2010-05-02 49 -123
| Sun 2 May 2010 in 49,-123: 49.3530534, -123.0108065 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Contents
Location
Near Rice Lake in North Vancouver, beside Rice Lake Road.
Plan
Meet at the Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre around 18:00.
- Woot! I assume the general public is allowed to drive up there use their parking lot? Yangman 17:32, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, the ecology centre has a public parking lot -- Rhonda 17:34, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
- I'm going to be driving back from Kamloops that day, so I will probably be there late afternoon or early evening -- Rhonda 17:33, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
- Afternoon/evening would work better for me as well since I'm returning from Whistler Saturday evening. -- Yangman 18:00, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
- I'm in. Say what time, Rhonda. -Robyn 20:38, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
- Woohoo! Robyn's back! I'm not sure exactly what time I'll be able to make it. I'm hoping to leave Kamloops shortly after lunch, so might be getting home about 5PM, if I leave when planned. Plan for 6PM? Thoughts? -- Rhonda 20:55, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
- We failed to leave Kamloops after lunch, chances are we won't be getting into town until well past 8:30 or 9pm. We might take a stab at getting there past dark, play it by ear.
Participants
Expedition
Preface
thepiguy's favorite part of going on an expedition with Robyn, is reading her report after. Almost more so than actually going on the expedition!
But since Robyn is currently busy flying a very small plane across a very large country, thepiguy and Wade will provide a brief summary:
There was rain. We got wet. We were successful, and ate nibs.
You'd think thepiguy didn't go on the expeditions if he has to wait for Robyn to write them up before he knows how much fun he had. I'm back from my plane trip, so here goes.
The Gathering
It was a spring day in Vancouver, which means it wasn't as cold as it would have been in the winter, and it was raining. And the Vancouver crowd was going geohashing. Wade and Robyn swung by the King Edward Skytrain station to pick up thepiguy. Sitting in the left turn pocket about to turn onto the street where the station was, Robyn handed Wade a dinosaur and instructed, "Wave this at piguy." Wade asked which of the four people on the sidewalk was pi.
"The one dressed all in black."
"That narrows it to three out of the four."
"The one without the umbrella."
That may or may not have singled out thepiguy, but it was spectacularly irrelevant. Firstly, thepiguy had seen Robyn's car even before she had missed the previous green light, and secondly there is really no way to wave a rubber dinosaur at a specific person out of four standing together twenty metres away. The light changed, Robyn turned left while someone attempted to pass her on the right, but still managed to pull over and pick up thepiguy.
Together we got onto the trans-Canada highway and crossed to the North Shore. "Mountain Highway exit, right?" asked Robyn, who hadn't looked super-closely at the directions, and who was approaching a cluster of three exits. Wade and the talking car GPS simultaneously told her to continue on to a later exit. Robyn didn't realize that Wade was simply reading the GPS screen and thought that it was two against one for the later exit. Geohashing is a somewhat democratic activity. Robyn gave the Mountain Highway exit an affectionate glance and continued on, over a couple of exciting bridges to an exciting exit she had never taken before. It was still raining.
After a couple of tries at getting on the right road from that exit, we got on the road that the GPS considered correct, but then we started to question the knowledge of the GPS. It turns out that Wade had entered the geohash coordinates, and the GPS was leading us to the nearest published road to the geohash, not to the nearest road to a trail that will actually lead to the geohash, and without consideration of the fact that the shortest way to get from the nearest published road to the geohash might be to go back down to the trans-Canada highway, take another exit and come back up on the correct side of an impassable ravine. We turned around in a parking lot and went back down to the highway, where we took another exit that was not the Mountain Highway exit, but which gave us the opportunity to cross over Mountain Highway such that Robyn could point out that the exit she first wanted would have taken us here. And for some reason they keep letting Robyn write the expedition reports, giving her another opportunity to do the same thing, while omitting details of the way she had trouble finding her way out of the parking lot.
The GPS from there directed us unerringly to the agreed-upon starting point, the Lynn Valley Ecology Centre. There was another road closer to the geohash, but it was named Private Road on Google Maps, so we were guessing it might not be accessible. And this way we would have an interesting hike. Sure, it's raining, but it rains in Vancouver; we're used to it. The official meeting time was six o' clock and we had rumours that Rhonda & Xore would be attending, coupled with later rumours that they were delayed. Yangman had also given intentions to come, but by bicycle, and we knew he was hardcore, but this was pretty miserable weather, especially for going home. We waited only until the dot of six and then set off.
The Trail
The parking lot was posted as closing at eight, which means that they close and lock the gates at eight, and probably call Search and Rescue to go and find the owners of any cars they lock in. We were fairly confident we could go what was a straight line distance of less than two kilometres and back in less than two hours, even if it did require a winding trail.
Photos
Don't worry! The fire hazard is low!
Crossing Lynn Canyon!
That bridge isn't just for show.
Robyn easily zeros in on the hash.
While thepiguy tries to get a signal.
thepiguy finally finds some satellites.
Drip drip hooray!
A short time later, and there are more geohashers!
Sadly we had to walk back up the same hight later.
Gazing in amazement!
