A community foot/bike path that winds its way throughout Carman. The pathway links recreation areas such as King's Park, baseball diamonds, golf course and pool area. The Pathway to Active Living provides ample opportunity for walking, jogging, biking and cross-country skiing - and just plain enjoying nature. This old wooden bridge was used by trains up until around 15 years ago. The tracks have since been removed and the bridge has been converted into part of the pathway. This cache contains a log book, small tradable items and a first to find certificate. |
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2/24/2008 by Kabuthunk
I've gotta say... I have the uncanny feeling that this cache is a LOT less troublesome to get to in summer than it is in winter.
So this was cache #2 with me and my nieces today. After having just claimed victory over 'Carman 2008 and Fair Grounds ', we drove over to this one, which was actually a lot closer than I expected. I tend to have the occasional problem when it comes to judging distance, and today was no change. Glancing at the GPS, I ballparked this as about 3 km's from 'Carman 2008' cache, and discovered it to be like... 800 meters or something like that. Only thrice the distance... not THAT far off .
In either case, we parked on the road a little bit down from tbe bridge (should be just a little bit to the right and back from where the picture was taken on the cache page) and hoofed it over. Our first attempt at locating the cache involved standing on the bridge and me jamming my hands into anywhere they fit somewhere close to ground zero. After a little bit of fruitless searching, we decided to tackle the underside.
And this would be the primary moment in which I realized that having shoes and not boots was a problem. Bah... if only I had thought to bring some of my 'Safeway-brand instant winter boots aka: plastic bags' with me, then I could have just wrapped my feet and plunged on without a problem. But alas... I was forced to take it slowly. So I sorta stomped out stepping spots for myself and my nieces (they didn't feel too confident in themselves in walking down the slope... bah, I've gotta haul 'em out for hiking more often), only have the youngest niece decide to try stepping on the spot my back foot was currently occupying.
Lemme tell ya... when extra weight of the moving variety is suddenly pressed onto the back part of one's shoe in winter on the snow... it tends to sink said back part of the shoe deeper into the snow. This tends to be moreso when the weight in question keeps shuffling her feet, thus both slurfing snow into the shoe, as well as putting it deeper to allow the snow to enter naturally. To say the least, once we got onto the snowless gravel under the bridge, I took my shoes off to empty them of snow .
Prior to the snow removal however, the older niece spotted the cache even before we were down the slope! Good eyes on that girl, I'll give her that. Had she not spotted it by blind luck, intuition, or both, I'd have likely been poking and prodding around for another 10 minutes for that sucker. Nice hiding spot by the way. A very fun cache, which was quite a nice area to sit and just look at the scenery, even in winter! So after the duo poked around the cache for several items (a MHz poker chip and stickers, I think), we sat around for a few moments to soak in the scenery. Definitely worth the snow-in-shoe .
For the trip out, the nieces found their way out while I closed up the cache and found it back into it's hiding spot again. Unfortunately, some more of that snow decided to try to find its way back into my shoes again... but it was little at best. A quick trot across the bridge took us back towards the car, since my nieces were actually quite worried about crossing over the river itself... despite the snowmobile tracks . I'm sure the ice is probably about a foot and a half thick... but to avoid unnecessarily worrying them, I figured it best to slog my way back onto the bridge again. In retrospect... going through the snow on the other side of the river would have probably caused five times as much snow to get into my shoes anyway .
But... for the extra pleasant time at this cache, it got a little bit of special swag from me .
Took: MHz poker chip and stickers
Left: Compass ball, Marvel pog slammer, and limited edition titanium mini chainmail ball! Only three ever made (by me, anyway), so grab it while the grabbing's good!
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