Monmouth County Snowcaching

[mortonfox]

So what do I do after a day with 6 inches of snow? Go geocaching, of course! I chose to go south to the Monmouth County beach area though because I knew they only had 3 inches of snow there. Traffic reports on the radio were a tad scary because of all the accidents and spinouts, but by the time I got going, the temperature was already up to 34°F and the roads were fine. I still had to let the heat go for a few minutes to get the ice off the windshield though.

Most of geocaches I did today weren't affected by the snow. A number of them were up in trees or hidden above ground level in some fashion. A few more were so obvious that the pile of sticks just showed through the snow. And the rest had hints specific enough that I could find the caches with a minimum of poking at the snow. In spite of the shallow snow cover, I still got my feet wet. I think my shoes are leaky.

Had a chili on rice hot-to-go bowl at Wawa in Matawan. That really hit the spot after a day of walking around in the snow. That Wawa store wasn't doing so well this evening. Their gas pumps had shut down for reasons unknown. After that, I went to Woodbridge Center Mall to pay a bill at the Sprint store. Because of where I parked, I walked through Lord & Taylor to enter the mall. Would you believe that this department store is now pricing shirts at $98? That's for just one dress shirt! Insane! In comparison, the handheld GPS receiver I'm using costs only about two Lord & Taylor shirts. Try navigating to a geocache using two shirts. Can't be done! :)

Judy's Nano Bridge (New Jersey)
Tiny Often Empty Park: Laurence Harbor (New Jersey)
Danger Cache (New Jersey)
Leslie's Beach (New Jersey)
"Twin Lights of the Highlands" - Off 36 S #4 (New Jersey)
A Bit of History (New Jersey)
Bsa Troop 67 team 3 (New Jersey)
bunker cache (New Jersey)
Atlantis (New Jersey)
Franklin Lake (New Jersey)
Hollywood And Pine (New Jersey)

Comments

[kookyfox.livejournal.com]

Oh you were right in my neck of the woods there. Hehe. I tried one over in Tatum Park with the new hand held. The road to the front entrance of the park was blocked off by police so I had to park on the opposite side and take a longer walk than expected. Wasn't too bad. Still getting used to this thing so did a lot of back and forth before finding the spot though couldn't find the cache itself. I think was below ground somehow though and snow was maybe covering it up too well. Drat. :) Trying for a closer one today. Hehe.

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, with snow on the ground, it might be tough. Even a few inches of snow can cover up a lot. You can try this strategy: Check the cache page to see if anyone has found the cache since the snowstorm. That would prove that the cache is findable in snow and, as a bonus, you may be able to follow the previous cacher's tracks in the snow all the way to the cache. Also, if the hint mentions that the cache is up in a tree or above ground in some manner, snow won't affect it.

"A bit of history", "BSA Troop 67 Team 3", and "bunker cache" are all quite easy in the snow and over 90% of the walk is on a paved path in a loop. May be worth a trip to Hartshorne Woods. My tracks are probably still there. :)

About Tatum Park, yeah, some parking areas are closed in the winter. It's annoying. There was one park like that in Lehigh Valley today. So instead of using the parking area, I had to park on the side street and bushwhack in.

[kookyfox.livejournal.com]

Snow is mostly melted now at least so should be good to go. Hehe. Can only go out looking really on weekends though, nearly dark out still by the time I get out of work. :P And yeah I started using GE to try to find parking lots first now. Hehe. There's a small wilderness preserve like 2 miles from my house that I never knew existed! Was there last weekend and really a beautiful spot. Amazed I never knew it was there. Hehe.