2010-01-09 49 8

1 Location
2 Participants
3 Plans
4 Expedition Report
- 4.1 Ekorren and Koepfel
  - 4.1.1 From Karlsruhe to Mauer (Koepfel)
  - 4.1.2 From Mauer to the Hashpoint and to Heidelberg
- 4.2 Euterkuh and fivetonsofflax
5 Photos
6 Tracklogs
- 6.1 Euterkuh and fivetonsofflax
7 Achievements
- 7.1 Euterkuh and fivetonsofflax

Location

At the shore of the river Elsenz, between Mauer and Reilsheim

Participants

Plans

2010-01-09 49 8 (Saturday): Near a creek, between Reilsheim and Mauer. ilpadre thinks about walking there (13 km) and taking a train back from Reilsheim to Heidelberg. But after having just recovered from a cold and considering there will probably be massive snowfall tomorrow, this might be a bit too ambitious.

I'm currently considering going to heidelberg for the weekend and do the saturday one, too. Otherwise, 2010-01-10 49 8. Koepfel _talk 15:24, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm at HD, have group ticket (5p). Will go. PLease call for details. --Ekorren 15:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

If we want to be back in Heidelberg by 16:00, we have to be on the train back home by 15:00. Closest station seems to be Mauer, not Reilsheim, as Ekorren has a ticket for the complete vrn area, it doesn't matter anyway. Trains leave mauer at *:02 and *:32. So we should reach the hashpoint by at least 13:30, giving us enough time to document and return to the station. Now, as it is unclear, weither the hashpoint is north or south of the Elsenz River, we should plan extra time in case we have cross the river (which means, walk ~1 km to the next bridge). I'd suggest trying to access it from the south first. This would mean, that we have to be in Mauer by 12:00. If you leave Heidelberg Main station at 11:34, you'd be in Mauer by 11:54. As for me, I plan to arrive from Karlsruhe, via Eppingen. If I leave Karlsruhe Kronenplatz at 10:32, I'd arrive in Mauer by 12:01, where we could meet and head to the hashpoint. For the way back to Heidelberg, I'd join you, using Ekorren's ticket. Koepfel _talk 19:24, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks like I'm still too sick to go, so don't wait for me. Have fun and good luck! --ilpadre 08:12, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Ekorren has a group ticket, so you still could go by train and not walk the 13 km. Unless you're too sick for that, too. Also, get well, soon. Koepfel _talk 08:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Expedition Report

Ekorren and Koepfel

From Karlsruhe to Mauer (Koepfel)

There was snow. After continuous snowfall from Friday Morning to Saturday, I left my home at 10:20. None of the roads were cleared, not many cars were going. Trams seemed to be on time though, so I took line 4 to Durlacher Tor. There, I had to change into a S4 to Eppingen. Destination indicators at the stops showed a blanket apology, "Due to snow, trams and buses might be delayed". Not very helpful. The S4 was set to leave Durlacher Tor at 10:34. Yet, the only S4 that arrived was a non-express train to Bretten (which is between Karlsruhe and Eppingen). I was beginning to suspect that my train might be late and, as I still had to buy the ticket from Eppingen to Mauer, which I planned to do in Eppingen, I decided to buy it in Durlach (a DB station with DB ticketing machines) instead.

In Durlach, I bought the ticket and went back to the platform. The destination indicators now said, that there was an accident at the Augartenstraße, where the S4 also passes through. It also said, the express S4 to Heilbronn (via Eppingen) was supposed to arrive "right now", at 10:45. At 11:00, it still said "right now", scheduled departure was 10:40. By 11:10 (30 minutes delayed), the S4 finally arrived. The connecting train I Eppingen would most likely be gone by the time I arrived there. so I called Ekorren and told him.

By 12:02, the train arrived in Eppingen, now 35 minutes delayed. As the line is mostly single track, we had to wait for a crossing train in Bretten. Didn't matter, the S-Bahn to Mauer has obviously already left, the next one will arrive in now 25 minutes. After waiting in the cold, the S-Bahn to Heidelberg arrived and left on time at 12:31. It didn't even wait for the next S4 from Karlsruhe, which also was delayed. It was even announced on the intercom, that the S4 from Karlsruhe would arrive in two minutes, when the train to Heidelberg closed its doors and left.

While passing through Sinsheim, I tried to photograph some of the planes exhibited on the roof of the museum located there, but it didn't go too well from the moving train.

13:00, one hour late, in Mauer, Ekorren was already waiting for me.

From Mauer to the Hashpoint and to Heidelberg

We left the station and headed towards the hash. As we still didn't know weither the hashpoint was north of south (or in) the river, this could either mean a short, comfortable walk or a longer detour to the next bridge. We were walking on a field path or, as there was snow everywhere anyway, in the footsteps of other people, until the GPS pointed 90° from the path. As we were trying to step into the field, some people walking by warned us, that we were walking towards the Elsenz River. Obviously, they haven't heard of Geohashing.

We found the hashpoint in some undergrowth, just next to the river, fortunately south of it. This means, no detour. Koepfel wrote a marker, which Ekorren taped to a sign at the hashpoint. The sign described the location of an underground gas pipe. Also, Koepfel accidentally wrote the wrong date on the marker (2010-01-10), but meh.

We were at the hashpoint from 13:25 to about 13:40, so it is in fact possible that Euterkuh and fivetonsofflax (see their report below) saw us. We didn't see them, though, as we didn't expect anybody. For Koepfel, this would be the third time going on an expedition on the same day and not meeting them.

At the hashpoint, Koepfel took this video.

We went on to the village of Reilsheim. In Reilsheim, Ekorren spotted a pharmacy with a thermometer, which displayed -2°C. As this wasn't far from the hashpoint, and it's usually warmer inside towns than on the field, this should count as proof for a frozen geohash.

By 14:00, we were at the train station of Reilsheim, from where we took the S-Bahn to Heidelberg. We left the train again in Neckargemünd and boarded the line 35 bus to the Schlierbach station (where the S-Bahn from Sinsheim doesn't stop). From there, we crossed the Neckar river, walked to Ziegelhausen. From there, we crossed the Neckar river, walked to Ziegelhausen, which is on the other side of the River. From there, Ekorren took a line 34 bus back to Heidelberg and Koepfel walked to his parents' house.

Euterkuh and fivetonsofflax

Of course, we forgot to announce that we were going to do an expedition as well, so we missed a good meet-up opportunity even though we were in Mauer at pretty much the same time as Ekorren and Koepfel. Oh well.

We started at the station of St. Ilgen/Sandhausen, close to fivetonsofflax's place and walked all the way from there to the hashpoint location. Guided by the excellent GpsMid applet, we crossed Leimen and entered Odenwald Forest. There was quite a bit of snow and we had to surmount about 240 height meters, so it was pretty exhausting. So exhausting even that Euterkuh lapsed into complaining mode, didn't stop for the rest of the expedition and even needed a few hours after the expedition to recover. Fivetonsofflax is getting used to that, though. On our way, we saw many sledding people, two riders and even two cross-country skiers.

Anyway, while GpsMid is a nifty tool and led us to the way section closest to the hashpoint, it didn't consider that between that section and the hashpoint, Elsenz river was running. After having walked 13 kilometers through the snow, we were now approximately 50 meters away from our destination but couldn't reach it. Euterkuh pointed to two people on the other side of the river and said, jokingly, that they were probably looking for the geohash as well. Since we were there at about 13:40, it might be that those people were Ekorren and Koepfel.

For some reason (exhaustion and frostiness, probably), we decided we didn't want to bother looking for a way around and went to the next train station to return to Heidelberg. In retrospection, this was pretty stupid. As you can see on the tracklog, it would have been only a marginal detour to get to the hashpoint location, compared to the distance we had already covered.