2012-01-26 57 14

Location

Straight into the woods off the end of a logging road SE of Värnamo..

Participants

Plans

To deflower 2 virgin graticules and maybe work on my minesweeper around Västerås, Sweden making this a triple hash. This was the route I took.

2012-01-26 57 13 Virgin Graticule for Gislaved, Sweden
2012-01-26 57 14 Virgin Graticule for Jönköping, Sweden
2012-01-26 59 16

Expedition

Coming from 2012-01-26 57 13 I hopped back into the car and headed south out to a bigger road that took me back to the 153. Once on the 153 it was an easy drive to Värnamo. Saw a Max Hamburgers and Biltema just by the E4 as i was passing it and those will come in handy later. Was going to turn off onto kyrkvägen but a friend called just 30 seconds before so I missed the road by 1.5 km. Backtrack and onto the right one. And then into the woods. Passed a pickup where someone probably was working in the woods and over a huge clear cut. The road ends and I get out. It should be an easy 187 m following the straight line that the road took I think.

OH HOW WRONG I WAS!

Unlike the last geohash, where the spruce was old, tall and culled so there was no underbrush, this was totally overgrown. Trees every single meter in every direction. And they were snowy! And I had to duck into them. And the sky had grayed over in anticipation of the oncoming blizzard I was going to have to drive through on the way to Katrineholm and Stockholm.

Totally featureless sky, check
Trees everywhere so you can't see the forest for all the trees, check
Snow on everything so everything is white, check
Losing all sense of direction, check

Of course the tall trees were messing with the GPS again, but not crazy much, but I actually got a bit lost wandering the last 20 meters. I thought I was going east at one point, towards the hash, but I was going west and I noticed it cause I was getting further away from the hash, not closer. Nothing to get scared about, I could always just use my tracks to get back to the car, but it felt crazy loosing your sense of direction so bad since I had no point of reference at all.

I found the spot about a minute later, and the GPS in the phone was bouncing me around a bit but it stabilized in a very very tiny clearing. See the panoramas how cramped it is. That was like the biggest clearing in the whole patch of forest. Some pics and then back to the car. On the way to the hash I had to jump a creek, and it turned out it was a bit wider than I had thought. I had made the jump with cm to spare so on the way back i found a narrower spot.

Headed back to Max to get lunch and bought a some supplies at Biltema, especially a flashlight so I always can have one in the car. I know it is about to get very dark before 2012-01-26 59 16.

Deflowered -- Cjk @57.0764,14.0874 08:39, 26 January 2012 (EST)

Photos

Frozen. -1 C
Clear cut
Weirdo contraption.
Into the spruces
Hot Snakes and lost in woods @57.0763,14.0874
Stupid grin
Dense forest!
Way out?
Follow footprints out.
Authentic yellow snow
The creek I jumped
Nutritious lunch, spicy Cheddar grand luxe, luxury strawberry shake, chili cheese fries at Max!