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

Cave Caching Along the Chilliwack River

This past week, the LANMonkeys called up their caching friends and said "We've got an idea for an adventure..." After a phone call and a couple of emails plans were set and the first Saturday of 2014 was spent on a caching adventure along the Chilliwack River. So today's blog post is going to be about caches in the Earth, and about the Earth.

In the course of a very full day we discovered four EarthCaches, explored two caves for geocaches, found two of the "Back Roads Map Book GeoTour" caches, enjoyed some amazing scenery along the Chilliwack River, and had a fantastic time with great friends. In the end we made a total of 19 cache finds in an area that you could spend days caching in with all the different spots to go geocaching or just exploring.

Our caching location for the day was primarily the North side of the Chilliwack River, along the Foley Creek Forest Service Road, approximately 25 km's down Chilliwack Lake Road. Almost all of the area is accessible by pretty much any vehicle with decent clearance, but we went in Catapult Jeff & Iron Maiden's 4x4 Jeep, and were thankful we did. Plenty of spots on the roads and especially the wood bridge decks were icy.

Caching in the Caves

As part of our shared goals to try and complete our D/T grids, we were all happy to tackle caches with difficulties of 5 and 4.5 and a terrain of 5 - but mostly the guys were "psyched" to go spelunking in search of geocaches in both Hands and Feet caches (GC2X9HP & GC2X9H1).


As the cache descriptions indicate, it is very important to not go alone when exploring caves, and to bring the proper gear. Catapult Jeff & Mr. LANMonkey ensured we were equipped with coveralls, helmets, headlamps, radios, extra light, a long climbing rope, gloves, and of course, a video camera.

The video in this episode was primarily shot in Hands & Feet #2 as it was a deeper and slightly larger caving experience than #1. Quarters were tight in much of the cave and of course, the only light source was our headlamps, which made it challenging for shooting an episode, but we really wanted you to be able to join the experience of looking for caches in naturally formed, small underground areas.  It was most certainly a unique and awesome caching experience, but it likely wasn't for everyone - consider carefully if you'll be able to do this one both physically and mentally before attempting, and PLEASE do not try it alone!

EarthCaching in 2014

We are also grateful to Catapult Jeff & Iron Maiden for being willing to stop at four different EarthCaches in the area that they had all ready completed so that the LANMonkeys could discover them and learn as well. If you're not familiar with EarthCaches, they are a form of "virtual" geocache where you are not looking for a container with a log sheet to sign, but going to specific coordinates and stepping through a brief field-lesson in geology.  Watch this older episode of LMGA we filmed last fall when we were placing our first EarthCache to get an overview on EarthCaching.

In addition, check out the resources at the Geological Society of America's website EarthCache.org for the most comprehensive source of information about discovering and creating EarthCaches.

Speaking of EarthCaches, did you know that Friday, January 10th is the 10th anniversary of the first EarthCache? Educational and fun events are taking place world-wide to celebrate this anniversary on the 10th, 11th, and 12th. For a complete listing of those events, check here.  If you are in the Greater Vancouver area, it's not too late to sign up and come join us at the MetroVan Geocaching EarthCaching event at 7:30pm on Friday, January 10th.