Geeky Treasure Hunting = Geocaching

The concept is simple - while your out walking the dogs, or taking a stroll down the river or similar why not make it more interesting and seek out some buried treasure!  ok so treasure in the loose sense of the word, as far as i know there is no pot of gold located at a geocache site, but its 'treasure' hunting no less.  And, to appeal to my geeky nature; its all about GPS and Gadgets!

I was aware of geocaching but only recently did Anna and I look into it properly.  Once we had found that there is an official iPhone App and we had viewed the introduction video's on http://www.geocaching.com/ website we were all excited about having a go.  After a few minutes familiarising ourselves with it all we had created an account and we realised there was a geocache hidden less than 500m from our house!

There are currently 1,351,307 active geocaches around the world, some are tiny little things with just a small log book to sign your username in, some are larger containers where people leave items that you can swap (these are the ones Alex likes the most!).  Part of the fun is seeking out the location, the walk to find it and then when you are near, the hunt is really on to find the well hidden container whilst not alerting non-geocachers to its presence!  In just a week we have 'found' 8 Geocaches with more local ones to attempt as well as plans to incorperate geocaching into our camping trips and weekend dog walks.


 A medium cache - room for swaps, log book and more!

A micro cache - just enough space for the log book and pencil



Most people use handheld GPS devices it seems, but the £6 iPhone app is proving to be accurate enough for us to use (and cheaper than a £300 GPS unit!). It allows direct access to 'nearest caches', searches by postcode and then you can log your finds direct to geocaching.com from within the app; even including a photo if you want!  Genius! 

screenshots

official iPhone App tutorial



We are officially hooked and are looking for any opportunity to go grab a cache!

Snowdon ascent - April 2011

I got a phone call from my Mum while we were wandering around the Caravan and outdoor show at the NEC. She was asking if Anna and I would like to help them out with a job they had recieved over a weekend. The job, as she put it, was to join them in shooting a short film about a charity walk. 'Easy!' we thought. It turned out that the charity walk was a man's personal challenge to walk 47 miles in 47 hours from his house in North Wales, to the top of Mount Snowdon to raise money for BLESMA 'British Limbless Ex-Servicemen Association'. The idea was we would follow the team on day 2 filming their walk from Llanberis to the foot of Snowdon, and then the following day film them setting off and then get the train to the top to meet them there. Well, Anna has always wanted to climb Snowdon, and it had been years since I had done it so we actually got excited and told my Mum we would walk up Snowdon with them!



Mike and the team at the start of the final day of the 47 challenge

My Mum and Step-dad, John, filmed Day 1 on the friday - 26 miles (a marathon!) from Rhuallt to Llanberis. We took over on Saturday in the glorious weather in Llanberis, through Betws-y-coed, Capel Curig and to Pen-y-pass - a mere 13 miles for the team to trek. Snowdonia is one of the most beautiful places in the world -FACT!

A = Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon)
B = Garnedd Ugain
C = Crib Goch
D = Y Lliwedd

1 = Snowdon Horseshoe
2 = PYG Track
3 = Miners Track (the route we took in green)

We were up at 5:30 on Sunday to get to Pen-y-pass carpark early but the weary team, which included ex-servicemen with prosthetic limbs, took longer to muster on the final day. Nevertheless, we set off on Snowdon's 'Miners Track' while it was still fairly cool. The Miners track is one of the most common 'ascents' of Snowdon, mainly due to its 'gentle' start, and also because of the stunning route along the banks of Snowdon's two lakes with the summit always and ever-present in view.

By the time we had rounded Llyn Llydaw we were really starting to climb, or so we thought.  It wasnt until we stopped at the top of Llyn Glaslyn for a short break we assessed the magnitude of what was to come; a 170 meter scree to scramble up to meet with the Pyg Track before the final push through the 'zig-zags' to reach the horseshoe path.  The summit was only a short walk up some more forgiving steps.

The view was absolutely breath taking (literally and metaphorically!).  There was a slight haze on account of it being so hot that day, but we could see for miles in every direction. the rest of the charity team all made it and there was even champagne that had been carried all the way up to celebrate the acheivement.  The team raised £11,500 for the charity and after a weekend of walking they deservedly took the snowdon mountain railway down to Llanberis (and the nearest pub!).


View from the Summit looking down towards the route we walked up

Anna and I decided to amble our way back down the Miners Track, which was a different kind of difficult compared to the way up.  we also got some more time to take in the views when not having to 'jog ahead' to get the next filming shot set up!

Just over 6 hours in all, 753meters ascent, 7miles in distance - and now Anna is planning our next trip to Snowdon - with the Dogs perhaps? The Llanberis route with Alex? Crib Goch with Michael? The Pyg Track?