2009-03-23 48 -122

Mon 23 Mar 2009 in Bellingham: 48.9211296, -122.7005844 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

An agricultural field on Kickerville Road in Custer, Washington.

Planning

Today was my actual birthday, so I ventured out in search of a birthday geohash. Most of the points in nearby graticules were on the steep sides of mountains with avalanche risk, so that was a no-go, but I found a possibly accessible point in a field near a road in Bellingham. It's a familiar route, the geohashing bag is already packed, so off I went. I was going to go by bicycle as it was only about 60 km away, but if I wasn't successful I wanted to be able to try another, so I stuffed my bike in the back of the car. (It looked like the Seattle one might only be accessible by ferry and I could leave my car behind and just take my bike across the ferry).

Expedition

Across town, across the border, raining lightly. Same old Interstate-5 highway, familiar exit, but instead of stopping at the mall where all Canadians go I continued down farm roads, quickly reaching the field in question.

It was surrounded by an outer barbed wire fence and an inner electric one, but there were no livestock or crops in the field and it appeared to be for sale. It was, however, unambiguously signed against trespassing. I rang two nearby doorbells looking for an owner, but at one there was no one home and the other did not know who owned the field.

That was pretty much what I had anticipated. It would have been simple to hop the fence and nab the point, but I obey the geohashing code and go no further than the side of the ditch outside the fence. My closest was approach 274 m from the point.

I continued towards an almost certain geohash, on a public road.

Photographs

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  The owners wanted no one in the field.

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  I didn't test to see if the electric fence was live.

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  So this is as close as I got.

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  But I was not discouraged.