include mountain biking and paddling, and I own a kayak, so reaching also the water hashes won't be a problem. Those will probably be quite common, as we have hundreds of thousands of lakes in Finland.

In this area, temperatures in mid-winter lie below -20 degrees Celsius for a month or two, the coldest days being -35. Thus the lakes develop a thick ice every winter, so Frozen and Walking on Water achievements will be very easy, but I have to remember to take off my cross-country skis as I reach the hash point!

I will most likely be trying to reach hashes that are within biking/skiing/paddling distance, because although I own a car, I usually don't drive it too much and try to use my bike(s) to do my daily traveling.

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Plans

• 1.2012-10-04 62 27 I had to wait mere 3 days from the day I decided I would start geohashing, and the geohash fell only 12,7 km (as the crow flies) from my couch! This one is definitely easy to reach, as there is a trail marked in the map almost directly on the hash. It's at least a forest trail, or even a road drivable by car. However, I'm going to try to reach it by bike. Although the hash may fall directly in the road, the Speed Racer achievement would not be possible without some sort of a rally car, as the road/trail is most likely very bumpy and narrow and the default speed limit on rural roads is 80 km/h. However, there is a small change that the owner of the private road I'm going to use to get to the hash (using private roads when travelling on foot or by bike is allowed in Finland, and in some cases even by car) will have posted some sort of speed limit to the road! In that case I'll hope it will be 30 km/h, so I have a chance of getting the Speed Racer achievement by bike!

Expeditions

• 1. 2012-10-04 62 27 Reached my first geohash by bike in the woods near the house Airaksela, also achieving Virgin Graticule in Kuopio, Finland.