We would like to invite members of the Ontario Geocaching Association to explore Georgian Bay Islands National Park. Located near Honey Harbour, the park offers a variety of outdoor experiential activities on the  scenic shores of eastern Georgian Bay.

Come try out Geocaching with a twist; explore Beausoleil Island, part of Georgian Bay Islands National Park.  Enjoy a boat ride on our DayTripper service from Honey Harbour that will deliver you to over 40km of hiking trails and 5 geocaches.

Geocache sites and interpretive signs located along the trail will help you discover the rich natural and cultural history of Eastern Georgian Bay. Take a day to hike the trails or stay overnight in our campground with water front sites, or rustic cabins.

We would be happy to help plan the perfect getaway for you and your members to experience Georgian Bay  Islands National Park. Included is a brochure which highlights some of the unique features and facilities this park has to offer.

Follow this link to download a PDF brochure with information about
Georgian Bay Islands Activities.

If you have any question, please don’t hesitate to contact us:

Graham Lamb,
Graham.Lamb@pc.gc.ca
Georgian Bay Islands National Park
901Wye Valley Rd, Box 9
Midland, ON
L3V 3N4

This cache is the start of a 60 cache power trail through an area that is visited mainly by atvers, snowmobilers and hunters. This cache is placed on the opposite side of the river from the trail and depending on the time of year you attempt it, you will either be able to hop across the rocks to get to the other side or you may have to use chest waders. Getting to the cache isn’t all there is either as once you are on the other side of the river then you will need to scramble part way up a tree to retrieve the cache. Once you find this cache, be sure to continue on down the trail for the other caches along the trails here, 50 of which are part of this excellent and well planned series.

Geocache Spotlight is an ongoing feature of the OGA Newsletter. Each month a geocache will be recommended. If you know of a geocache that you either own or have found and feel it deserves some attention, please write something about it and submit it for publication in the OGA Newsletter.

Starting May 19, 2012, GeoFreakZ is partnering with Parks Canada to bring a GeoFreakZ adventure. The program is being piloted in 4 Parks Canada locations and Peterborough has been chosen as one of those locations.

Your mission is to help the GeoFreakZ in locating more of the Krystal Star, while avoiding the enemies and the DNF. Do you think that you are up for the challenge? To show your success in each mission, you will need to stamp your passport with the special stamp that is located at each cache location. More details on how you can join the GeoFreakZ on May 19th in Peterborough will be available in an upcoming newsletter.

You can visit www.geofreakz.com for more information on GeoFreakZ.

Details are still being ironed out, but the kick-off/main event is being planned for July 14, 2012. The location this year will be south of Campbellford between Locks 8 and 10. The exact location is still to be determined. As details are finalized they will be posted in the OGA forum as well as in upcoming newsletters.

We have been scouting out cache locations and I think a few are already in the works. Guaranteed to be a great day that you won’t want to miss out on!

The caches that were placed for the Great Tug Trent Geocaching event are still active so if you are in the Peterborough area, be sure to put them on your To Do Geocaching List. There are a few coins left, but when they are gone, they are gone.

See you in July!

By the time Friday morning rolled around there were now five of us who were going, so it was a team of bggy, Micd, MrPirateCat, Team Goju and myself. Micd was kind enough to drive and by midnight we made it to the trailhead and got ready for the big adventure. We started hiking at 12:39am. It was dark and around -10C with no wind. This made for a perfect day. -10C was actually better than the 0C that it briefly reached during the day. The trail was great and hard packed all the way from the trailhead to the Y intersection where the left fork lead to Bushwacker and the right to the event. At the bridge a few kms in from the trailhead we spotted a Jeep with someone sleeping in a tent, but continued along figuring they were probably sound asleep. As we turned onto the left fork at the Y intersection, the trail changed. It was no longer a hard packed wide trail. We could see the faint snow covered impressions of when the cachers on ATVs went through here a couple weeks ago and the fresh ski trails of Lifeguard1 from going in yesterday and his foot prints from heading back out. It was still manageable enough to walk along. We pressed on and of course stopping for all of the caches along the way. We made it to the first hunt camp at 5:28am, which was a good thing as Team Goju just went knee deep into the water and it was a good time for a brief rest. We woke up one of the guys that were staying at the hunt camp and he invited us in. At 6:04 three of us we were on our way again grabbing each of the caches along the trail, except for 2 of the more difficult ones in the area that involved some potential water crossing which we would get on the way back from Bushwacker.

At 8:52am, we made it to Bushwacker which we spotted hanging there from 20m away as we approached. Signed in and congratulated each other and took a group picture and continued on to the last two caches along the trail. There was not much of a trail along the last 750m to the last two caches and the only thing we had to follow was Lifeguard1′s footprints. Snow was about a foot deep here and this was the toughest part of the entire hike, but still manageable. After finding the cache at the end of the trail we turned around to head out and at the beaver dam to Bushwacker, we met up with coman123 and his son and had a nice chat before continuing on back along the trail to the two caches that we had skipped. One of these caches was Almost ‘Bushwacked’. We approached Almost ‘Bushwacked from the north across the long beaver dam and this was definitely the easy and right approach, as going out we tried to go to the east and this proved very difficult as there was a lot of swamp and water all around and we were uncertain about the ice conditions based on previous observations earlier in the day. We managed to get out, but it was a tough trek. What we thought we may save in time and distance by going east as someone suggested, was not to be the case. Once back on the trail we headed back to meet the two members of the group we left behind at the hunt camp, but we thought Team Goju might be looking for us on the trail, and sure enough he was. We heard him coming back behind us and waited for him. We made it back to the hunt camp at 1:15pm and after another quick break we were back on the trail at 1:37pm and now headed to the event.

On the trail we came across northernpenguin and chris-mouse and had a nice chat. They were continuing on along the trail to find more caches. A little while later we came across a lady hiding in the woods, which we concluded was Syl Belle who seemed to be signing the log of a cache and then the event host Jack2u along with another cacher. It was good to be able to meet the event host especially since we were late for the event and he told us where the log was so we could sign it. That was it for meeting anyone else for the day. Back at the Y intersection we found the rest of the caches leading up to the event and finally made it to the event at 3:30pm and then found our the last cache of the day with Ashley’s Hide just beyond the event for a total of 57 caches. And now the 7km hike along the nice trail back to the parking. Arrived back at the parking at 5:50pm just as the sun had set.

• Total caches found: 57
• Distance hiked: 37.5km
• Total time on trail: 17h 11min
• Total time from first find to last find: 14h 14min
• Total time stopped at hunt camp (included in above times): 58min

Now that it’s all done, I’ve got great memories of a wonderful adventure that I was able to share with four good friends. I am glad I did it and never had any doubts about my ability or those that I was with. I look forward to the next big adventure or challenge.

Geocaching is an activity that can lead people on wonderful adventures both urban and wild. Many highly rated geocaches are located along Ontario’s fantastic outdoor trail systems, including The Bruce Trail, The Oak Ridges Trail, The Ganaraska Trail and countless others. These trails are often laid out to follow some geographical interest and are maintained by volunteers. They may cross sensitive ecological or historical places, on both public and private land.

When you place a geocache, and list it on geocaching.com, one of those little check boxes you tick is that you have adequate permission to place the geocache where you did. We tend to assume that places like parks and trails are OK because you have permission to be there for other activities, like hiking. This is not always the case.

Where possible, you really should get explicit permission from the land owner, preferably in writing, as occasionally the manager changes. In the case of land along a hiking trail, this is not necessarily the trail organization, but the owner of the land itself – as they have the final say what happens on their land. Keep in mind that sometimes the trail organization does, in fact, purchase the land and have the final authority over it.

We tend to see geocaching as an activity for outdoor enthusiasts to reconnect with nature. You can help the landowners see us the same way by keeping your cache placements as close to the trail as possible. Many trails traverse sensitive ecosystems and the route is carefully chosen to minimize damage from a wayward foot fall. Geocachers wandering hundreds of meters from the established trail can lead to environmental damage – a crushed plant, a dead salamander or perhaps the deposit of a harmful pest that hitchhiked on your boot. The worst case scenario isn’t that a cache is archived, it’s that the land owner retracts permission for the public to be there.

Make sure, whenever you geocache, you do it in a way that would be seen in a positive light by the people who manage the land you are on. Stay on the trails, place on the trails, and practice CITO to leave the trail cleaner than you found it.

Geocache Spotlight is an ongoing feature of the OGA Newsletter. Each month a geocache will be recommended. If you know of a geocache that you either own or have found and feel it deserves some attention, please write something about it and submit it for publication in the OGA Newsletter.

• TEDxPSU – Jeremy Irish – Geocaching
  - Very excellent presentation from Jeremy.
• OpenCaching.com One Year On
  - Review of Garmin’s OpenCaching web site. Accurate or biased review?
• Geocaching Podcast – Episode 228 – Night Caching
  -Featuring our Vice President, northernpenguin.
• Latitude 47 – December Featured Geocacher of the Month Nominees
  - ElectroQTed from Ontario has been nominated.
• AMAZING geocache container
  - Some cachers can be very creative.

While you are out hiking or snowshoeing the trails this winter, take time to appreciate the natural wonders you enjoy, often due to volunteers who build and maintain these trails.

Geocaching is an activity that can lead people on wonderful adventures both urban and wild. Many highly rated geocaches are located along Ontario’s fantastic outdoor trail systems, including The Bruce Trail, The Oak Ridges Trail, The Ganaraska Trail and countless others. These trails are often laid out to follow some geographical interest and are maintained by volunteers. They may cross sensitive ecological or historical places, on both public and private land.

When you place a geocache, and list it on geocaching.com, one of those little check boxes you tick is that you have adequate permission to place the geocache where you did. We tend to assume that places like parks and trails are OK because you have permission to be there for other activities, like hiking. This is not always the case.

Where possible, you really should get explicit permission from the land owner, preferably in writing, as occasionally the manager changes. In the case of land along a hiking trail, this is not necessarily the trail organization, but the owner of the land itself – as they have the final say what happens on their land. Keep in mind that sometimes the trail organization does, in fact, purchase the land and have the final authority over it.

We tend to see geocaching as an activity for outdoor enthusiasts to reconnect with nature. You can help the landowners see us the same way by keeping your cache placements as close to the trail as possible. Many trails traverse sensitive ecosystems and the route is carefully chosen to minimize damage from a wayward foot fall. Geocachers wandering hundreds of meters from the established trail can lead to environmental damage – a crushed plant, a dead salamander or perhaps the deposit of a harmful pest that hitchhiked on your boot. The worst case scenario isn’t that a cache is archived, it’s that the land owner retracts permission for the public to be there.

Make sure, whenever you geocache, you do it in a way that would be seen in a positive light by the people who manage the land you are on. Stay on the trails, place on the trails, and practice CITO to leave the trail cleaner than you found it.