Ride Around the Reservoir

On By GeoKsIn Geocaching
We pulled into the Weaselhad parking lot just before 10 o’clock this morning, with the aim of finding a few geocaches and going for a short ride before heading home and getting youngest GeoKid organized for his 3 day trip to Camp Sweet. The parking lot was pretty full, so we knew we’d see lots of other walkers, runners and bikers on the trails, but we figured it would be less crowded than the Bow River pathway system running through downtown Calgary, so we unloaded our bikes, donned our helmets and gloves and headed down, down, down the hill to Ethan’s Cache, which was just published yesterday. And guess what?!? We were FTF (fifth to find)! It was a nice big ammo can and a good start to our ride. Here’s a picture of the nearby Elbow River…

As soon as we crossed the river, we planned to turn west and ride about 400 meters to Weaselhead Birdwatchers Cache – CCARW09 BUT since that trail is off-limits to bikes, we quickly came up with a new plan. Mr. GeoK and youngest GeoKid rode on to the next target cache, Mrs. GeoK dismounted and headed off to cover the last 350 meters on foot, and oldest GeoKid stayed at the trail intersection to keep an eye on Mrs. GeoKs’ bike. We each carry a small walkie-talkie, so we chatted as we went our separate ways. Mrs. GeoK found the nicely hidden container in short order and was very happy to find an activated geocoin inside. After swapping a travel bug for the coin and signing the log, she carefully replaced it and headed back to her bike.

Soon after Mrs. GeoK and oldest GeoKid started riding again, to join up with the other pair, Mr. GeoK used his walkie-talkie to call in a request for a description of and any hints for Weaselhead Micro. Armed with the additional information, he found the cache and signed the log before Mrs. GeoK and oldest GeoKid even reached the spot where youngest GeoKid was waiting beside the trail.

The threesome waitied for about 15 minutes before Mr. GeoK rejoined them, however. He was busy finding a new (temporary) hiding spot for Stash n’ Dash, a grandfathered moving cache, which travels about visiting all the parks in the Calgary area. There were plenty of birds to watch, signs of beaver to observe and lots of folks out for their daily (weekly?) exercise to greet. They also agreed that since they’d been away from the car for a scant half hour, it made sense to ride on for another 20 to 30 minutes before heading back to the vehicle to load up the bikes and head home. Mr. GeoK agreed that sounded like a find plan.

We did return to the car, almost exactly 2 hours after we’d pulled into the parking lot. We ended up circumnavigating the entirety of Glenmore Reservoir, which is a distance of approximately 18 km. Although some sections were fairly crowded, we made pretty good time. Youngest GeoKid, with his smaller bicycle tires, has to work twice as hard as the rest of us!

At the east end of the reservoir we had the good fortune of spotting the SS Moyie (based out of Heritage Park) as it finished up one of its cruises around Glenmore. With the snow-capped Canadian Rockies in the background, Mrs. GeoK felt it was a photo-worthy moment…

Leave a Reply