2010-01-30 46 -122

Location

In the woods near the Columbia River

Participants

aperfectring
Jim, pretty likely

Plans

I need to get my January geohash under my belt either this day or the next, and while both seem reachable, this one looks to be the most fun. I'm willing to give a ride, unless someone (*cough* Jim *cough*) decides to bring a furry friend along, in which case a larger vehicle would be best. --aperfectring 21:16, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Jim will probably have an older furry creature that needs to come along, so June'll need to do navigation for us, which is kind of a frightening thought, as well as providing protection for the car while we're tromping through the woods. Jiml 21:59, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Location

In the woods near the Columbia River

Participants

aperfectring
Jim, pretty likely

Plans

I need to get my January geohash under my belt either this day or the next, and while both seem reachable, this one looks to be the most fun. I'm willing to give a ride, unless someone (*cough* Jim *cough*) decides to bring a furry friend along, in which case a larger vehicle would be best. --aperfectring 21:16, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Jim will probably have an older furry creature that needs to come along, so June'll need to do navigation for us, which is kind of a frightening thought, as well as providing protection for the car while we're tromping through the woods. Jiml 21:59, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Expedition

Live Updates

Nearing Neer City Road, and its raining. Start of stupidity distance fast approaching. -- 97.161.208.121 @45.96799326666667,-122.8679935 23:32, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Jiml and apr say success! -- 97.161.208.121 @46.0325625,-122.90281611666667 23:32, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

And so we bid adieu to Jeff, our friendly land owner and access granter. Coordinates reached, ambassador geohash! -- 97.161.208.121 @46.02909215,-122.8928208 23:32, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Millions of dollars of technology so that we can give live reporting about visiting a random point in the woods. --Jim -- 74.107.136.34 @45.97820961666667,-122.86717531666666 00:41, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Post expedition report

The ride up to the hashpoint started off quite typically. We stopped at my local Panera Bread for sandwiches before driving the hour+ up to the area of the hashpoint. This was my first expedition since I got my new shiny Motorola Droid phone, and thus my first experience with the geohashdroid app. We get to our turnoff on Neer City Road, and are greeted with a rather steep grade, probably around 15-20%, and it is raining. We both say to each other: "This does not bode well for our expedition." Undeterred, we continued onwards and upwards to the turnoff for Neer City Cemetery Road, which is a gravel road. As we approach the point down the road, we are confronted with a locked gate. We see a driveway with a house at the end just before the gate. It is still raining, and the house looks new, so we mull over whether we should go up and ask, or turn back with our tail between our legs.

After taking a few pictures, we do decide to walk up and ask the homeowner if we may be granted access. After getting up to the door and knocking, we start talking to our homeowner, named Jeff, and find that not only does he find the concept interesting, but his sister has done geocaching quite a bit. We talk for a bit about geohashing, and show him the map. He gets some shoes on, and unlocks the gate for us, and shows us where he thinks the best way to get back to the point will likely be.

On the way back, we get to the closest point on the road (about .15 miles away) and stop, looking down across the berry brambles down into the gorge towards the point, and are feeling quite discouraged at this point. He suggests that further up the road, though likely further from the point, there might be a better location to access the point. We walk back to the truck and tractor, and I am thinking, "that tractor looks a lot closer to the truck than I remember it". We get up to it, and see that the tractor has indeed backed itself into Jim's truck. We get the two apart, and notice that luckily there is only very minor damage.

We drive further up the road, and he shows us where we might get some better access along side a creek. We then part ways with our quite friendly and helpful homeowner. He asks us to lock up the gate, and let him know when we leave, so that he knows we got out of there safely. We look at the 0.2 miles we would have to go along side that creek, and decide that maybe a better approach vector would be back a little ways down the road. We get back to the last clearing before our parting point, and see more of the brambles and brush, as well as somewhat steep hills. We also see a set of power line towers, and notice that the location of the point seems to be back along those lines. Jeff had told us that one of the roads goes up to the power lines a little ways back.

We decide that we should hike up that road and see what the situation is from there. When we get up there, we notice more berry brambles, but no where near as thick as what we had seen before. We also notice that we are only about 500ft from the point. Also, after a short section of brambles, it seems to clear out a decent bit as it is going downhill. It was at this point we started thinking about a second hypothesis of stupidity distance. SD(x) is the stupidity distance a person will stumble. x is the number of times one has stumbled a stupidity distance before. SD(x)<=SD(y) where x > y.

We get down to the point, do the typical picture taking and posing. I also uploaded a comment to the wiki via my droid. We begin our walk back to the truck, and on the way we decide that we have firmed up our roles for future expeditions. Until we get more people to join us on expeditions, Jim is the helmsman and tactical officer. His truck is much better for the kind of hashpoints we tend to receive around here, and his handheld GPS is much better than mine. I am the communications officer and navigator. I have all the fancy tools to let us post about our expedition live, and to get us to where we set off on foot.

We drive back to the gate, lock it up, tell Jeff we were successfull, talk for a little while longer, and head on our merry way home.