Current at 11/6/2011 (Online waypoint URL) You have already found this cache! Master Index    Nearest Caches Cattails by OHMIC (2/2) N50° 10.241  W97° 07.480 (WGS84) UTM  14U   E 633919  N 5559292 Use waypoint: GC29VRT Size: Not chosen    Hidden on 6/6/2010 In Manitoba, Canada Difficulty:     Terrain:   *No attributes specified*     A small camoed container with a great view of the Interpretive Centre. Both cattails and bulrushes are commonly found in wetlands. They are both water-loving plants that contribute in filtering the water and providing food and shelter to many species. <p> People often confuse cattails and bulrushes. However these plants are two different species belonging to two different families. <p> Cattails, in North America, refers to the Typha family of plants, whereas bulrushes refers to plants of the Scirpus family. However, in the UK, the Typha is called bulrush and the Scirpus is called Club-rush…. <p> Typha down was also used to line moccasins, provide bedding, diapers, baby powder, and papoose boards. Today some people still use Typha down to stuff clothing items and pillows and even to fill life vests The disintegrating heads of Typha are used by some birds to line their nests. The downy material can also be used as tinder for starting fires. The seed head of the plant can be dipped in wax then lit as a candle. The stem serving as a wick. <p> Typha can be used as a source of ethanol, instead of cereals. They have the advantage that they do not require much, if any, maintenance. Experiments have indicated that Typha is able to remove the poisonous element arsenic from drinking water. Such a filtration system may be one way to provide cheap water filtration for people in developing nations.

Additional Hints (There are no hints for this cache)

8/1/2011 by Kabuthunk
We meet again, Oak Hammock marsh. And this time... I have a bike. I'm still a bit annoyed with myself about the first attempt on this cache. I had an idea of how the cache would be hidden, and had in fact found a cache hidden in an almost identical manner previously in my geocaching experience. But for some reason, the first time I was here I just... blanked on that idea and searched in every other fathomable way except the correct one.

Well, cut to me chatting it up with OHMIC at an event in Winnipeg recently. So he gave me a tip or two on finding it, and confirmed what I should be looking for. With this newfound knowledge, I was prepared to head back to the marsh. The question was... when would I have time? As it turns out, we had nothing particular planned for this long weekend, and were thus doing basically random things on a whim throughout. Since neither of us had anywhere to be on the Monday, and didn't have any particular place we wanted to go, I figured it'd be a convenient time to head back to Oak Hammock marsh and see what I could accomplish.

Into the car! This time however I decided to push back my leaving time significantly, and only left the apartment at about 3:30pm. The theory was to try to avoid the hottest part of the day, and arrive when it was starting to cool down. In that respect, I should have pushed it back one more hour, but the second half of my caching trip was relatively cool, so it worked out somewhat. The fact that the sun wasn't blistering down helped a lot too. I'm mildly surprised that I worked up the ambition to go out on a biking trip out here today though... despite not having plans, there hasn't been a single day since Thursday where I haven't been doing a large amount of physical exercise. If it wasn't hiking or pushing a mower up and down a ditch, it was biking, swimming, more biking, or other things that leave you panting for air. Surprisingly when I woke up this morning, I ended up doing a bit more tiring stuff in the morning yet, and yet STILL decided to go biking at the marsh. Man, don't know what's gotten into me the past few days, but I hope it keeps up .

After the 50 someodd minute drive (slowed down by having to take a gravel road when I turned too early trying to get to the marsh... stupid GPS directions), I parked my car, making only the third car in the parking lot (or two cars and an RV, anyway). A fourth pulled up while I was taking my bike out of the trunk.

And shortly after leaving the car, I discovered that these paths, as hard-packed and dry as they are, still take a lot more energy out of you than if I were to bike on pavement . Not nearly as bad as biking on grass or sand or something, but it soaked up some extra energy. I zipped past the picnic/washroom type area that had about 8 people total mulling around here and there, and headed over to the coordinates. Thankfully, when I arrived I was out of sight of the people in the picnic area, and it didn't appear as though any of them were planning to walk down the path after me. Let the hunting begin!

Knowing what to search for this time, I still missed it on my first scan of the area, doubled back once or twice, and eventually spotted the elusive cache. I honestly have no idea how I managed to miss that the first time around... I must have literally been looking right beside it or something. However, not having to worry about that DNF any more, I grabbed the cache container and retrieved the logbook from within. After signing it, I dropped a micromail ball into the ziplock bag as well to avoid it getting lost when the cache is retrieved (you'll know what I mean when you see the container).

I've gotta say though... that's like... an absolute perfect fit to get the container back in place. Keeps it nice and sturdy, anyway. Thanks for the tips OHMIC, and let the marsh caching continue!

Took: Nothing
Left: Logbook entry and micromail ball

7/8/2011 by Kabuthunk
Man... this cache was definitely determined not to be found by me. And unfortunately, being the last cache of the day for me (and immediately following the harrowing and stressful hunt at ‘Not your average marsh!’), it made for a somewhat bittersweet end to the day.

So I started out from the aforementioned harrowing find and headed over thisaway. At first I actually wasn’t even going to go after it and leave it for the next time I was here (which I guess I technically am anyway). I had actually originally continued on past this corner, and was planning to head further West down the dike trail to a cache several kilometers away. However, during this walk the sun came out from behind the overcastness, the breeze went away (either due to the long grass or in general), and so the heat, humidity, and mosquito population slowly began to drain my willpower to continue on. And I had already hoofed about 800 meters down the dike trail as is! But I abandoned that theory eventually, and headed back. Again, I was planning in passing by this cache, but there happened to be two bystanders at that corner. We gave pleasant greetings, and I mentioned I was a geocacher when they asked if there was anything interesting down the dike trail. One of them was familiar with caching, and I told them that there happened to be one like… right beside them somewhere, but I was passing on it for now.

But after a few minutes of goading, they eventually got me to attempt to go after it. Well, I didn’t want to back down at this point, so I figured I’d give it a shot. Man, and I was even thinking at this moment ‘shoot… I was hoping to leave this one today’. Guess I was destined to get a DNF on this one today somehow or another . After a few minutes, the two guys decided to head down the dike trail for a bit while I continued my hunt. Several more minutes later, I guess they had enough of the mosquitoes as well and headed back to me. Seeing that I still couldn’t find it, they continued on their trek in the general direction of the interpretive center. Another good 15 minutes later, and I decided I needed a hint. The cache description told me nothing, there was no attributes, and the last 4 logs gave me nothing to work with. I headed back to the interpretive center hoping to speak again with OHMIC.

However, it seems as though this guy is rather difficult to get a hold of. Not sure where you were at about 4:00pm OHMIC, but after asking the people at the gift shop to see if they could call you, in the end there must have been about 4 or 5 people keeping an eye out for you and trying to hunt you down. Evidently, when you don’t want to be found, you don’t get found .

So after 20 minutes of relaxing in the mosquitoless air conditioning, I decided to let the two women there know that I would take another stab at the cache without getting a first-hand hint. Back to the coordinates!

On the way to the coordinates, I found myself following a massive pile of geese walking down the trail. I tried to walk slower to avoid scaring them, and they eventually worked their way into the water to one side. Back at the cache site! I spent a good half hour further hunting for the cache, attempting to step only where it seems other people have stepped through the cattails, and otherwise looking under and around rocks, and parting grass gently with my hands to see if there was anything nesting beneath. Alas, nada. I DID however find a long, bent piece of rebar and the small, square black-and-white sign for the cattails inside… well… the cattails. The rebar was bent, so I imagine it was damaged when they were apparently repairing the area. I left them to the side of the trail.

But alas, there was no cache to be found on this today… I think I’ll be needing a hint from OHMIC for this one.