Current at 11/6/2011 (Online waypoint URL) You have already found this cache! Master Index    Nearest Caches X My Harte by Junglehair (adopted by Team Kare-a-cache) (1.5/1.5) N49° 50.743  W97° 16.985 (WGS84) UTM  14U   E 623437  N 5522891 Use waypoint: GC1EMAT Size: Regular    Hidden on 7/27/2008 In Manitoba, Canada Difficulty:     Terrain:                     Another cache along the Harte Trail. Cache is a 30-cal ammo can.. Watch out for poison ivy in the area. Should be an easy find, but will be covered in snow in the winter. This cache may help you with the Manitoba ABC Soup cache. Sorry, no FTF certificate since my printer was running out of ink. Feel free to customize and print your own using the MBGA FTF Certificate Generator.

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12/14/2008 by Kabuthunk
Second cache of the day! And a surprisingly long day at that. Today was specifically planned to find the "Manitoba ABC Soup" cache in Portage la Prairie, followed by attempting to clear off as many letters remaining as possible before it got TOO cold, and too dark. Note: I say "too cold" in the hypothetical sense, since apparently the -45 celcius with the windchill wasn't cold enough to stop me from geocaching .

So after a two hour drive of heading out to Portage la Prairie and back (and being sorely disappointed by not having been able to get "Quarry Rocks" while out there), I headed straight for this one. Unfortunately the weather wasn't playing nicely enough for me to find "Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus" for the sake of being different, but on a day like this, any port in a storm! Not that the cache was merely only a "port", mind you... but I've quite enjoyed the caches along this Harte Trail in the past, and was glad to be able to return to here. I parked near the entrance to the trail a bit West of here much the last time I had come by, and headed towards the cache. I gotta say, that wind was a little bit bitter today. However, it was having problems cutting through my 3 layers of leg protection, 4 layers of torso protection, gloves, multiple pairs of socks, toque, and hood. But my face however... that felt it a bit .

For the record, this cache is officially not winter-friendly, if one was ever in doubt to begin with. However, I think this mainly may have been due to recent snowing-thawing sequences that left an inch-thick crust of nigh-unbreakable ice over the surface of everything. That however managed to not stop me. With an "X" on the line, I was planning to spend as long as needed finding it . So after jogging up to ground zero, I began just pawing around in the snow seeing if I could locate anything. No luck... a few inches under the powdery snow lay the aformentioned slab of ice. Trying a slightly different location (in case my GPS or the coords were slightly off), I found the same thing. Dang... it's not gonna be an easy one.

I decided to put most of my effort back into the first place I searched, since the coordinates were pointing bang-on at it. One stick later, and I began chistling away everything I could. I found that the most efficient method of getting rid of this ice layer was to find an opening (I started by stabbing a hole through the ice at the side), and prying the ice upwards until it broke. Thankfully I had a thick branch with me for this (about an inch diameter). After prying up a healthy portion of ice, I began to poke around. And what did my eyes come across, but some camouflage that wasn't natural ! Extracting the cache from its hiding spot, I quickly opened it up and poked around inside. Still dry, still in good condition, despite having just spent about a month or whatever sealed in an icy sarcophagus . One chainmail ball and signing later (with my pencil... amazingly too cold for my pressurized pen to do much,,, first day that's ever happened to it), and I replaced it from whence it came. A light dusting of natural camouflage so it looked the same as when I first arrived (minus the layer of ice), and I headed back.

Hopefully by this time of year, there won't be any more freeze/thaw periods, so the only thing over the cache will just be fluffy snow that can be easily worked around. So, with my good deed of the day complete, I headed back to the car. And just in time... my instant winter boots (see attached pic) were beginning to form a few holes from having tromped around over branches and up and down slopes. And having wet feet at this temperature would definitely not be something good .

Thanks much for the cache! The distinct lack of "X" caches make this one invaluable to many a cacher such as myself .

Took: Nothing
Left: Logbook entry and chainmail ball

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