Current at 11/6/2011 (Online waypoint URL) You have already found this cache! Master Index    Nearest Caches Norris Lake by OHMIC (1.5/1.5) N50° 28.970  W97° 25.135 (WGS84) UTM  14U   E 612170  N 5593511 Use waypoint: GC138GH Size: Small    Hidden on 5/28/2007 In Manitoba, Canada Difficulty:     Terrain:                         Easy access in a small provincial park along highway 17 on Norris Lake. Small container containing logbook, pencil and small items. A park pass is necessary to access this cache and don't forget your bathing suit!

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9/20/2009 by Kabuthunk
First cache of the day for me. My wife and I were planning a road trip up to where my Grandma lived and is now buried. Doubt many people have heard of the town "Red Rose", but yeah... there . Anyhoo, not knowing how many caches would be up along the #17 highway, which we basically follow most way up to Grandma's place, I ran a pocket query for 'cache along a route'. Thankfully, this led me to the discovery of this lake. And honestly, I never knew that this campground existed, despite the dozens of times passing it as a kid. Whenever I saw the bits of water from the car, I always just associated it with a fairly wide river. And having looked at it a bit more closely (see attached pic), I can see why I made that mistake. Even on the GPS, this "lake" basically looks like a long, wide section of a river . But at least, for this year and the next, I did not need any park pass as such to go after the cache .

Honestly, I still thought it was a river right up until when I was looking for nearby caches during the drive North. I saw this wide-looking river, pointed the GPS's cursor at it, and was surprised to see it cough up the name "Norris Lake" (no doubt named after... Chuck Norris!) Intrigued moreso, I was pleased when the turnoff to get to the cache was the entrance to a campground! Laura decided to stay in the car while I wandered off towards the cache. After hopping out of the car, the first thing I did... twiggle my feet in the water. Ahhhh... that's the stuff. Although, I imagine they must have trucked up some sand for this "beach", since looking at the rest of the shoreline, I can't possibly imagine that this lake actually created this sand on its own.

After the twiggling, I headed towards the coordinates, but was a touch dismayed to see a car quite close to it, parked in one of the camping spots. A bit dismayed, I circled around along the main road to the other side of it, hoping that the cache wasn't accessible only through that camp site. This path led completely away from the coordinates, so I went back towards the beach, and checked if maybe I could reach it by walking along the shoreline. Wearing pants at the time, it wouldn't have been possible to follow the shoreline without walking in the water and getting my pant legs soaked . However, at this time (which was about Noonish), the car parked in that spot backed up, and pulled away! Evidently, they were either geocachers, or by absolute blind coincidence happened to have packed up and left their camping spot RIGHT as I arrived! Thanking my lucky stars, I wandered over, confirmed that indeed this camp site being occupied would hinder cache acquisition, and followed the little trail towards the water. A bit of a geotrail led me to the cache, and I gleefully signed it and tossed it into the container a chainmail ball. The logbook showed the last signing as being on Sept. 14th (Clan Lonewolf it seems), so either they didn't find it, or they were indeed camping here just prior to my arrival.

A quick signing later, and I replaced the cache as found and returned towards the car. But MAN, did visiting this cache make me want to go camping again. Stupid onset of winter . Although, despite the blueness of the water in the mountains during our Calgary trip, I still say that the clear-yet-brown water of the lakes of the Great Plains is a lot more memorable, and makes me want to camp a lot more than the bluest water elsewhere. THIS is the type of lake I associate with the outdoors .

Many thanks for taking me out here OHMIC. I loved the views, and have definitely mental-noted the campground for future reference. And hey, since I logged the cache, I now have coordinates to find it again if need be .

Took: Picture
Left: Logbook entry and chainmail ball

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