Current at 11/6/2011 (Online waypoint URL) You have already found this cache! Master Index    Nearest Caches Esplanade Riel II by Team Kare-a-cache (1.5/2) (Unavailable) N49° 53.416  W97° 07.710 (WGS84) UTM  14U   E 634426  N 5528110 Use waypoint: GC2GA92 Size: Small    Hidden on 10/6/2010 In Manitoba, Canada Difficulty:     Terrain:                   An esplanade is a long, open, level area, usually next to a river where people may walk. This allows people to promenade along the water front, usually for recreational purposes without having to walk on the river bank. The Esplanade Riel is a pedestrian bridge located in Winnipeg, Manitoba designed by Colin Douglas Stewart of Wardrop Engineering and Étienne Gaboury, Architect and completed in 2003. It spans the Red River connecting downtown Winnipeg with St. Boniface. It is paired with a vehicular bridge, Provencher Bridge. The bridge is only one of a few in the world in that it has a restaurant (Salisbury House) on it, giving patrons an excellent view of the river. The Esplanade Riel has become a landmark and is used in many promotional materials. The bridge itself is a side-spar cable-stayed bridge. The original drawing, stamped by Étienne Gaboury, rests in the Engineering building of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. From this bridge you can walk to a number of famous landmarks including The Forks, the Winnipeg Goldeyes ball diamond, the St. Boniface Museum and the soon to be opening Human Rights Museum. You will be looking for a pouch like container. Will contain a logbook, writing stick, and a few items to trade. Please be stealthy as this is a very busy place area. My previous cache (Esplanade Riel) lasted just over a year before it got muggled. Please be careful to put the container back exactly as you found it. There will be a scratch and win lottery ticket for the first to find. Happy Caching!

Additional Hints (There are no hints for this cache)

3/27/2011 by Kabuthunk
Hmm... at first I could have sworn that I had found your original Esplanade Riel cache, but looking back, it turns out I had just found Fountain Promenade back then. Shoot, I was completely unaware that yet another one had been hiding here at one point or another. But regardless, after having just managed two other finds in the area (thus clearing all caches at the Forks again, with the exception of a new puzzle cache that appears to have sprung up), I figured my luck was holding me up pretty well today. I had managed to pick up my wife's birthday present with little problem, and the other two cache were all kinds of good. So what the hey, let's give this a shot as well.

Normally, I'd have likely passed on going after this cache due to the pedestrian factor, but I was feeling lucky today. The distinct lack of people out today due to a combination of chilly breeze and Forks closing in the next 15 minutes (no clue when the Sals on the bridge closes) gave me the confidence to tackle this once formidable foe. I also figured I could scope out the area while casually walking by and see if I should bail or not.

As it turns out, there were all of three people within the even remotely vague vicinity when I got close to the coordinates. Two of them were a pair of women walking just ahead of me, and one was a biker who was long gone before I even got close to going after the cache. Thankfully, the two women walked down the lower path and went under the bridge. In no time at all, the area was completely mine ! It's not often that I get an opportunity like this in a typically pedestrian-packed area, so I wasted no time in working my way over towards the coordinates. At first I went in a somewhat wrong direction, but quickly corrected myself. There were a few footprints in the snow which I was able to somewhat follow, which at least kept snow from getting into my shoes. Once I had reached ground zero, I quickly set about attempting to find the cache container. As my palm pilot's batteries were stone-dead, I didn't have the cache description or hint to work with at all. Turns out that was unneeded, since maybe 20 seconds after reaching the coordiantes the cache was in my hand. Or at least it was felt by my hand... it took an extra 30 seconds or so trying to find out how to get it into my hands . But with that problem soon solved, I checked out the cache contents.

Looking around once again, I was once again thankful that the area was completely devoid of people . I eventually found the logbook at the center of a Matrushka-doll-like series of layers. After extricating it from the film canister inside the ziplock bag inside the cache container, I could eventually sign the logbook . Replacing the logbook in its series of coverings, I dropped a chainmail ball into the container and closed it up. Putting the container back into its hiding spot was a bit faster than taking it out... but only just barely . It still put up a fight, but at least I was quite confident that there was no way this had any chance of falling out of its spot without human intervention.

Thanks for giving me a nice walk today out to the bridge. I've been procrastinating geocaching for a while, and I'm definitely glad that I could get a lot of fresh air walking around the Forks today. And maybe some day I'll try going to that Sals on the bridge and see what the view is like from inside. In summer though... seeing a frozen river isn't all that entertaining .

I managed to wrap everything up just in time though. As I was leaving the area, either the aforementioned pair of women were walking back to the Forks again, or a different set of women were coming up the path under the bridge. Looks like things timed out just perfectly.

Took: Nothing
Left: Logbook entry and chainmail ball