2009-05-08 49 -120

People met here. Played Twister. Saw deer. Write up later.

Location

Up a hill, across Highway 3 (Crowsnest) from Stemwinder Provincial Park campsite, east of Princeton.

Participants

Planning

Robyn and Rhonda have been meeting each other at or on the way to geohashes ever since Rhonda joined the sport, and Vancouver is such an active graticule that the two have each met a number of geohashers. Meanwhile Juventas has been geohashing since July 2008 but due to the sparse population and remote locations in his graticule, has never met another geohasher. He posts spectaular photographs of rugged scenery, and eye-opening accounts of his attempts to reach remote locations, so clearly he was up for a challenge. In the interest of geohasher camaraderie and increasing connectivity on the Meetup graph it was time for a road trip.

We started planning this trip a few weeks ago. We decided that it would involve overnight camping, ideally to earn the at-that-time-unclaimed Camping geohash achievement. While we were still negotiating a mutually free weekend, an ideal camping geohash came up in Bellingham and Robyn and Rhonda went and did it, but Juventas still needed the achievement for his portfolio, plus Robyn and Robyn needed more practice camping. We settled on May 9th/10th, but it's very difficult to make detailed advance plans for a geohash, as we wouldn't know where it was until the weekend arrived. Juventas lives 450 km away from Robyn and Rhonda, with six different graticules on the road in between, so we decided that when the weekend coordinates came out on Friday morning we would discuss them and choose the best one(s) in between in which to meet. There were no known geohashers in the intervening graticules.

Coordinates are announced on Friday at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time, so we woke then and started searching for points that were accessible and possibly appropriate for camping. Juventas had maps and local knowledge of the graticules closer to him, so Robyn and Rhonda concentrated on the graticules closer to them. Princeton looked achievable on the Friday, and Juventas said that Kelowna was doable, so Robyn and Rhonda decided to go to Princeton on the way to the Kelowna area. Then Juventas, who had taken Friday off, said he would meet the women there. We arranged a rendezvous at Stemwinder Provincial Park, and started the road trip.