Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year

Good evening geocachers and readers, we hope that you've had a wonderful holiday season, and that your New Years is filled with joy and peace.

We had a great time with family and geocaching on Vancouver Island and are looking forward to seeing some of you at the upcoming events on January 1st (The Early Cacher gets the Smilie (GC4THJK)) and January 10th (10 Years of EarthCaching - Learn & Celebrate (GC4V35V)). If you can't make it out, hopefully we'll get a chance to see you on the trails soon!


 In addition to family time & some caching, Mr. LANMonkey made another co-hosting appearance on Caching in the Northwest with The Bad Cop & WitzEnd. In Episode 24 we talked about caching plans and goals for 2014. What are your goals for 2014?


In our upcoming episodes, we'll share some feedback on questions we've been asked over the past couple of months, and share a video that covers a week full of geocaching highlights in December.

Until then, remember to always cache safely, and cache often!
The LANMonkeys.

The LANMonkeys are back - in Bowser!

It's been a long stretch since our last episode and we've missed sharing with you all. But work & life have been a *little* hectic. Finally, we're back to share and thought we'd take you along the Lighthouse Trails in Bowser, BC. Just 60kms North of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, these trails are easy to access, and easy to hike - they are quite level, extremely well groomed, and wheel-chair accessible for at least the first 2.5km loop.

We had a fantastic time there with Manta Rayz and Piggy and would highly recommend the caches and trails to anyone heading, staying, or living in the area. Of particular interest were the wood carvings we took some photos and video of in Episode 37.  They seem to be chainsaw carved in the ends of felled logs and stumps all along the trail.


We hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and area about to launch into your New Year with all the excitement of a FTF.

Over the next week or so we'll get caught up on content we've missed with a few episodes and blog entries that we've been behind in getting out and shared with you all.

Thanks for watching & reading this past year, and we hope to see you all in 2014!

Cache safely, and cache often!

Baby, it's Cold Outside; So Geocache Indoors!

I didn't think you could geocache indoors, but this fall we discovered library geocaches; the perfect companion to December! Check out our latest FYI episode right here for a two minute crash-course on finding geocaches in your local library.

Well, as I said in the video, you'll need to search the Geocaching.com website to see if there are any puzzle or multi icons at or near your local libraries, and then read through the cache descriptions. Generally, library or any indoor geocaches won't be a traditional cache type as you can't really put the coordinates in the exact spot in the building where the cache is located.

Of course, now that I've asserted that so strongly, I'll be proved wrong. But I'm OK with that!

Now if you've had enough of the cold and are seeking warmer climes, check out LMGA Epsisode 36 - Geocaching in Las Vegas. After we returned to Las Vegas from completing our adventures in the Mojave Desert, Mrs. LANMonkey & I spent a day checking out the many virtual and traditional caches along the Las Vegas Boulevarde strip. We took a little break from the caching to enjoy a romantic gondola ride through the canals of Venice, and then later that same evening caught up with Catapult Jeff & Iron Maiden (yes, them *again*) to watch the Bellagio Fountains from the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower replica at the Paris Hotel, and then went to find a LPC (Lamp Post Cache) on the top of a parkade that had a surprisingly awesome view of the neighbourhood.

I don't often recommend LPCs, but this one I would - not for the cache itself, but for the remarkable view near it.


Before we close out this Geocaching Tuesday, let me also share with you that our friends at

Podcacher shared a "field report" we recorded for their podcast episode #447 at about the 30 minute mark.   It was pretty neat to get an email from local caching friend brightblades this past Monday letting us know he heard us on there. Thanks for the heads-up brightblades!

I hope you're all keeping warm and caching safely, and caching often!
The LANMonkeys. 

Friends on Podcacher & Christmas Cacher Gifts

Happy Friday geocachers and outdoor enthusiasts.

It seems we're blessed with another sunny & crisp  weekend ahead, so I hope you all have some great plans lined up. If you do, make sure to drop us a line via our new and amazingly awesome Facebook page and let us know what you're planning, or what you got up to - we love to hear and share your stories!

Police Dogs and Mustard Containers
This morning while walking Piggy I was listening to a recent episode of Sonny, Sandy, and Sean on Podcacher. About halfway through ( 30 minute mark of Episode 445) the hosts read some listener feedback, as they frequently do. As it turns out, the listener feedback today was from local geocacher dora_mor, sharing a story about geocaching & law enforcement run-ins from the logs of the Mustard Container Cache in Surrey.


Turns out, the logs are from local caching friends Professor P & Groovy Owl - yup, of WorldCaching fame - and detail their adventures at this geocache that clearly made for an unforgettable night out caching. It's worth a listen to the story!

Christmas is Just Around the Corner...
"Actually, it's down the hall, third door on the left." - Howie Mandell.  Perhaps you've noticed that Christmas shopping season starts earlier each year? Well, perhaps it doesn't, but it sure feels that way! If you've got a Geocacher on your shopping list, or you're putting together your own wish list, we'd love to hear what ideas you have and share them.

Here's a short list of things we at LMGA HQ can think of to help get things started.

Ogio Flight Vest

Almost ever event or caching trip we do, I (Mr. LANMonkey) will be decked out in my signature "geocaching vest." I've had many people ask about it, and frankly, it really is much handier than having a backpack, and carries at least as much as most day packs.  The vest I have is the Ogio Flight Vest. It's kind of hard to find, but check at motorcycling shops, as technically Ogio markets this as a motocross or snowmobiling vest. The variety of pockets is amazing, and it comes with a removable hydration system as well, so it truly is the all-round awesome caching accessory. It runs about $140 US, so it's not cheap, but I've had mine since 2009 and it holds up amazingly well through some pretty extreme conditions.

 FRS Radio Set
Really a core piece of outdoor safety equipment, but these have proved extremely useful not only for geocaching, but for many other functions. In the current days of cellular phones being omnipresent, the FRS radios have fallen out of vogue somewhat, but this is to the advantage of FRS users - there's fewer people clogging up the channels, and the range on the devices has only gotten better. In a perfect situation, you'll have a cell phone & FRS, but it's worth the investment. We use the Motorola MH230TPR which can run around $100, but there's less expensive options available.



If you have other ideas for awesome geocaching gifts of a technical  (or perhaps more "practical") nature, please share them through comments or feedback to our Facebook page or this blog.  Thanks for reading, and remember -

"Cache safely, and cache often!"
The LANMonkeys

2,000 Reasons We Love Travel-Caching

In case you hadn't heard yet, the LANMonkeys have passed geocaching find #2,000 in October. We had a trip planned in late October and were starting to get close to 2,000 finds, so we decided that it would be fun to make our 2,000th a special one. We also thought we'd see how many states/provinces we could find a cache in on one day.

 It started very early in the morning with a quick grab in BC before we crossed the US border on our way to catch a flight out of the Bellingham Airport. That was find #1,998. Once we were across the border we grabbed a cache near to the airport, and then waited for our traveling companions - CatapultJeff & IronMaiden to join us for the flight to Las Vegas.

And then we were in Las Vegas! Our first stop was the virtual cache at the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign, GC729A.

We took our photo, and just as we were about to head off to our next destination, Mrs. LANMonkey dropped to one knee & we had an impromptu "renewing of our vows" as she replaced my wedding band that no longer fit my finger after 19 years of wedded bliss with a brand new one she had purchased a while ago and snuck down for just this moment.

What a special moment! After that, we were off for more travel caching adventures, including a visit to Hoover Dam, and geocache finds in California and Arizona, to give us geocache finds in five different states/provinces in one day! Later that day we reminisced about some of our favourite cache finds over that past year and half, our 2,000 reasons we love geocaching.

Travel-Caching
We sure do enjoy our travel-caching, and it's nice when we can do that together, and even nicer when we can travel-cache with friends. Often though, I do find myself travel-caching when on work trips, and it is a different approach than when caching at home or doing "destination" travel-caching trips.  On episode 96 of the Geo Gear Heads they talked about business trip travel-caching and it's well worth a listen. I found myself nodding my head in agreement with many of the tips and tricks, but even learned a few new ideas on how to make travel-caching light effective - most of what I learned was the advice with specifics around pocket queries.

Additionally, as you've probably already heard, DarrylW4 & TheBadCop are about to hit episode 100 of the Geo Gear Heads, so a big congrats to them both for that milestone.

Caching in the NorthWest
 Speaking of things you've probably heard, I've been making a big deal about my podcast debut on the podcast "Caching in the NorthWest" with TheBadCop and WitzEnd. We had an absolute blast recording the episode about travel caching,  and ended up chatting together for almost another 2 hours after we finished recording. If you're interested in catching their podcast about caches and cachers in the Pacific NorthWest, check them out on their website or via iTunes.

Thanks for stopping by and reading our little geocaching blog once more - we sure hope you enjoy following us and really encourage you to comment or email us with your ideas, input, and advice.

Until next time, remember to cache safely and cache often!
The LANMonkeys.

PRED Trail, Mojave Desert, & other news...

Welcome to another Geocaching Tuesday!  We missed you guys, but we've been pretty busy around LMGA HQ lately.

On the geocaching front, we've uploaded our latest episode, which features a bike-caching adventure where Mrs. LANMonkey & Manta Rayz joined me to complete the PRED series of 40 geocaches along the Pitt River north of Pitt Meadows BC. Check it out, and enjoy the scenery - let me know what you think about bike caching - is it your style?




For a complete change of scenery, we recently returned from a geocaching adventure in the Mojave desert with our caching buddies Catapult Jeff & Iron Maiden. We cached the "Heart of the Mojave Desert" series as well as the back-half of "Route 66" and a number of other caches preceding and ante-ceding those trails. Truly an amazing and fun time with great friends - watch for the next few episodes of LMGA where I'll feature different aspects of that trip.

While we were caching with them, Catapult Jeff & Iron Maiden made their 10,000th cache find - that's CRAZY! I'll be featuring that event in an episode coming very soon so watch for that too!

Right after we got back it was off to the "Caching in Space" event held in Burnaby, BC. A well hosted and fun event that the weather actually cooperated for. Our sincere thanks to our hosts for the evening, KNL Caching, goaliegirl38, and jeepgurl1970. You guys did an awesome job!

Last bit of caching news, is that this Thursday I'll be joining the Caching in the NorthWest podcast as a guest. I'm very excited and honoured to be joining The Bad Cop and WitzEnd for an episode of their podcast. Thanks gents, I'll try not to embarrass you!

So that's all our quick updates for now, but in the meantime we're working hard at LMGA HQ producing tons of new content from our recent travels, events, and fun so watch for it each and every Geocaching Tuesday, and maybe even a few surprise episodes in-between.

Until next time, "cache safely, and cache often!"
The LANMonkeys.

LANMonkey Down Under?

Recently, the GeoGearHead's podcast (episode GGH093 - The History of Podcasting) featured a list of active podcasts about geocaching.  This prompted me to check out some of these podcasts I'd not listened to before, and I found some real gems in that list.

I thought it would be cool to hear what cachers in Australia & New Zealand talk about, so I downloaded an episode of the GeoTalk podcast. As it turns out, it happened to be the 100th podcast for that show - that's pretty impressive to get to 100 shows. Congrats Darren on 100 episodes!

In listening to the podcast on my drive home from work, I had a huge surprise when the host, Darren Osborne, started talking about lab caches.  The first blog he referenced in his show was LANMonkey's Geocaching Adventures - you know, this one? That was so amazing and appreciated!  Darren was referencing our "Lab Caches - FYI" episode, as well as bringing in some likely more authoritative sources such as NotAboutTheNumbers and the GroundSpeak forums.

So that's about as close as we'll get to traveling to Australia or New Zealand in the next year or so, but it was awesome to get the reference. So in return, I would encourage any & all of my readers to check out Darren's podcast. It's well put together, and gives a great insight into caching activities down-under. Darren clearly has been caching for a very long time and seems to be a pretty active cacher under the handle "The Spindoctors."

I've also added GeoTalk to my list of "Recommended Reading" over there on the right-hand panel.

If you have any geocaching or outdoor technology related podcasts and/or blogs you'd recommend, please comment or email the LANMonkeys with your suggestions. (PS: remove "NOSPAM" before clicking send on your email.) We look forward to hearing from you on what you read & listen to.

Thanks for reading, and remember to cache safely, and cache often!

Geocaching Beyond Hope

I know, that joke is beyond old, but I'm having a hard time letting it go - I guess it's just too easy. Geocaching in Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park however, wasn't too easy. The range of challenge on the terrain & difficulty of the caches in and near this park made for a great visit. From "Othello Entrance" (GC1RPBC), a quick park and grab in the parking lot you can grab caches along or near the trails and then challenge yourself to a serious inclined hike to go for "Hope Nicola Trail - Between Two Conicals" (GC150A5).


We hope you enjoyed the video, and would love to hear back from you on your experiences caching in this park, or other tunnels or railbed trails.

Thanks for joining us, and remember to cache safely, and cache often!
Team LANMonkey.

Breakfast, Caching, and Planting.

Did you think we forgot about you? Naw, we've been busy, but we've been preparing more content for you also. And last weekend, we were able to get busy with caching again. That good kind of busy!

We managed to attend a breakfast event, grab a mystery and traditional cache nearby that had eluded us previously, and then headed to a CITO event. After that, we had a crazy walk through the woods with some old & new caching friends to go collect a mystery cache that the COs had just given us six the final nudge we needed on.

But enough talk - here's the video!

August Geocaching Highlights

As everyone knows, August was Groundspeak's "31 Days of Geocaching." Love it or hate, a record number (according to Groundspeak) of cachers were out geocaching each day of August. I've read and heard many opinions about the souvenirs, which seem to be a primary focus of discussion, but we shouldn't let that debate distract from the ultimate goal - which was to get out & go geocaching.

One thing we can all agree upon, is that it appears summer is now over.  So in remembrance of a fun summer of geocaching, as we head into the crisp and/or damp autumn caching season, here are some of our highlights of geocaching in August.




BCGA Cache Blitz 2013
This was our first year to participate in the BCGA Cache Blitz, and we had an absolute blast. Obviously, summer is "cache placing" season anyhow, but with the extra incentive of Blitz recognition we got out to some great geocaches. Check out the complete list of the Blitz results and useful "short-list" of some cool caches. We even placed a couple of our own for the Blitz; and amazingly, we wound up with the over-all Blitz-winning cache - Monkey Puzzle Tree!

Event-o-rama
We've never been to so many events in one month! We even got to help host one, which was an exciting first-time event for us. Special thanks go out to Catapult Jeff & Iron Maiden and goaliegirl38 for their tireless work in coming up with ideas for events and all the work that goes on in the background for them to be successful. We also attended a fun night out at the pub hosted by a visiting geocacher (geo-gas-head) from the UK. That event opened our eyes to the idea that you can plan events for when you are visiting different countries, and meet a ton of friendly geocachers who have the low-down on all the local caching.  As a side note, it was great to get a good chat in with tjguy98, and I certainly appreciated your feedback and insight into geocaching social media!

We Went Ape!
On our Geocaching HQ Block Party 2013 road-trip, we also went to the 2013 WSGA "Going Ape" event at Hyak, in Iron Horse State Park, WA. Donner and Manta Rayz came with us, and we met up & cached for the day with walkinbyfaith and l0cus.  Here's our video of that adventure - but beware, it's not for the faint of heart! In the middle of the 2 mile long tunnel we were attacked by the Fen Dweller!

Lab Caches - FYI

There's been a lot of discussion - and frankly, a lot of confusion - around Groundspeak's (geocaching.com) introduction of Lab Cache type.  The Lab Cache type was introduced at this years Block Party (August 17th, Seattle WA) with a lot of fanfare but also a lot of confusion.

Prior to the event, Groundspeak let us all know that a "new cache type" was going to be introduced. Hey, they wanted to amp up the excitement and attendance for the Block Party, and that was successful. Subsequently, folks arrived, but then the confusion kicked in. Depending upon where you were when, and to whom you spoke, different messages (unofficial, of course) made their way around about what the deal was with Lab Caches.

Some more experienced 'cachers who'd attended the Block Party previously made assumptions (reasonable ones) based on their past experiences. New cachers tried to grasp the concept and got pieces of it. Other than the "keynote" at the event and a discussion forum posting, there was little official and consistent communication from Groundspeak on the topic.


For example; while at the event I recorded a LMGA episode on the Lab Caches to try and explain what I currently understood - by the time the video was in post production (1 week later) there was more information that I used to make some corrections in the video. Subsequent to that, deeper "research" into the Lab Caches has provided me enough information to write this blog entry - so the first thing to be cognizant of is that this is an evolving concept.

Here are three key things to help you understand Lab Caches.

1. This is a test - this is only a test. Lab Caches are, in essence, a real-world labratory to test out new ideas for geocache types; and the place(s) Groundspeak has decided to use for their "alpha testing" or lab work, are the Mega Events. This means that if you are jonesin' to get a Lab Caches icon in your profile, you'll need to attend a Mega that has announced it will host Lab Caches.

2. They count (sort of).  Lab Caches give you smilies, and count in your over-all cache finds, but

there's a catch, my statistically oriented friends - there are no logs on geocaching.com associated with these caches as they are intended as tests and aren't available after the events. Therefore applications like GSAK won't be able to add them from your "My Finds" pocket query, or from directly querying your account. The work around is to manually create the caches in your GSAK DB as waypoints, and set them to "found" on the date you found them/attended the Mega Event.

3. They're not my type.  Lab Caches aren't one specific type of cache; this is a category for Groundspeak to use to try out all kinds of different ideas (remember "Challenges?") for what might make a new cache type. So each event that has Lab Caches may have something completely different, and Groundspeak is really looking for your feedback on those caches. Attendees from the 2013 Block Party who tried out the "Adventures" Lab Caches were subsequently sent a link to a survey asking for our feedback on these.

As always, I'm really interested in your thoughts & opinions around Lab Caches, and geocaching topics in general, so feel free to post your comments to this blog or to the Lab Cache FYI video on our YouTube channel.

Cache safely, and cache often.

LMGA FYI - Geocaching International Film Festival 2013

On August 17th under the Aurora Bridge in the Freemont neighbourhood of Seattle, attendees of the 2013 Block Party had the opportunity to be a part of the first Geocaching International Film Festival (GIFF).

We've distilled the event down to a few key moments, and included some of our observations.

 Over-all we had a great time and were absolutely amazed at the quality of the top 16 films that were shown during this event. The films came in from geocachers around the world and featured themes from the comedic to stories of how geocaching has impacted the lives of people in significant ways.



In the end, the experience motivated us to start considering how we might come up with a submission for next year's GIFF. Who knows, maybe with some time, talent, and the support of our local geocaching community we can come up with a group effort that gets onto that giant screen next year!

Groundspeak Geocaching Block Party 2013

This past weekend was "cache your face off" with the LANMonkeys, Donner, and Manta Rayz.
We headed to Seattle to experience our very first (and certainly not our last!) Block Party event and had an amazing time.

We even managed to bump into a handful of cachers from back home including Walkinbyfaith, l0cus, katcogo, Delta Dodger, Sweet Marie, PhilatSea, and probably some others I apologise for forgetting at the moment... there was simply so much to take in we were in event over-load! But we took ample footage to try and give at least some sense of the over-all experience for those who couldn't make it this year.


We tested out the seven "lab caches" from Geocaching Labs (Groundspeak R&D), visited all the newly placed permanent caches, enjoyed the first ever "Geocaching International Film Festival", and met many, many people - including a few "geocaching celebrities."

Check out our video for just a few of the highlights from this beautiful day in the Freemont neighbourhood of Seattle.

We will be releasing two "Special Edition" videos highlighting the GIFF & the lab caches to give you some special insight into those first time events if you weren't able to make it there. Here's our Lab Cache FYI video, just uploaded! Or if you were, you can check out our perspective on those. If you'd like to see those videos, make sure you follow our YouTube channel.

The event planners spun on the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" theme for a few different angles, and did a fine job.  The event itself was smoothly run with more than enough activity and sights to keep cachers busy morning through evening.

By the time the evening came around, we headed back off to our hotel and crashed hard, completed exhausted from the fun, sun, and caching company; we needed our rest because the next morning (Sunday) we were off to the Going Ape 2013 event an hour east of Seattle.

So for our very first Block Party experience, we'd really like to thank not only the folks at GroundSpeak who made the event happen, but the cachers from home who gave us so many tips and ideas of things to see & do when we arrived.

Thanks everyone,
The LANMonkeys.

"Cache safely, and cache often!"

LMGA 24 - Buttle Lake Boat Caching

Geocaching Tuesdays are back with our next adventure - geo-camping with the LANMonkeys and crew aboard the S.S. Tupperware on Vancouver Island. We camped in Strathcona Park and took our boat to "Sometimes Island" & "Buttle Narrows" before we had time for one last "Re: Buttle."

Buttle Lake is an area I used to camp in quite a bit as a kid, so it was really fun to come back and bring my whole extended family for a week of fishing, camping, star-gazing, hiking, and - why yes - even some geocaching!

Th weather was perfect up to the last night when we had just a bit of rain before we had to pack up, but we can't complain. In this episode we share with you the caches we went and grabbed by boat not far from the campground.  In a subsequent episode we'll share our fun family drive down to the south end of the lake where we visited Myra Falls and several other caches on our way there.

Caching in Strathcona Park can be an amazing fun time, but the size of the lake (Buttle is the largest lake on Vancouver Island) and the park in general means you'll need to dedicate a couple of days to it. Fortunately, the weather here is generally fairly moderate as you're immediately east of the mountains.

Thanks for watching. Cache safely, and cache often!
The LANMonkeys.

Manning Park FTF Adventure

Thanks for your patience between blog posts - we had a major technology melt-down about a month ago and lost all our upcoming content. :(  In the meantime, we've been having some amazing geocaching adventures and recording new content that we'll start sharing again now.
First up is our recent overnight to E.C. Manning Provincial Park where the LANMonkey's and Manta Rayz decided to try a 21km return hike in an attempt to get a First to Find (FTF) on a cache (Oh Brother) at the summit of First Brother mountain.


 Manta Rayz, Piggy, and the LANMonkeys headed along the trails with LOTS of water and bug spray - both mandatory for this hike. Up at just over 2,000m we enjoyed the views from N49 09.166 W120 46.034 and then continued along to where Fat Dog Creek/Fat Dog Trail connect. We hadn't really heard of Fat Dog Trail before in our years of hiking the area, but it's apparently a cross-country ski trail, without a trailhead marker at the junction, but it was marked on our GPSr maps. There is also an alpine pond nearby at N49 09.413 W120 46.381 that likely has a name but we just call it "Fat Dog Alpine Pond."

So we made it to the trail junction for First Brother, and Manta Rayz was not impressed by the last kilometer ahead of us. At this point we were at about 2,100m and had at least another 100m vertical to go. Up we slowly pushed amidst some nasty horseflies and deer/blackflies, along the ridge with an amazing view down to a small lake, and then some tricky rock scrambles in the last bit; we had to push Piggy up one or two spots and assist him down, as these bits weren't really dog-friendly territory. Piggy is accustomed to some climbing though.

Soon we were upon the summit post, but not yet at the cache location - "another 30m to go" Mrs. LANMonkey announced. Out came the video camera to capture the moment of truth for YouTube, as Manta Rayz searched about at ground zero and made the find. We held our breath as the log book was removed from the cache...

West Van Geocaching

Last weekend Mrs. LANMonkey & I spent some time geocaching in West Vancouver - or more accurately, a couple of parks in the West Vancouver area.  We had beautiful weather and some amazing views and fun geocaches.  If you haven't hit up these areas yet, read on for some insights and tips on how to make this a very enjoyable geocaching experience - you may even be able to convince your muggle friends and family to join you!

The first stop was somewhere where I've spent A LOT of time over the past several years (most notably 2008-2010) and always enjoy visiting - Cypress Provincial Park.  As many likely already know, the Cypress Bowl Recreation Area is often mistakenly referred to as "Cypress Mountain" but there actually is no Cypress Mountain - two mountains make up the ski/recreation area. Black Mountain and Mount Strachan form either side of this amazing recreation area. Those aren't the only mountains involved in the area, but they are the primary ones.

Our trip up into Cypress was a brief one on this visit as we had to get Manta Rayz to the Nanaimo-bound ferry, so we stopped for three caches - jearsy's EarthCache at the lookout (GC3YFBG), "Hollyburn Chairlift 1951" (GC4D9MN), and just a little further uphill near the picnic area, a rare large traditional, "On Top of the World" (GCMYAG).

As always on a beautiful day the view from the lookout was absolutely amazing - and I've seen this view all four seasons! Honestly, I never tire of it and the variety it provides year 'round.

Once caution for anyone who hasn't visited this park in the summer (aside from the usual bear cautions, etc.) is to watch for bicyclists. This is an extremely popular road to ride up and down, and while most cyclists are courteous, cautious, and responsible, it only takes one inattentive driver or rider for things to end poorly.

After some quick cache grabs and a swapping of TBs in GCMYAG, we headed to the ferries, made the mad dash to get Manta Rayz safely off on her own adventures, and then headed for Point Atkinson or "Lighthouse Park" in West Vancouver.

Due to some clever navigation by Mrs. LANMonkey, we were able to walk the entirety of this very well laid out park in only a few short hours and grab all but one of the caches. We were stumped by "Cedar View" (GC1FXHH) but once we got home and read through more of the logs, we realized why we couldn't find it. So that means we'll need to go back again sometime!

Over-all the park was amazing, with more incredible views - at least four of the caches take you right to view points, each with a unique view out onto the water. 

In addition, this park has not only your usual collection of traditional caches in a range of sizes, but one rare virtual cache - Point Atkinson Lighthouse (GC707C) -  and an extremely enjoyable "mystery" cache - The Lost Treasure of the Boundless II (GCNCJJ) that requires a little research before heading to the park or a good data plan to do your research in the field. Once you've solved this puzzle, you'll absolutely love the final - fairly easy to find & creatively fun.

Once we had completed about half the caches we started to find a familiar name in the logs (RumRunner1) and realized that we must've passed each other on the trail at some point and didn't get a chance to meet. Ah well, we hope you & your caching crew enjoyed your visit to the park as well!

So if you haven't visited one or either of these sites before for a geocaching adventure, make sure you do while the weather and views are still as impressive as they were this past weekend!

Thanks for reading our blog!
"Cache safely, and cache often."
Team LANMonkey

Dwight Moves On...

So this weekend, Dwight the Puzzling Monkey finally moved out from our home and has started his adventures. He was grabbed from the LANMonkeys in the Delta/Richmond area by K of KNL_Caching, and briefly hung out with Kuyvenhoven, Walkinbyfaith, and l0cus; all of whom have gleaned his secrets, and found his puzzle tree.

Sunday was the big day for him to start out, and from what we've seen, he's looking to move on again. Like the littlest hobo, he doesn't stay in one place long.

If you see him, say "hi" for us, and maybe post a picture of where he is so we don't miss him too much.

It was fun getting him started, and hopefully he'll get to meet many of the local geocachers in the MetroVan/Lower Mainland area before too long.

Cache safely, and cache often.
Team LANMonkey

Where's Dwight the Puzzling Monkey?

After extensive discussion about how to share where Dwight will be, Dwight, Mrs. LANMonkey, and Mr. LANMonkey have come to the agreement that his plans for the day will be posted as a note on his cache page, and as long as he's with the LANMonkeys, he'll "dip" in most caches he visits. That way, anyone interested in finding or following this silly simian will know what he's been up to, and where he's planning on going.

As the LANMonkeys don't cache by smartphone, it's challenging to post/respond to updates in real time.

Dwight the Puzzle Monkey - Watershed Park

So tonight Piggy, the LANMonkeys, and for a brief time, Dwight the Puzzling Monkey, are caching in Watershed Park in Delta. We'll likely get there around 7:00pm, and look forward to grabbing a few in the park as dusk settles in and then going for one or both of the night caches there. Thanks for checking in! Cache safely, and cache often. Team LANMonkey

100 Geocaches in 1 Day

Team LANMonkey & Donner teamed up once more (we do that a lot) to see if we could find 100 geocaches in 1 day on our bikes. We had a slight advantage in that we hadn't cached the Boundary Bay Dyke Trail area yet, so that was over 70 possible finds right there. However, it was also a long ride!

So why would we try and find 100 or more caches in one day? Mrs. LANMonkey has her eye on a challenge cache (Your Caching Chronology - GC42TRJ) and the requirements are 100 caches in one day, 300 caches in one month, and 100 continuous days of finds. Since June gets an extra weekend this year (does it every year? I don't know.) we figured it would be the perfect month to try for the 300 - and what better way to start on 300 in a month than to get 100 on the first day of that month?

Yeah, we're a little nuts for our geocaching.

Cache safely, and cache often!
The LANMonkeys

LMGA - Surrey Heritage Tour Multicache - Episode 18

Hey geocachers! As it turns out, Mr. LANMonkey can't count above ten, so episodes 18 & 19 are out of order. To make up for that boo boo, I'm providing another Geocaching Two-Fer Tuesday. This  episode was filmed a couple of weeks ago in Cloverdale BC, when Mrs. LANMonkey & I did the "Surrey Centre Heritage Tour."

It was a fun cache, with a fair bit of walking (and some elevation change, for those who don't handle that well).  If it's a nice day out, come with water! In my opinion, this multi *is* stroller friendly, so you can bring the kids, but you *will* be walking alongside some busy roads so use your judgement on that.

Over-all we really enjoyed this, and even though we've spent a LOT of time in that immediate area, we still learned quite a bit about the heritage of that part of Surrey.

Thanks for the cache!

Cache safely, and cache often.
Team LANMonkey

LMGA - Episode 019 - Parksville Part 2

Episode 19 features the second part of our spring adventure in Parksville, Qualicum, Nanoose, and Nanaimo. In this episode, Manta Rayz joins us as we geocache along rivers, beaches, marinas, and the "Iron Family" power trail - that takes the idea of power trail pretty seriously!

While we were there we logged our 800th find, at ICU @ Columbia Beach, a webcam cache we've wanted to "log"  for some time, but it was not operating until recently.

We moved on some TBs, and made sure that we also visited the top five most "favourite" caches in the region, as featured in episode 14. make sure you watch our episodes to the end to catch our bloopers!

Thanks for checking out our latest episode.
Cache safely, and cache often.
Team LANMonkey (and Manta Rayz)

LMGA - Cache #1000 - Episode 017

Thanks for checking in on our latest episode. Last weekend some old and new geocaching friends and family joined us to find the first geocache in BC - Treehugger (GC1DD). It was a great, and fun adventure in Pacific Spirit Regional Park near the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Joining us for the cache find was goaliegirl38, Donner, Manta Rayz, and ecache. What a great time with great friends.  We then proceeded to grab the rest of the traditional caches nearby and along the beach.


As always we encourage you all to cache safely, and cache often!
Team LANMonkey.

Geocaching Plans for This Weekend?

Team LANMonkey goes with friends & family to find their 1,000^th geocache tomorrow.

We’re in search of BC’s first geocache “Treehugger”(GC1DD) located near the Point Grey area of Vancouver (UBC endowment lands).   

We'll be sure to post a video record of our adventures, and our "official" team photographer Donner will be along so FaceBook will be out of storage by Sunday. ;-)

Cache safely, and cache often!
Team LANMonkey.

LMGA - Ep 016 - 9 Cache Types in 1 Day

Welcome to our show notes for episode 16 of LANMonkey's Geocaching Adventures. Travel with us from the Fraser Valley in British Columbia to Bellingham, WA as we search out nine different cache types in one day. Our adventure was successful, in that we found one each of the following cache types:

1. Puzzle
2. Traditional
3. Event (WWFM X Flashmob event)
4. WhereIGo
5. Letterbox
6. EarthCache
7. Multi
8. Virtual
9. Webcam

It was great fun. We met some new cachers when we participated in the 2013 WWFM X,  visited some beautiful locations, and just generally had a great time in Canada and the USA.  So that's one more challenge accepted & completed!

If you've completed this or a similar challenge, tell us about it, and the highlights of that adventure.

Cache safely, and cache often!
Team LANMonkey

LMGA - Ep 015 - Parksville BC

Welcome to our show notes for Episode 15 - Parksville Caching. In this episode we travel to Vancouver Island on BC Ferries and enjoy some amazing views along the way. Then we catch a quick cache on the way into the town of Parksville.  Next we head further up Island to pick up a power trail that connects the old and new Island Highways (GC3CY8J), and on our way back to Parksville cached some more and saw some sea lions frolicking.

We were later off to Coombs Market to get some caches and visit with the goats.

We hope you enjoy this fun episode with some amazing scenery. The second episode of our trip to Parksville will get released shortly to share with you the rest of our fun caching trip to Vancouver Island.

Thanks for checking this out; please provide us your feedback!

Cache safely, and cache often!
Team LANMonkey.

LMGA - Ep014 - Parksville's Top 5 Geocaches

Welcome to the show notes for episode 014 of LANMonkey's Geocaching Adventures.

Join our adventure to discover the 5 most popular geocaches in beautiful Parksville/Qualicum British Columbia. Amazing creativity, fun adventures, and everything that makes family geocaching great.

Episode 014 was filmed on location in beautiful Vancouver Island, British Columbia over the Easter long weekend. 

Just a short drive up the Island Highway from Nanaimo, and a couple hours north of Victoria, you’ll find Parksville BC. Parksville is a tourism and outdoors oriented area where geocaching abounds, as well as many other different recreational activities including hiking, fishing, camping, golf, spas & resorts, and many other options. There are recreational and educational activities for people of all ages from Rathtrevor Beach to Coombs market, and dozens of options in between.

In this episode of LANMonkey’s Geocaching Adventures, we’re going to highlight the top 5 geocaches in the Parksville area, and do our best to not spoil them for you, but hopefully entice you into coming out and enjoying them!

The top 5 cache count-down is:

5. WOOZLER AT THE BEACH GC15QX0

4. the clever cache - by ITWL GC3KZ8P

3. Da Vinci's Cryptex - by ITWL  GC3CVJG

2. the secret vault of "SCRAT the SQUIRREL" - by ITWL  GC3EZ6F

1. Made in Canada, eh!  GC2Y8Q8

 We welcome your feedback on this episode, and your ideas for future episodes. If you enjoyed this one, please be sure to "like" it so that we can continue to provide the content you want!

As always,

Cache safely, and cache often.

Team LANMonkey