Geocaching Guidebook to Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley

Want to ensure you are able to get a softcover or e-book copy of the Geocaching Guidebook to Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley before you head to the Pacific Northwest?

Get yourself on the pre-order list using this simple form, and you'll be contacted as soon as the book is ready for order!

Follow this link to reserve your copy!

More information about the book:

This guidebook has been written with the geocacher in mind, but more so, with the geocacher who has friends or family who aren’t as keen about the hobby coming along to visit what I feel is one of the most beautiful and amazing places on earth that I am blessed to call home.

The 160+ pages of this book includes GC codes and insider tips for hundreds of active geocaches, lists of the top geocaches to find in a variety of categories and ratings, information on how to travel to and around the region you'd only get from a local, and details on day trips to other amazing locations outside of the Lower Mainland of BC. Add to this a variety of insights into activities and locations that would appeal to the non-geocachers (and the geocaches closest to them) and you've got an indispensable resource you'll want to have before you visit!

Chapters include:

• Must Find Geocaches
• Top 10 High Terrain Caches & How to Get to Them
• Top 10 Puzzle or Mystery Caches
• Adventure Labs and Where to Find Them
• Where Geocaches and Attractions Overlap
• Geotours and Geocoin Challenges
• Events and Festivals
• Family-Friendly Things to Do 
• Find the Most Unique Views
• Where to Hold a Meet & Greet Event
• Dangerous Plants and Animals
• Free and Discounted Stuff
• Day (& Multi-Day) Trips from Vancouver

And much, much more! 

Want Pro-Tips for Geocachers AND Muggles to Love Their Visit to BC, Canada?

Well then friend, you've come to the right place!

This Fall I will be making the first edition of "The Geocachers Handbook to Metro-Vancouver & the Fraser Valley" available to LANMonkey Patrons!
This book is the compilation of two years of effort of combining all the best geocaching and non-geocaching visitor experiences from the region. 

Painstaking research including colour photos of various highlights will assist the experienced and novice visitor to our beautiful region in understanding the local history, geography, transit & transportation, amenities, and family friendly attractions.


Oh, and did I forget to mention the geocaches? The book will highlight some real pro-tips on what the must find geocaches in a variety of categories are, and include tips from my personal experience on how to find them and what to expect on your adventure.

The book will be invaluable to any visitor, and is offered first to those who have invested in supporting my efforts to publish quality geocaching and travel adventure information and entertainment for the past several years.

Any level of Patreon support will have access to the book for download once it's ready for you later in 2019. 

However, to give you a taste of what's to come, here's an overview of the chapters of the book at the moment:

1. The Cities and Suburbs
2. Getting Here
3. Must-Find Geocaches
4. Where Geocaches & Attractions Overlap
5. Best Secret Spots
6. Getting Outside the Cities
7. Free (and Discounted) Stuff
8. Day (& Multi-Day) Trips from Here
9. Other Resources & Contacts for Geocaching in South Western BC

The first chapter has already been made available to Patrons for download as an early thank-you for their support, and is available to any new Patrons.

If you are curious about how to access this once it's published, follow our social media channels @LANMonkeyGC on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, or better yet, sign up as a Patron and support the work, plus get other great patron bonuses & perks!

LANMonkey's Geocaching Adventures are written by Jay Kennedy, outdoor adventurer and photo-journalist. All content is affiliated with the Wander Network. Experience his adventures on Twitter and Instagram by following @LANMonkeyGC, and subscribing to LANMonkey on YouTube. He is also a regular co-host of the Caching in the Northwest geocaching podcast.

Three Quick Tips to be Tsunami-Safe When Geocaching

Hey Geocachers, 

So we had a "near miss event" overnight in the Northwest - a tsunami warning from the 7.9 Magnitude earthquake off the coast of Alaska. Great news is that all regions I've heard about were not hit by a tsunami of any significant size.

So after a collective sigh of relief, I thought it would be handy to share a bit of insight into what tsunamis are, why it's something to keep in mind in the coastal Northwest (and really, any coastal area), and what geocachers should know about tsunamis.

A tsunami is not the same as a tidal wave. A tsunami is a series of large waves, triggered by some sort of under-water seismic event such as an earthquake, volcano, etc. The key points here are that it can be a series of waves - not a single large rogue wave - which can significantly impact low-lying coastal areas, and that they are triggered by some sort of seismic event, most of which are monitored by government facilities.

This is really good news, because in *most* cases it means that in the event of a potential tsunami, there will likely be an hour or more warning that it is coming - that of course depends on where the seismic activity occurred relative to where you are at the time.


Further, here's some interesting facts about tsunamis borrowed from the Government of Canada's "Get Prepared" emergency awareness website:

• Tsunamis are a series of large waves caused by events such as submarine earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, and less commonly, meteoric impacts. Tsunamis can also occur in large lakes.
• They can occur with little warning in the ocean and in lakes.
• A tsunami can be triggered by a large, high energy, but relatively short duration disturbance of the sea floor. Such waves can travel across the ocean at high speed (800 km/h, the speed of a jet plane).
• As the tsunami waves approach the shoreline and water depth shallows, the wave speed slows, but wave height will increase as wave length decreases. In 20 m of water, wave speed will be 50 km/h.
• Tsunamis can occur as individual or multiple waves following each other by minutes and even hours.
• Tsunamis can grow to 60 or more metres in height (the size of a ten-story building).

So with the events of this morning, and the knowledge that this seismic activity is monitored by US and Canadian governments, it's helpful to know that when you are geocaching in low lying coastal areas - or along river/water systems  connected to the oceans - to have your mobile phone configured to receive any alerts of this nature. 

In the US, many states subscribe to the emergency broadcast alerts via the Commercial Mobile Alert System and can send messages directly to your mobile phone over most mobility networks. While this may result in the occasional erroneous incoming ballistic missile false alarm, it will give you a head's up of an incoming tsunami or other significant natural disaster.

Here in Canada however, our CRTC has not permitted this "push" technology yet. Therefore, to be notified of tsunamis while out geocaching in coastal Canada, it is important to subscribe to a service such as the Emergency Info BC Twitter account. In April 2018 the BC Government is committed to having a text service available as a component of the BC Emergency Alert system, which will most certainly be helpful.

So as a geocacher, what can you do to be tsunami-prepared? There's really three simple things to do:

1. Understand what areas may be tsunami susceptible when you are out caching.
2. Watch for "tsunami evacuation route" signs to know which direction to head should there be an alert.
3. Subscribe to any emergency broadcast services available, and keep an ear open for tsunami alert sirens if you are ear-shot of such notification systems.

Most of all, we hope that you all cache safely, and cache often!

New Geotour in the Northwest

City of Richmond Announces New Geotour!

Word is out - on the City of Richmond website, as well as the BCGA and MetroVan Geocacher's social media channels. The City of Richmond, in partnership with the Government of Canada, is launching a brand new Geotour on May 6, 2017.



The Canada 150 Geotour will feature 17 traditional caches, 2 multis, and 1 earthcache. The geocaches will have fun, creative hides at each of the 19 physical cache locations, many courtesy of local geocachers layzee_bones and GeoNavPros.  

If finding 20 great geocaches isn't reward enough, be one of the first 150 geocachers to collect all 20 clues  and you will be rewarded with a limited edition trackable geocoin!

For more information about the Canada150 Geotour, and getting started with geocaching in general, click here to listen to yours truly talking to Janice & Cory about it on Roundhouse Radio this past Monday.

 
The launch of this fantastic new geotour will take place during the 3rd Annual Richmond Geocaching Extravaganza. Make sure you sign up for this event by logging your "will attend" on the event page. 

If you've never attended a geocaching event, download the official Geocaching.com app for your phone, create your free account, and come out to the Richmond Nature Park between 11:00am and 3:00pm Saturday May 6 2017 to have some local experts help you learn all about it in a family friendly environment.

For more in-depth information about the Geotour and geocaching in the City of Richmond, check out the April 6th episode of the Caching in the Northwest podcast.


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

Alaskan Caching Cruise - Day 4: All Aboard!

Having enjoyed our brief visit to the Yukon town of Carcross, it was almost time to climb aboard the White Pass & Yukon Railway train and head back to Skagway.

But before we get to that, a little bit of trivia for you. The town of Carcross was originally called "Cariboo Crossing" but because too many other towns were similarly named the residents elected to rename their community since the name confusion seemed to result in a lot of lost mail on it's way to them. 

One of the (many) great stories from this cruise was hearing from cacher IndigoDave from Ontario about how he and his new bride spent a summer in the 70's working in Whitehorse - and that Dave's job was as brakeman on the White Pass & Yukon Railway! So not only did he have experience with this line, but he was allowed to ride the engine all the way from Carcross to Bennet, BC. 

To hear that full story from IndigoDave himself, take a listen to this episode of the Caching in the Northwest podcast where we played the audio interview I conducted with Dave. Get it? Conducted? Train pun. Dave would appreciate that.

Well, at this point it was time to board the train, and as we got underway to our first stop of Bennett and rolled along the narrow gauge railway along the iconic mountain and lake scenery of the north, there were opportunities for the classic "comin' 'round the corner" train shots and many other amazing photos by all aboard.

We even had the opportunity to complete another Earthcache from aboard the train which was pretty amazing.

Soon enough we had arrived at the stop of Bennett BC - last stop before crossing the international border back into the USA, but more importantly from a historic standpoint, Bennett marks the NW end of the famous Chilkoot Trail - the only passage available through the mountains to Gold Rush prospectors.

Prospectors would need to amass one tonne of supplies here, as inspected by the North West Mounted Police (predecessors of the famous RCMP), to ensure they had enough supplies to last a full winter in the harsh conditions of the Yukon.







We toured what remains of the gold rush tent-town along the shores of the lake, then headed back to our train for the final and amazingly scenic ride back into Skagway.


If you ever find yourself in Skagway - geocaching or not - we highly recommend the White Pass and Yukon Railway experience from Carcross to Skagway.

Having completed some more touring about the town and a few more geocache finds, we headed back aboard ship. Tonight our ship pulls out and heads for Glacier Bay - tune in for the next blog highlighting that amazing part of our trip.   

#GeocacheRoadTrip to Yellowstone Park - Leg 1

On the first leg of our summer #GeocacheRoadTrip we traveled from our home near Vancouver, BC Canada through Washington and Idaho, checking out some cool sights along the way. 

We took the "northern route" through Washington which allowed us to visit the North Cascades National Park.

On our way we visited a few virtual caches and Earthcaches, and had a number of amazing stops all of which we were able to capture in episode 84 of LMGA.

Take a look at that episode, and let us know about your summer #GeocacheRoadTrip adventures - we'd love to hear about what you've discovered this summer!

 

Soaring Over Hope - Birds Eye View of Geocaching Country

This past Sunday Mrs. LANMonkey sprung a surprise on me - it was one of those "bucket list" items for me that it turns out she's been arranging for about a year, and she was able to turn it into a Father's Day gift that I'll never forget.

Sunday morning we got up bright and early, and headed East up the Fraser Valley. As we neared the town of Hope, she routed me off the highway and eventually we ended up at the quaint Hope Regional Airpark. Now my curiosity was really up!

Well, then we walked into the clubhouse for the Vancouver Soaring Association and I knew what was going on - and my excitement continued to grow!

The folks who run the association are friendly and professional - they take the safety of their hobby very seriously, but are so welcoming to anyone who wants to learn more about gliding (or soaring, choose your term!) and go for a birds-eye tour of the area.

After the safety briefing, and some orientation, we helped get the gliders down to the end of the field, and folks started getting pulled up by the tow plane.

After waiting patiently for a chance, it was finally my turn!

Into the cockpit I climbed with my expert pilot who had cinched me up safely with the parachute and then down snugly into the front seat of the cockpit. A few quick photos, and before you know it we were being pulled along the grass airfield and we were aloft!


The tow plane climbed us up to ~2,500 feet at which point we released, and then circled around above Hope before heading East to check out the entrance to the Coquihalla area, and catch some updrafts and gain more altitude. 


The sensation of gently spiraling upwards in such a tiny aircraft is at once exhilarating and just a little unnerving, but the confidence and expertise of the pilot helped me relax and enjoy it.

 

Here are some of the photos I took during the amazing ride, before we glided back in for a landing. If you are interested in trying out gliding/soaring, I strongly recommend you check out the Vancouver Soaring Association's Intro Flight - a reasonable price for an unforgettable experience.

And once we wrapped up at the VSA clubhouse, we checked out some of the Geocaching around Hope. Turns out, the town loves encouraging the hobby - check out the Geocaching section on their website! 

An amazing day, and I am so thankful to Mrs. LANMonkey and the great people at the VSA for an awesome day!

Caching Amongst Nesting Herons

Have you ever considered whether herons nest on the ground or in trees?
 
This past weekend our geocaching adventures took us to the "Great Blue Heron Nature Reserve" in Chilliwack, BC. As it turns out, they nest in trees!

This location is quite easy to access, ample parking, and a nice selection of geocaches for the family on very well maintained walking trails. 

You can use the multi-cache "The Tower" as your reference point on the Geocaching website to navigate your way there, but it's just a few minutes off of the Trans-Canada highway.

It's important to know a few things before you go:

• The trails are open dawn to dusk all year
• The interpretive centre is open 10am to 4pm daily with free admission
• Some trails do NOT allow dogs :-(

Only a few of the 130+ nests here

In addition, it's helpful to know that "parts of the Heron Colony Loop Trail and Discovery Trail are closed in the spring to allow lots of room for the herons to forage and nest undisturbed." This doesn't seem to impact the trails along which the geocaches are placed, so that's great news for geocachers.

All of that said, the experience this time of year while the herons are nesting is absolutely amazing. To see these giant water-striding birds glide gracefully into their tree-top nests at the peaks of huge cottonwood trees is stunning. 

Heron in it's tree-top nest

Our visit took us on one of two possible looping trails to pick up geocaches, but by taking the "westward" loop from the interpretive centre we were able to observe the 130+ heron nests from a distance that was safe for the herons and that our geo-hound Piggy was allowed on.

Spending some time afterward in the centre chatting with one of the staff we learned that this reserve is the largest heronry (group of heron nests) in the Pacific Northwest and that the number of returning herons (on average) has been quite steady the last several years.

Visiting the Great Blue Heron Nature Reserve is not only great way to not only spend the day out geocaching, but also to learn more about these amazing indigenous birds in their natural habitat.

Resident eagles guarding their food source

Geese with a gosling nearby

Geolocation Gaming Bonanza Day

A bonanza day for LANMonkey and geolocation games for certain! Today Piggy the Geohound (A.K.A. Jasper) took me to Delta Watershed Park to find a couple of Geocaching.com geocaches we hadn't found there yet.

After a quick 400+ metres through the interconnecting trails, we managed the finds for both those caches, and were off to a great start to our caching day.


Next up was to switch listing sites as OpenCaching.US has one of only three listed caches in the Lower Mainland in this very same park. So after WetCoaster's virtual we went, which we could be FTF on. After a minor struggle with coordinates our knowledge of the park and common sense took over and we headed straight for where GZ simply must be!


Arriving at ground zero we filled up with nice, fresh cold water and then searched a bit to find the information. At this point I learned a couple of interesting things about OpenCaching.

•  First, I thought that C:Geo on my Blackberry would allow me to use OpenCaching.US as an alternate listing site but it's not an option - only OpenCaching.DE and OpenCaching.PL; I tried to connect to .DE on the chance that it's all the same data with simply different URLs, but I couldn't authenticate my OpenCaching.US account so I'm assuming that's a no. I'd be curious to hear from OpenCaching.US user or moderators if I'm off on the wrong tangent here?

• Second, when completing a virtual on the OpenCaching listing service, you use the "keyword or phrase" that the C/O has you looking for at ground zero as the "password" you need to submit the log. So really, no need to submit an email to the C/O before logging your find. Fascinating. In fact, much more like the newer Geocaching Adventures Lab Caches from Geocaching.com as opposed to how the grandfathered virtual caches at GC.com work.

 With our first OpenCaching.US find ever under our belt, and a FTF on it to boot, we decided to check and see if there were any Munzees in the park - yup, two and neither far from where we were. "Well Piggy, let's get ourselves some Munzees."
We honestly don't play Munzee much so it was a great opportunity to get a couple of those found. So while we tracked down the Munzee locations, we took the opportunity to use Sighter and place four new sights in the park for the others in the Lower Mainland who've started playing that fun game.

Soon enough we had located those sneaky QR codes and had the first captures on those Munzees - Wow, FTFs in two different geolocation games on one day... sweet!

Time to head back to the car and head home. But wait! Just as we got to the car the phone buzzed a Geocaching.com alert for a newly published traditional cache in Crescent Beach. Well... it's not *that* far and Piggy and I do have the day off... why not? So in we hopped, loaded the coords in the GPSr and off to Crescent Beach.

When we arrived, we started searching and only moments later hear familiar voices on the other side of the hedge - it was Adroit Seeker and Rain Willowsnap, local cachers I'd crossed paths with earlier this morning. LOL. The three of us searched for a bit when Adroit Seeker came up with the find for a shared FTF. Nice!

After a brief but pleasant chat at ground zero, we all headed off, and Piggy and I headed home to go fire up that BBQ and cook some steak.

"3 FTFs in three different games, and four new sights uploaded. Piggy, do you feel like you earned some steak tonight?"

Backroads Mapbook Geotour Adventure

The silence has been deafening! But the LANMonkeys are back on the Interwebs after another brief hiatus. The good news is that we have been busy caching & filming so there's a bunch of great adventures coming, starting with our recent trip to the Interior of BC.

One of the goals of this trip was to collect the three Backroad Mapbook geotour caches for the Thompson Okanagan region, and the bonus cache north of Shuswap.

This was tied in with a MVGeocacher trip to Penticton BC where a group of us got together to walk a section of the Kettle Valley Railway trail in Naramata, and find the caches that make up the "Wine Glass" geoart. But more about that trip in a near-future blog entry. For this posting, we'll talk about our adventure in finding those BRMB caches.


The first one we found was west of Hedley, BC, on Old Hedley Road. As we pulled up to the logical place to park and hike to ground zero, we saw another car there and thought "perhaps other cachers?" Our thoughts were confirmed as we headed up the trail and met the nonchalant acting Maya Bee and Red Alert, just coming back from making that find themselves. We stopped for a brief chat, and knew we'd be seeing them the next day on the Wine Glass hike.

That was our Good Friday, and a really good Friday it was. The weather was beautiful, and we truly enjoyed the magnificence of God's creation along Hwy 3, as we made our way through Manning Park (with active snow at Allison Pass), stopped to cache in Princeton, stopped for more caching in and around Hedley then made our way (with several more caching stops) to Penticton for the evening.

Saturday, after a morning meet & greet event in Penticton, then the "Wine Glass" hike in Naramata, we headed off up the west side of Lake Okanagan stopping for only a couple of caches on our way to
the next cache in the series - BRMB - Thompson Okanagan  BC - On the Water (GC4KJQK) at the Everly Recreation Site.

On our way to that cache we passed a herd of Big Horn Sheep on the road - very cool!

After that steep little hike & find, we were off again to try and get to BRMB TOBC - 20th Anniversary Bonus Cache (GC4KKAA) on the north side of Shuswap Lake, past the little town of Celista, BC.

That's where we had one of the bigger adventures of the trip!

When we finally got to the trail head, we knew it wasn't long until dusk. So we armed ourselves with headlamps & flashlights, and off we went along the trail. Well, very quickly the trail disappeared on us. There's an exceptional amount of blowdown on the trail, and while our Northwest Trails actually did have the Onyx Falls Trail on it, it was a challenge to find that trail. So we kept trying to stay as close as we safely could to the trail as noted on the GPSr, and kept finding/losing the trail.

At one point, we ended up working our way through snow up to our hips (on April 20th), but pressed on regardless, with our daylight fading on us. By the time we got ourselves through the bush and to the last 100m, we faced a steep decent down what seemed about a 10m embankment. The top part was muddy and a bit slippery, but the last couple of metres was a sheet of ice! Surprise!

Safely at the bottom, we found that it was completely dark at this point. Using the cache hint, our geosenses, and the GPSr (which was wandering  bit in the deep tree cover along the creekside) Mrs. LANMonkey eventually made the find. At this point, we took a breather and recorded a bit of content for our vlog. Of course, we still had to get back to the truck, and it was completely dark now.

We made our way up the embankment, and bushwacked our way to where Northwest trails said there should be a trail. And what do you know, we found the trail. On our way back, we did lose it a couple of times, but actually found better luck following the trail out than in - I know, typical cachers!

Once back to the truck, we strapped in and headed our way back to Kamloops to spend the night before searching for the last of the BRMB caches for this trip, at Duffy Lake.

As we cleared Celista, the RCMP had a roadblock, and we had a nice chat with a constable who had been based in Walnut Grove (Langley, BC) not long ago. She had no problem with our story that we weren't drinking but actually heading out after finding a geocache. We looked pretty tired and "bushed." Literally!

The next morning, we headed nice and early west out of Kamloops, and followed the Duffy Lake FSR to Duffy Lake, hitting snow on the road for the last kilometre. Once at Duffy Lake, finding the final cache in the trio of Thompson Okanagan BRMB caches was pretty easy - at least compared to the previous day! That cache was well stocked with swag still!  We considered continuing west on the FSR but found it quickly impassable for anything except a quad or narrow 4x4, so back the way we came.

Well folks, thanks for sticking with me through that story. We sure hope you enjoy the video of the adventure, and trust me, there's lots more to come from that same Easter weekend adventure!

Cache safely, and cache often.
The LANMonkeys.

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?

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!

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

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.

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!

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...