2013-01-05 43 -116

Snow-covered desert, looking west from hash point.

Location

Northwest of Caldwell, near the Sand Hollow interchange on I-84

Participants

Eldin

Plans

I've been wanting to try geohashing for a while, and today things lined up so I had free time, and the geohash looked like it would be accessible.

Expedition

I'm at the hash point it's really cold so do a full write up when I get back somewhere warm -- Eldin @43.8009,-116.7885 18:36, 5 January 2013 (EST)

Ok, I'm someplace warmer now, so here's the more complete write-up.

The geohash was just off of a narrow dirt road running between an irrigation canal and a plowed field. Missed the dirt road turn off the first time and had to go back. About half a mile down, road (really more like a couple ruts than a real road) narrowed down to a single lane with no room to turn around, so I was committed to pushing on at that point. Fortunately, the map showing the road as a loop was accurate. I'd have hated to back out of that.

I was able to drive to within 20ft of the geohash location. I arrived at approximately 4:30pm, and the thermometer in my car read 12°F. Weather info on my phone said 9°F, and it felt colder than that with the wind blowing. Actual location was about half way down a slippery slope, so while I was able to slide across it, I was actually standing about 11ft away when I took pictures and posted my initial comment while onsite. In spite of the cold and the unpleasant "road", I did enjoy myself. I'll definitely be doing this again.

Note: My phone was both the only camera and only GPS device I had, so I didn't get a picture of the GPS screen. However, the photo of me has geotagging information embedded in it by my phone, so I submit that as my only proof that I was in the right place. It contains the following tag:

GPS Position : 43 deg 48' 3.00" N, 116 deg 47' 19.00" W

which matches the location of the geohash to within the 1 arc-second resolution of the tag.