You’ve gone after that one cache countless times. Each time there have
been numerous people in the park, several even near ground zero.  It’s
been frustrating, because you are sure you know exactly where it is,
but you don’t want to compromise the location and cause the
disappearance of yet another ammo box (or lock-n-lock, or blinky,
or…).  You’ll just have to come out some other time…again.

Hey!  That’s not going to be a problem for about three or four months
now!  You have the parks ALL TO YOURSELF!  The only problem,,,is the
cold.  And the snow,  and the cold,  and the parking, and the cold.

Last year I struck again into the winter weather to find several
caches.  The previous February, my first in the world of GPS hunting,
I had gone after several caches in out of the way places during the
white season, but I hadn’t done much in the area of preparing, so I
suffered during those brief searches.  When the opportunity came
around again, I made sure to have some basic things with me in the
Jeep.  Aside from one particular cache, during the search of which
common sense took a back seat and I stepped through ice into a stream,
my pre-search preparation served me well.

During the winter months I now carry a thermos of hot coffee when
planning to search the snow, and two blankets are in my standard
cold-weather kit for winter driving anyway.

On my feet I keep a pair of nice thick wool socks, or an even thicker
pair of thermal cotton socks.  The wool keeps your feet warm even if
they get wet.  The cotton socks don’t do quite as well, but my boots
usually compensate for that.  My boots are either a pair of regular
insulated hikers, or a pair of “Mukluks” that I kept from the service.
 That was many moons ago, and they’ve still held up.  If you can find
a pair at a surplus store, pick them up.  They’re wonderful.

Headgear for me includes a hat that covers my ears, with a thermal
facemask in the cache bag for those windy days (like last Saturday).
Now for the deal breaker.  Gloves

.

The gloves you take with you while caching need to do two things.
They need to keep your hands warm (duh), and they need to allow you to
use your fingers.  Mittens are great at the former, but if you have to
take them off to open the cache container, you lose all that heat in
about ten seconds.  It gets really hard to sign a log with frozen
fingers (many times, you have to take your hands out of your gloves to
unroll the log after finding that blinky anyway, but let’s at least
get the thing open before you have to cool your hands off).  The brand
that I wear are Kinco, they’re insulated, they cover my hands beyond
my wrists, and I can open about three quarters of all cache containers
with them still on.  They are made of sewn leather and cloth on the
outside, and baby seal fur on the inside (JUST KIDDING! The insides
are felt lined! The same fabric as my hat and facemask! Honest!!).
They are the best gloves that I’ve worn to date.  They never get wet
inside and my fingers seemingly never get cold in them.

When you are winter caching, and you are able to park close to the
hide.  Don’t be afraid to take the cache container back to your
vehicle to do your signing and trading.  I do this for a couple of
reasons.  My Jeep is still warm, and I’m better able to keep moisture
out of the container.  You can tell the difference between a cache
that I’ve handled this way, and one that I’ve signed on the spot with
my gloves off.  The signature of the one I took to my Jeep is almost
legible.  Since you are the only person silly enough to be at the park
during a blizzard, there is little worry that a “muggle” is going to
ruin your fun, but be watchful, you never know when another player is
going to come looking for the cache that you’ve got in your toasty
vehicle.  It might be fun to do, but it’s awfully rude to let them
search when it’s not there at the moment.

Oh, one other thing.  When your get out of your vehicle, drop your
keys into a pocket that you can zip up.  Searching for lost keys in a
snowbank can be dang frustrating!

By JETSchmidt

A native Nebraskan (grew up in Elkhorn), I live in Bellevue with my
Lovely Wife and Son.  I've been a pilot and flight instructor
since 1988, but work in Information Systems to pay the bills.
I became obsessed with Geocaching in January of 2009, although I had
heard of the sport way back when I bought my first handheld
GPSr, a Garmin ETrex, when they first were introduced.
My favorite caches are the ones that take you somewhere off the beaten
track.  The one's out in the woods, or in hidden parks,
and the one's that someone took a lot of thought into creating.

--
---The sky is not a limit,
It is home.
-Terry Schmidt

Comments(1):

1. Winter caching

   We like to winter cache. When the lakes freeze we get the five terrain caches placed on islands. We never have gone caching in a boat or kayak. Thanks for your story.

   Monday, April 18, 2011 Marvin