10/03/2012 By Kabutroid
Today was about the most perfect day for geocaching one could wish for in March. Early March no less. Unfortunately for myself, it turned out to be a significantly less than ideal day for snowshoeing, but I was determined to get one more run in before winter ended. I just didn’t realize that today would just about literally BE the last day of winter as we Manitobans know it. So for that reason, I’m definitely glad I strapped on the snowshoes and did several kilometers through the wet, sticky, extraordinarily heavy snow.
Since most caches are either gone from, or that I’ve already found in Bird’s Hill Park, there wasn’t a whole lot of geocaching options left for me from where I parked my car (the initial plan to snowshoe over the lake area, for no other reason than ‘just because’). However, due to the aforementioned heavy, sticky snow, that ended up kicking the tar out of me after only a kilometer or so. The bright, hot sun didn’t exactly help matters either. Thus, I did what any Manitoban would do... I broke out my hammock, my camping stove and fuel canister, and kicked back in the hammock sipping some hot tea, enjoying the sun 
. See attached pic.
So after chilling there (literally and figuratively... but lying in the hammock without my jacket on definitely cooled me down to a more reasonable internal temperature) for nearly an hour... during which several people happened by since I had set up in the trees of that ‘upper trail’ that runs between the bodies of water, which brought a few confused looks but a general ignoring of me... I decided to pack it up and begin to head onwards. I figured now was as good a time as any for geocaching. Thus, immediately after packing up, I made a beeline for this geocache.
The snow proved to be relentlessly sticky, and after a very tiring trudge I eventually ended up at ground zero. At first I thought it could be the birdfeeder with fake birdseed in it for camouflage, but the seed shells scattered on the ground beneath it quickly eliminated that possibility. There appeared to have been some very old tracks leading into the area, but given when this cache was last logged, that was probably someone filling up the feeder. Nonetheless, not knowing that at the time I attempted to follow said tracks and got nowhere. I eventually looked at the cache description, which brought quite a large amount of confusion until I remembered that this ‘Lost’ based series was placed here back at the summer event in the park. I’m not entirely sure if the cache description would have helped me locate the cache if I’d actually seen the show... but seeing as I’ve never seen an episode and don’t particularly plan to, I imagine I’ll never know the answer. So that offering no help, I continued hunting around until WHAM, I damn near walked directly into it. All it took was being in the right place, and the cache was instantly found.
One quick signing of the logbook and a micromail ball later, and the cache was back from whence it came. Looks like it’s pretty long, and strangely all of the ‘fronts’ of the logbook pages were completely full... but the backs were untouched, so I had to pick a page to start going down the back of. Come to think of it, I imagine most of those finds were from during that summer event. Bah, if I’d had more time back then, I’d have already found this one too. No worries though... the other two caches I found in the park today ALSO happened to be associated with the same series 
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Thanks for adding some new caches to the park. It was nice to have one pseudo-close to the lake area, since it doesn’t seem like any new ones have found their way into this area since I last found the ones near here. Hmm... maybe that’s fate telling me that I need to get in on this geocache-placing action soon 
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Took: Nothing
Left: Logbook entry and micromail ball
The Tempest Station
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