Well, I don’t have a dog exactly, but the five geocaches I went hunting for in Varsity Ravine (Estates) Park all have ‘Dog Walking Adventures’ in their titles, and the park does happen to be an off-leash dog area. I didn’t take any doggie pics even though there were lots of them running about, sigh!!
This area of town (Varsity) is waaaay in the NW of Calgary, not somewhere I would travel to frequently. I had a ball game to play up there though, so instead of driving all the way up there during rush hour just to play the game, I decided to make an adventure of it and head up there early to visit this nearby park to do some geocaching (and avoid the rush hour traffic!)
It’s probably a good thing I didn’t map this trek on my Fitbit, as I ended up entering the park by the third smiley from the top of my smiley map. The geocache descriptions were each numbered from one to five from top to bottom on the map and for some reason I was very intent on finding them in order. So I went up to the top to number one which took me to a tree. The cache write up was actually quite descriptive so to me it seemed like it should be an easy find… But I couldn’t find it at first, plus I was attempting to not look suspicious to people walking by, and any dogs that passed by would see me and come running up to me! I should mention too that I was afraid to go into the tree, isn’t it tick season right now??!!! Excuses, excuses, I know!
Long story short, I left cache number one without finding it and went to the others, which I managed to find one by one. They were all very similar so since I had figured that out, I went back to the first one and found it real quick. Then I had to walk back to number three to get back to my truck, so I was back and forth. The fourth and fifth ones were also near the top of very hilly areas off the pathway, so I got some exercise in. The distance on the park pathway I would say was no more than a 20 minute walk from one end to the other, not like all the back and forth I did.
At least I didn’t have to go too far into the tree or trees, since all five caches were at trees. Still had the heebie jeebies for the rest of the day though, I should have brought a change of clothes! Having a tick or any other bug in you or on you is NOT pleasant!
The weather was looking questionable throughout this excursion, like it would start raining at any second. It actually held off until I was finished in the park, then rained lightly for a bit while I was hanging out at Starbucks waiting for my ball game, then held off again during the ball game. Not sure how I got so lucky!
This was a geocaching learning experience as well, in figuring out what to expect when a cache description actually explains what we are looking for (not all do!), such as a ‘bison tube’ or a ‘matchstick container’. I knew a bit about what a bison tube looks like due to seeing them for sale online. The matchstick one I now realize is a waterproof container for matches, which I have seen in emergency and survival kits. The descriptions for these particular geocaches was one reason I chose to come to this park. It was great practice!!
Another I had learned about from finding previous geocaches is the ‘preform’ container, which to me looks like a test tube. When you’re new at this, it helps A LOT to know WHAT you’re looking for, never mind where!
And more scenery in the park, there were actually lots of people and dogs about, along with a few cyclists, but they were sporadic so I managed to get some pictures without anyone in them:
So, all of the geocaches I found in the park were considered to be ‘micro’ in size, which means they were very small and contained a logbook only, so no room for me to leave any travel bugs/trackables in. I did know this ahead of time, but I think I’m going to have to plan out some trips specifically to caches that are larger so that I can leave behind the many trackables I picked up at the TB event last month. More stories to come then!
