The Alaskan Geocaching Cruise - Day 1

Let us tell you a story about five passengers who set sail that day... oh wait, wrong story.  

How about the one where 54 geocachers set sail for Alaska & the Yukon in August 2016? Yeah, we'll tell you that one.

It starts in the departing port city of Vancouver. Lucky for us, it's our hometown, making the start of this adventure pretty easy.

So how did 54 geocachers come to be on the same cruise? Well that's thanks to the Landsharkz who organized the cruise and drew the geocachers from across Canada and the US to come together for this amazing adventure.

 So day 1 we got ourselves onto the ship and learned a lot about boarding and navigating your way about a cruise ship - did we mention this was our first cruise? Well now we have. And with that we were on-board the Holland America Neiuw Amsterdam and ready to head North!

So farewell Vancouver, we are adventure bound North by Northwest. 

We enjoyed discovering some of the amazing amenities of the ship that we made good use of throughout the rest of the cruise, including the library and coffee shop on the top deck where we spent some evenings reading, relaxing, and enjoying the company of several of our co-cruisers.


So day one ended with a nice dinner, then we rested as we prepared for our first full day at sea, a chance to meet all the geocachers on-board, and more exploring the ship and admiring the amazing scenery of Northern Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlottes/Haida Gwai.

Steps, Streaks, and Naked Friends

Thanks for your patience folks, it's been a bit of a tough season to be focusing on getting content together, but we're back with some more for you all.

Future Blogs & Vlogs

We've talked about the idea of trying to get a new blog & vlog episode out for each Tuesday. It would be awesome if we can, but we've decided that we'll only be putting content out when that content features a geocaching adventure, per the promise of our title. As you all know, some weeks the caches are... well... average. Some weeks we're not going anywhere interesting, nor do we see or experience anything particularly interesting, and for those weeks we don't see a huge value in putting an episode & blog together. We value your time in reading and watching, and want to make sure we only ask for your attention when there's something interesting to share.

Caching Streaks

We sure hope you've all made it through winter and got some outdoor activities in - a little geocaching maybe? The LANMonkeys have managed to keep things going with getting at least one cache per day, and we just cleared 365 days of continuous geocaching. We know it's not the longest streak around, and we'd be interested in hearing from any of you about your geocaching streaks - long or short.

And if you are currently attempting a caching streak, what's your goal? 

364 Steps

This past week when we hit day #364 we made the opportunity (thanks to the longer evenings) to head to UBC and trek down to Wreck Beach to figure out how to find "364 Steps" (GC49C66).

Check out our latest episode of LMGA for a brief view of the beauty of that location and the fun of claiming a cache on our 364th day of caching in a row.

Wow, that was a lot of steps, and a very cool cache! Thanks very much to our caching friend Cuddlefish for creating that fun mystery cache, and giving us the "thumbs up" to use our experience at the cache in  that video.

Naked Friends

While we're talking about streaking and friends, here's the newest episode of LMGA, where Mr. LANMonkey finds the geocache "Naked Friends" (GC3CEVB) just out past the the starting coordinates for the "364 Steps" cache.

This was a tough find - the cache has a bit of a trick to it so read the description, hint, and logs carefully. Also be aware of the tides for this cache - here's an important website for investigating Vancouver area tides so you can be safe on your tidal caching adventures!

Friend-Caching

Speaking of caching friends, you've probably seen our good friends Catapult Jeff & Iron Maiden in some of our videos before, and we've decided that it might be fun to share some more about them. We've placed a new geocache on Mount Seymour as a "tribute cache" to them, and created the first of our "Friend-Caching" videos - an interview with these fun cachers while out on a geocaching adventure with them.

We're looking forward to following this pattern with other cachers who've become our friends - and we're open to any feedback, ideas, and suggestions. Who will be the next to go "Friend-Caching" with the LANMonkeys?

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!

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

Lynden, WA & First Event

Happy Geocaching Tuesday!

In the latest instalment of LANMonkey's Geocaching Adventures we visit Lynden Washington with Manta Rayz. We explored Berthusen Park where we found a number of caches and really enjoyed the amazing beauty of that park. Then we travelled through rural Lynden picking up a few caches here and there, and then grabbed a couple of the urban ones. It was on a Sunday afternoon after church, and we could not believe how QUIET Lynden was on a Sunday in March - lots of parking for those park & grabs!

We'd really encourage anyone in the Vancouver area who hasn't visited there yet to make sure you get accross the border (with your passports!) and have fun. The border guards all seemed familiar with Geocaching and gave us no grief at all; easy trip, fun trip!

This past weekend, Mrs. LANMonkey, Manta Rayz, Piggy & I attended our first event - "In Memory of Scooby." The event was held in Fleetwood Park in Surrey and was a lot of fun. As this was our first event, we met lots of you geocaching folks, and had a great time. As it was billed as a "dog friendly" event, that made it just that much more fun!  It was a well planned and executed event, and it was great to put some faces to a number of cachers who we've heard of one way or another before.

So, as always, cache safely & cache often!
Team LANMonkey