How’s your GPS Navigation Knowledge?

Capitalizing on the popularity of Geocaching, the Calgary Quad Squad will hopefully have an organized geocache ride in late winter or spring. In the mean time, and in gauging the popularity of this activity, I’ve set up a geocache course at McLean Creek. This will enable people to practice using their GPS devices to navigate to specific locations over the next few months. If this proves popular, I will then move the geocaches and set up a new course.

There are 8 Geocaches planted along major trail routes at McLean Creek. I’ve planted them in quite easy to find locations that intermediate riders can access (as well as novice riders if they are being guided by skilled riders). Each cache is a plastic water bottle hanging from a tree just off the trails. See the photo below. Inside the bottle is a tag identifying it by number, 1 through 8, as well as 30-35 numbered tickets for those who wish to gather them as they visit the cache locations. If you wish, you can also leave a token or card behind as proof that you were there.

I have to ask, for the benefit of everyone else, the following:

1. Please do not remove the cache or hide it. Leave it where it is for everyone else’s enjoyment.

2. Please don't remove ALL of the numbered tickets in the cache yourself. Take one, leave the rest for others.

3. Please DO NOT simply plot the GPS coordinates onto a map and post here for everyone to see. That defeats the challenge and the educational aspect of this course. If any maps are posted here pinpointing the cache locations, I’ll have to remove them.

4. If the cache has fallen down, or if the lid has been left open, please hang it back up again and/or close the lid. (I’ve already learned a lesson from this first round…don’t use zip ties as they break in the cold weather. If you plan to navigate to the cache locations, do me a favor and take along some twine or wire to secure the cache bottles better than the zip ties I used)

I hope the water bottles can weather the winter. Time will tell. If we need to devise another type of cache container, the winter months will tell us and we can change it up for spring.

I used a Garmin E-Trex, and it’s not WAAS enabled. So, expect the accuracy to be roughly within 20 feet. The cache bottles are all hanging just off the trails.

Here are the cache locations:

G-1

N 50*51.749’
W 114*40.574’

G-2

N 50*50.904’
W 114*38.683’

G-3

N 50*48.467’
W 114*37.255’

G-4

N 50*47.439’
W 114.42.916’

G-5

N 50*49.448’
W 114*45.082’

G-6

N 50*48.747’
W 114*42.421’

G-7

N 50*51.549’
W 114*43.841’

G-8

N 50*51.862’
W 114*47.075’

Good luck, have fun, and be safe!!

Oh I hope theres a GPS under the tree for me from Santa. I really want to try this.

It was your idea.

As the ultimate plagerist, I stole it.

Be nice to Mrs Santa

COOL!!

A great way to get to know the trails too! Thanks for taking the time to do this MeYammy.

I was sick, cough cough and had McLean all to myself on Monday. It was no problem at all.

That is cool MeYammy, I am looking forward to going out and actually using the GPS for more than just finding our way back to the trucks.

Hopefully if this is as popular as I think it will be other courses can be set up at waipouros, indian graves, and the CNP. I would be more than willing to set one up once I see how it works.

Hint#1:
From my limited knowledge of how to use my GPS, you may need to first figure out how to configure your GPS to show the same location format information that Tim provided.
Degrees, Minutes (in decimal form)
I am sure there is a formal term for this format, but it escapes me at the moment.

Another common setting that your GPS "may" be displaying is:
Degrees, Minutes, Seconds

Start by modifing your GPS's location display format to match Tim's provided data.

Have Fun!

Ah, yeah Todd. That's right. I searched other sites and found the coordinate system that was used most commonly, albeit as you say it's not the only one. I debated about using the Degrees - Minutes - Seconds.

If it's an issue, I can covert all of the coordinate so that both formats are posted...maybe I'll do just that for everyone's benefit.

Good point and thanks!!

OK, I entered all of the waypoints into my GPS using OZI Explorer (it likes the format you used) and after overlaying them onto the Mclean Creek tracks (also available on ATVF)...

Looks like you were a busy boy on Monday MeYammy!

Yeah, it was an awesome day

Like I said, there was literally no one else out there...the staging area had one vehicle in it...my truck. No other tracks or signs of human life. Sunny, bright, no wind. I was wishing I had about half a dozen more caches to plant.

There is one other bit of information that might come in handy for finding the waypoints. What Map Datum was your GPS set to MeYammy (should be one of the settings on the same page as the position format)? NAD 83 and WGS 84 are the two most common in North America. As long as it was either of those everything should be fine. If it was something different it could cause issues for people without the same settings.

Sounds really cool, going on sunday to try to find them

Map Datum is WGS 84

Thanks for the advice Techi

If your GPS coordinates preference is the Degrees - Minutes - Seconds, here are the coordinates in that format.

G-1

N 50*51'44.9"
W 114*40'34.5"

G-2

N 50*50'54.2"
W 114*38'41.0"

G-3

N 50*48'28.0"
W 114*37'15.3"

G-4

N 50*47'26.3"
W 114*42'55.0"

G-5

N 50*49'26.9"
W 114*45'04.9"

G-6

N 50*48'44.8"
W 114*42'25.2"

G-7

N 50*51'22.0"
W 114*43'50.5"

G-8

N 50*51'51.7"
W 114*47'04.5"

And if you don't mind, I used zip ties to hang the cache bottles, and if you find them, if you could I'd really appreciate if you could secure them with something better like wire or twine. I'm afraid the bottles won't stay hanging for long with just the zip ties. Thanks!!

MeYammy wrote:

Map Datum is WGS 84 Thanks for the advice Techi

No problem, it's one of those things that we always reminder out Search and Rescue navigators about.