2025-01-09 41 -88
| Thu 9 Jan 2025 in 41,-88: 41.8343160, -88.1658143 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Location
In a small pond on the St. James Farm forest preserve in Warrenville.
Participants
Plans
There were no plans! It just happened!
Expedition
Having seen today's coordinates yesterday due to an extra special DOW holiday (RIP Jimmy Carter), I had already decided to skip this one as it appeared to be in the middle of a pond and it is very much winter right now. While it's certainly possible to walk across ice to get a Walking on water geohash achievement, I don't have the knowledge of ice conditions necessary to do that, nor the equipment or skills to self-rescue if things go wrong. I had absolutely no intention of visiting this point.
However, I had errands to run, and as luck would have it those errands would take me right by the area of the hash. Still, I was not going to stop by, since there was no way I would venture out onto the ice. While filling up the car at the gas station I made a discovery. Sylvie, my hashscot was already in the car eager to go geohashing! She definitely was not forgotten in the glove box since the last expedition. With her by my side I spent the drive to the store thinking about geohashing, and wishing I had a drone to fly over the ice to reach it. That was when I remembered the Geohash by proxy achievement! That didn't even require a drone, as past hashers have claimed geohashes using kites, long sticks, and even bottles tied to a rope. Quickly an idea began to form. The hash point was only about 40 or 50 feet (12-15m) off the shore, which should be well within the range of a cheap radio control car. Suddenly my shopping list grew one item longer.
Just to be sure it was even possible to reach, I decided to visit the hash-pond before making any hasty purchases, since I was already going to be traveling very close to it anyway. I parked the car in the lot for the forest preserve, taking note that it closes at sunset, and took a short but cold walk up the trail over to the pond. I was delighted to see mostly clear, smooth ice on the pond, and not very much dormant vegetation around the shore. With my mind made up, I headed straight for the department store I was already planning to visit.
After gathering the items I set out to purchase, I made my way to the toys department to look for R/C cars. I was hoping to find a large truck type vehicle because I wanted the largest tire patch on the ice I could get in order to reduce the risk of the car breaking through and sinking. Unfortunately the only ones on the shelves were rather small, so I settled on a "trophy truck" style vehicle that cost about $30. Then I headed out to visit my mother as planned earlier. This gave me the chance to charge the battery in the truck and remove the body cover. My mother also offered me some of her cable zip ties to mount my phone to it. After running more errands, I returned to pick up my things and the fully charged R/C truck, and then headed over to the forest preserve with only about 2 more hours of daylight remaining.
Since my visit earlier it had grown both colder and windier (reading 25F on my weather app). I made my way to the western shore of the pond, placed the truck on the ice, and drove it around a little. To my surprise, not only was the ice plenty strong enough for the little truck, but apparently the cheap toy that I bought on a whim also happened to be four wheel drive, making it particularly well suited to driving on slick ice. Now confident that I was not about to sink my phone, I installed a GPS track logging app, and walked around a little to make sure it was working. It wasn't, so I installed a second GPS app on my phone that did actually work. With cold, stiff hands, I carefully zip tied my phone to the top of the truck chassis, started the GPS app, and remotely drove the truck out onto the pond once again. I had a pretty good idea where the point was relative to the small island in the center based on the aerial images from online, so I drove the truck in a few loops back and forth to make sure it would pass near the point before bring it back to shore.
I was a little disappointed with the lack of feedback the GPS tracker app gave, since I couldn't put in a waypoint to mark the hash, so I decided to try a different approach. I installed a 3rd app which would record a video of my phone's display, started it, and then pulled up the hash point on Geohash Droid. Then I once again drove the truck out onto the ice and looped it around in circles around where I expected the hash to be. When it returned to shore I was greeted by the wonderful sight of a green success message! Geohash by proxy achieved!
After collecting the truck, I took a photo of Sylvie with the pond and then made the windy walk back to the car to warm up and finally head home. I wished I could have gotten a photo of the truck with the phone mounted to it, so I borrowed my partner's phone after getting home and staged a dramatic recreation of that.
