A while back I posted on something called geocaching, which is using your GPS device to go on a treasure hunt for hidden ‘caches’. It’s something I’d been interested in doing since that post. (You can go back and read that post to see what the basic concept of what geocaching is all about.)

Well, on the weekend I was able to get some hands-on experience in geocaching thanks to @AnthonyFloyd and @LeftCoastMama (who blog on Left Coast Floyds) and a great meet-up/ tweet-up they put on called Geocaching 101.

It was an event they took their own time to organize and introduce some ‘muggles’ like myself to geocaching (the word ‘muggle’, I learned, is used by cachers to describe people who don’t know anything about the sport). I learned a good deal so for those interested I thought I would pass some of my learning’s on:

We met up at the Pacific Spirit Park near UBC, and were given a crash course on what devices were good to use, and what kind of caches are typical.  The caches themselves range in size from tiny (think thumbnail) to large (think oil drum), but most are about the size of your average Ziploc container. The caches can be very creatively hidden, depending on how hard you want to make it for people to find them. One example was tying a micro-cache to a pinecone and placing the pinecone in a tree! Typically, however, they will be placed just off a trail in the woods in a hollow log, or otherwise hidden from a muggle’s view.

Inside the cache, if large enough, there will also be various items; usually toys that kids will like. The idea here is if you find something you want (or your kid wants) in a cache, you’re free to take it but you need to trade with something of equal or greater value. This adds additional fun to the hunt because you never know what random things you can find and your kids will be really excited to open the cache once you’ve found it. There is also usually a log book or paper where you can write your (geocaching) name to claim that you found the cache.

You may also find ‘travel bugs’ in some caches that have their own goals in life. For example, the travel bug will have a unique number, that it can then be tracked on the website www.geocaching.com, and if the note on the travel bug says it wishes to travel the world, you can watch as it jumps from country to country as different geocachers take the bug and place it somewhere on their travels, and log its new coordinates for the next person to come along and find.

Once you’ve placed a cache, you can upload the waypoint (geographic coordinates) to Geocaching.com for others to download and see if they can find it. You can provide ratings on how hard it is to find, and provide helpful hints as well. You can also see the virtual logbook and track how many people have (or maybe haven’t) been able to find your cache.

The one downside is that sometimes caches can get up and walk away.

There are different types of caches as well, and a good description of the different types is provided here.

I would recommend trying geocaching out some time. If you don’t have a GPS you can find a friend who does and borrow it, or you can even use your iPhone. I will be taking my son on our first expedition very soon. Apparently, there are over 4,000 active geocaches in the Vancouver area, so there is no shortage, even downtown!

For more information, Geocaching.com will be one of your best resources, and the BC Geocaching Association is also a great place to learn more and connect with people locally.

Also, a big thank you to Anthony Floyd for taking the time to teach me a bit about geocaching, and also for always answering my never ending ‘what type of GPS should I buy?’ questions, which I hounded him about on Twitter.

Related Posts:
• Geocaching 101
• EveryTrail – GPS Travel Community
• Kite Snowboarding (Snowkiting)

Tags: Geocaching
Categories: Other Outdoor Stuff
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This morning my son was cranky (teething), and I wanted to get him out of the house. I quickly consulted Jack Christie’s 52 Best Day Trips from Vancouver to find something near my house, a place where I haven’t been yet.

Destination: Maplewood Flats

Maplewood flats, protected by the Wild Bird Trust of BC, is located just east of the Ironworker’s Memorial in the Burrard Inlet, in North Vancouver. It is a birding, nature observation and walking area, with trails lining a beautiful and peaceful tidal marsh. As you progress through the park, you’ll notice almost everyone has binoculars or a serious camera in their hands to observe the birds.

With the current inversion (clouds at very low elevations, sunny skies above) it was foggy in the park. I made my way with my son to down the trail from the parking lot and we quickly reached the ocean. I made the mistake of showing Evan how to skip rocks on the water and we stayed in that spot for the next 20 minutes, while he, with freezing hands, continued to hurl rocks into the water.

After a while we were approached by some friendly, and somewhat curious otters:

Oblivious to their presence, my son continued to hurl rocks and scared them away. Then we moved on, picking a random picturesque trail to walk down. As we were walking, Evan was getting very cranky (again the teething) so I was carrying him while he chewed on a granola bar. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge freakin’ owl!

It was being pestered by a hawk (or some smaller bird) who’s turf he was stepping in. As I stood in amazement of the size of the owl, a lady came along and suggested it was a Barred Owl. She said she’d been coming to the park for 14 years and was surprised to see it, so I thought it must be a pretty rare sighting. I watched the owl for at least 10 minutes, as it changed its gaze between us and the pesky hawk. Evan then began to go into screaming/ I’m tired mode so we left, heading back to the car. On the way out I noticed this ’sighting board’ and there were no owls on it for November. ‘So it must be pretty rare’ I said.

Curious now, I came home and resorted to the good ‘ol internet. First I found this bird checklist for Maplewood Flats, which listed 4 potential owls for the park, with a rating of ‘rare’ at most (1 – 10 sightings per year). I researched each of the owls, and none of them really looked like the one I saw.

Then I called on good ‘ol Twitter. Thanks to @mojaveband, @adventuregrrl, and @BigA888, we have it narrowed to a Barred Owl, or a Great Gray Owl.

I did some more quick Google searching and found this nice .pdf checklist with a listing of unusual sightings ever reported in the park, with dates, or how often sightings typically occur. Barred owls are listed as “casual” meaning they are not recorded every year. The Great Gray was even more rare, with a few sightings of one taking place from Jan 12 – 15 in 1996!

Given the white ‘moustache’ the owl has, I think it’s a Great Gray, but I’m not really sure. There is a Wild Bird Trust of BC info center at the park staffed by volunteers Thursdays and weekends from 10am – 2pm (don’t quote me on those hours) so I’ll be dropping by with my photo tomorrow to see what they say.

Nov 28 Update: I spoke with a volunteer of the Wild Bird Trust today at Maplewood, and it is indeed a Great Gray Owl! They were already aware it was around because some other people had reported it yesterday. Apparently, a few of them do live along the North Shore, but as far as they knew this was the fist sighting of one in the conservation area in 14 years. I was quite lucky to see it, as the lady told me some birders spend years before they can check a Great Gray off their list . The bird pestering it was a Cooper’s Hawk.

Also, if anyone is interested, on the 2nd Saturday of each month at 10am they do a free guided nature walk, each with a different theme, to introduce people to the conservation area and its wildlife (donations encouraged). I also learned it is not a ‘park’ as I referred to in my posting yesterday, because a park has paid staff. This is a ‘conservation area’ run by volunteers. Overall, a great place to check out if you’re into birding or nature photography.

You can download a map of Maplewood Flats here.

Directions: Follow Dollarton Highway, east of the Ironworkers Memorial, heading towards Deep Cove. Next to the Pacific Environmental Science Center (2645 Dollarton Highway) is the park entrance. You’ll see a blue sign with a pair of binoculars where you turn in off the highway.

Related Posts:
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• Featured Dive Site: Whytecliff Park
• Pics & Clips Of The Week 19/06/09

Tags: Barred Owl,Great Gray Owl,Maplewood Flat
Categories: Other Outdoor Stuff
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Apparently the Natural Resources of Canada website, CanMatrix, is giving free access to all their print-ready digital topographic maps! I just learned about this very useful website thanks to the Wanderung newsletter:

A big thanks to Bob who forwarded us this helpful link to print ready topo maps. It takes a bit of tinkering with but the payoff is huge if  you need s reliable resource in the back-country! Add this to your  bookmarks! This from Bob:

“Not sure if you know about Natural Resources Canada which is a  department of the federal government and in charge of topographic maps. Apparently they want out of the publishing business and this is the
reason why their maps can now be readily downloaded from their web site.

Credit goes to Ian Whitehead for this discovery and his notes below.  I met Ian for the first time on June 27 when joining Chris Nott for the  backpack trip to the northern part of the Stein Valley.

CanMatrix – Print Ready was produced by scanning federal government  topographic maps at the scale of 1:50 000 and 1:250 000.

1) Go to http://geogratis.gc.ca/geogratis/en/product/search.do?id=34325

2) Zoom in and pan to the area you want a map for and get the map  number, e.g. 92J10

3) Put that map number in the “Dataset name” box near the top of the  page, under the “Search Datasets by Name” heading. Click search.

4) Click submit on the next page (there should be just the one map on  there with a tick against it)

5) Choose either the tiff or the pdf format, then download.”

Related Posts:
• Featured Website: EarthDetails – 3D Maps
• Safety Page Now Online
• October Recap

Tags: Topo Maps
Categories: Other Outdoor Stuff, Safety
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The Cold Water Classic Canada surfing competition is coming to Tofino Oct 25 – 31. This is the first professional surfing competition ever held in Canada.

“On the west coast of Vancouver Island in Tofino, freezing water and air temperatures, bears on the ground, whales in the water and even the chance of snow, awaits 144 professional surfers from around the world for the O’Neill Cold Water Classic Canada – the coldest event in professional surfing.”

How awesome is that!

You can read the official O’Neill press release here, or the article from MetroNews Vancouver below:

Canada’s first-ever professional surfing competition hits the waters off Vancouver Island next month.

The Cold Water Classic Canada, which runs Oct. 25 to 31, will bring more than 100 professional surfers to Tofino, as well as spectators and about 50 media.

“It solidifies our tagline of being the Surfing Capital of Canada,” said Lynda Kaye, a spokeswoman for Tourism Tofino.

“If (the water) is anything like I’m looking at right now — pro surfers are going to be happy,” said Kaye, whose Tofino office overlooks the ocean.

“(The surf) is not steamer-lane, Santa Cruz big, it’s not huge, rip-curl, Hawaii big, but there are surfers in our water every day of the year.”

Temperatures, she added, are consistent with other surfing places in the Pacific Northwest at about 10 C.

The contest is the first professional surfing competition sponsored by the Association of Surfing Professionals to be held in Canadian waters.

It is the fourth in a series of five events held in balmy locales like the coasts of Scotland and Tasmania, and it is part of a World Qualifying Series that carries a total purse of $145,000.

“We expect the town to be a hubbub of activity,” said Kaye, adding the Olympic torch relay visits Tofino on Nov. 1, the day after the competition ends.

“For a town that basically takes a break after the summer, we’re going to be on fire into the first part of fall.”

Related Posts:
• October Recap
• Spirit of the Sea Festival & Sandcastle Competition
• The Big Chop – 2009 Summer Paddle Series

Tags: surfing,Tofino Classic
Categories: Events, Other Outdoor Stuff
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Photo by TylerIngram on Flickr.

Where to start…

I’ve done a few posts about nude recreation in the past. The first post was when I was doing some research on search engine optimization for this blog and found a site that lists the most popular meta-keywords. A search for “hiking” related keywords produced “nude hiking”. Then same thing happened for biking, and then kayaking… I had to do a double take with nude kayaking…you can see the original post here, an interesting read.

Anyways, I did a subsequent post on a spike in nude hiking taking place in Switzerland that was receiving some press when I noticed that my original post on the “nude keywords”, in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, actually had become one of the most trafficked posts of the blog. You can read my follow up report here.

That post actually received an interesting comment from Keith E., who lives on the Gulf Islands.

I was just watching some topless kayakers and came in and Googled nude kayaking and canoeing. Lo and behold, up came your site. While you yourself may not be pre-disposed to nude recreation, I can assure you from 50 years experience, yes fifty, that it is extremely popular and growing every year.

Hmmm, could it really be that popular? I hadn’t really noticed anything in my own experience, but then again I don’t actively participate in nude recreation. Maybe it was bigger than I thought….

Tyler Ingram recently found a similar phenomenon on his Flickr photos of some Vancouver bikers participating in the the recent worldwide Naked Bike Ride 2009, and he did a post on how Nude Cycling Can Bring In Traffic.

Rebecca Bollwitt has a poll going on her blog about people’s favorite beaches around the Lower Mainland. Spanish Banks, Jericho, Third Beach… which one do you think would come out the clear winner? Well as it stands today, Wreck Beach and Spanish Banks are dueling it out for top spot. Hmmm, a pattern seems to be emerging here….

After Keith’s original comment, we exchanged a few emails, and he kindly agreed to send me an ‘insider’s perspective’ on the local nude outdoor recreation scene. A few weeks went by, and then last week Keith commented on my post about the upcoming Largest Skinny-dip Across America Guinness Book of Records attempt taking place July 11 (yes, you can help break the record for skinny-dipping, read the post for more details )

I see you have been made aware of the upcoming world record attempt (an official Guinness Record attempt no less) regarding the largest number of simultaneous skinnydippers across north America. As you know, the event will be taking place at many different venues, but the places of concern for Vancouverites will be mainly Wreck beach in Vancouver and Crescent Rock beach in south Surrey. The date for this momentous celebration of nude fun will be July 11, 2009, officially at noon.

I have been visiting Wreck beach for better than 50 years now, and I doubt there are too many of us that can say that! Wreck has changed over the years, but one thing that seems to have remained constant is the family friendly atmosphere.

I recall many years ago when 200 or 300 people on the beach at the same time was considered busy. Then the numbers started to climb drastically. A few years back the number 10,000 was reached on a single day – now I hear that is over 14,000! That is bigger than some small towns – think about that for a minute. That’s a whole lot of nude people enjoying themselves.

The wide expanse of sand makes for a good paddling experience for the youngsters and for playing games of all sorts. So for those folks who might like to try the nude experience for perhaps the first time, July 11th might be the perfect day! That, and you might even become part of a world record! How cool would that be?

As an aside to the skinnydipping event, July 14, 2009 is National Nude Day. Do a Google search to see what comes up, you will be surprised!

There is also a World Nude Day, started I believe by folks in New Zealand. This year it was held on February 6th. Not a good weather day for us in Canada!

To add to that, the gardeners of the world were invited to participate in World Naked Gardening Day on May 2nd this year. It’s true! You wouldn’t believe how many people garden naked.

I should also mention the nude beach at Lions Bay. About the only practical way to get there is by boat. It seems the local powers that be have made parking so impossible up there that water is the best way to visit. It has been a number of years since I have been there, but on the day, the beach was quite well populated.

The good weather has brought out all sorts of nude activity over here in the Gulf Islands, even the recent winds don’t seem to have been much of a damper.

So there you have it! There is definitely no shortage of nude outdoor recreation activities available for you to participate in around Metro Vancouver! I had no idea there were half the events/ clubs/ and participants of them as there actually are out there.

And to Keith: thank you very much for info, wish you all the best!

Related Posts:
• Nude Hiking & Nude…Kayaking?
• More Nude Hiking
• You Can Help Break The World Record For…. Skinnydipping?

Tags: Nude,Skinny-dip,Wreck Beach
Categories: Other Outdoor Stuff
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