Winter is never an excuse to stay inside and let the Garmins collect dust, at least not at our house.  A new snowfall covering the landscape along a stream, hoarfrost on the branches, no bugs, especially no deer ticks.  Perfect!  Winter also brings another kind of caching fun, one that allows you to walk on water for those five star terrains.

Our favorite caches are usually adventures, ones that challenge us physically and bring us closer to places of natural beauty.  Coming to geocaching as already active outdoors people, we have all that extra gear.....snowshoes, cross country skis, chest waders, a canoe, a kayak.  We love paddling adventures, taking us along riverways or across lakes to islands, watching the loons dive in front of us as we ply the waters to our goal.  So why in the world would we want to take on a five star cache in the winter?

Two words: fuel costs.  If we're going to haul that canoe or kayak a couple hundred miles cross state, our gas mileage will drop.  That's not such an issue, but having to figure out shuttling to our start point is.  At least once, we've dropped a bike at the ending point to ride back to where the car is parked, and after paddling the river all day, pedaling the road loses its appeal.

Some might say walking on the hard water is taking the easy way out.  Sometimes, it is. But others......

We'd had our sights set on a cache near West Bend Wisconsin, Cedar Creek Cache (GCGW8Q).  We've been trying to fill up our D/T grid with caches that qualify for the original California Fizzy Challenge and this cache was one of those.  Some had found it in the previous weeks, so we met up with caching friends from around the state, Seth of Team Honeybunnies and Marc, also known as marc54140.  The day was bright and clear, but not too warm. "Not too warm" is a good thing when seeking caches on islands or across rivers.  We headed off for the cache, located in the Jackson Marsh state hunting grounds.  The first challenge was the road itself.  Having received a significant snowfall early in the season, much of that had melted away after recent heavy rains, rains which then froze solid all over everything.  The road was a bumpy ice rink, but we managed somehow to get to the parking area and not fly off into the swamp.

We looked at Cedar Creek.  Some frozen areas along the shoreline created a large broken shelf of ice on the banks angled down a good 45 degrees or steeper.  Not at all conducive to getting onto that ice layer to check strength.  Now what?

"How about we just walk upstream a bit to find a better spot?"

"Good idea."

"Look, there's a nice deadfall that spans a good way across."

"With open running water just beyond it, are you crazy?"

Checking out the ice

One member of our group was not to be convinced. 

"A hare-brained scheme is good for the soul," taunted Seth, while the rest of us were ready to move on to something less dangerous.  A skirt lifter in front of a good local restaurant, perhaps?

Seth wasn't giving in.  Gathering up a large deadfall, he set off to create some kind of bridge across the two feet of open current in the middle of the best crossing point we'd discovered.  What could we do?  The rest gathered equally solid deadfalls and the bridge was laid.  Still uncertain was the actual ice thickness on either side of the bridge, but where current is involved, it was safe to assume it wasn't terribly thick.

Trekkin' and marc54140 carry big sticks

Handing over his Garmin and his cell phone, Seth prepared to cross.  Trekkin' grabbed onto the crosspieces to prevent them from tipping into the current, and when everything was set, Seth got down on all fours and scuttled across like a waterbug.  With a well placed toss, his Garmin was back in hand and the rest of us watched safely as he walked toward ground zero and freed the cache from its ice-encased location.

Making the passage across

The whole process was reversed and he was able to return dry and warm, with a smiley to be logged later that night.

We congratulated him on his brave and probably foolish move and headed off for our next adventure, all of us agreeing that this cache would have been far easier to reach by kayak in June.....with bugs, though!

For those who think accessing a five star terrain cache in the winter is the easy way out, think again.  It gives a whole new meaning to the concept of "walking on water."

By Gwyn Calvetti

Gwyn Calvetti enjoys geocaching in the Driftless area of southwestern Wisconsin and beyond, most of the time with her husband Trekkin’.  When she’s not geocaching, she might be birding, enjoying nature photography or paper arts projects when the weather is miserable. She funds her travels working as a special education teacher and is also a professional storyteller.  She caches with a Garmin, but has been known to use a Magellan, too. 

trekkinandbirdin@gmail.com 

Comments(1):

1. Decided

   No problem, If you cut or drill a hole in the ice it will tell you what to expect. $ inches gets you started. A week ago I drove my van out to a cache that was 1 mile and a half from shore. It was cold and windy and I had been out there a couple of times early looking. Pay attention and you'll be fine.

   Monday, February 15, 2010 Mike