100 Geocachers

Well done to patdhill as by my reckoning on the 15th September 2012 you became the 100th geocacher to visit one of the WSI series caches!

I'm afraid there is no prize for this but it does go to show how popular the series has been during its 16 months of existence.

One or two of the cahes are suffering the work of the elements and will need attention soon but don't give up visiting them as they are all still there.

... and in third place is...

mallykay became the 'third' successful completers of the WSI series today and it sounds like they had a good time...

"Found Curves, John Greenwood & Park Rash -  all co-ords spot on and caches in good condition. Another super day out & thankfully the snow flurries came to nothing!"

"Day 3 and we parked at Halton Gill, we are really enjoying basing our days out around this smashing series. We walked on the Yockenthwaite path to Horse Head Moor, along the ridge and returned via Cosh. New territory for us and our favourite day so far."

"What a thoroughly enjoyable series this has been, thank you so much and we look forward to receiving our copy of the book."

Thank you both for taking part and congratulations once again!

Unsteady Trickle

Well, spring is making an appearance (in the South and Midlands at least!) and hopefully this will encourage a few more geocachers out to Upper Wharfedale to enjoy the delights the area has to offer.

Over the winter there has been a small trickle of geocachers visiting the WSI caches (mainly the ones down in the dale). I hope that the increasing daylight and temperatures will see footfall increase.

To date 62 individual cachers have visited at least one of the series with around 250 visits to series caches in total. I'm pleased that so many people are enjoying the series and hope that the visits continue. Do continue to send in any photos that you have taken during your rounds.

Winner!!!

Well the WSI series has been live for just under a fortnight and we have the first completer of the series. Well done gilfam for all your hard work and I hope you had some fun, enjoyment and nice weather doing the series. Don't forget to claim your 'prize' - details on the main series entry page.

So far there have been over 30 visits to the series caches with 10 geocachers joining in the fun. Now that the weather has taken a turn for the better (hopefully) why don't you get out there amongst it all! If you head to Buckden on the 18th June take time out from your geocaching to have some fun at the Village Gala.

Going Live Soon...

The caches have all been listed and will go live from about 4pm tomorrow the 28th May.

Keep an eye on the Upper Wharfedale area on geocaching.com to start your search.

Good luck!

Nearly There

With a few days to go before the official launch I will be tying up a few loose ends with a trip to Upper Wharfedale tomorrow and Thursday.

The caches are all sorted out and made quite an impression all stacked up.

The physical caches don't contain a lot but there is a lot of research behind their placement and in the artist's book that goes with the project.

The artists books won't be ready straight away so any very eager and/or successful geocachers will have to wait a little while to receive their 'prizes'. The reason for this is that I hope to use some of the experiences of the geocachers visiting my series to add another thread of content to the artist's books. As geocachers uncover the WSI series one of the few things I ask in return is to report their experiences in words and images. These experiences will start to appear here as soon as the successful start to report them.

Backing up the caches themselves and the artsist books will be a commentary about each site which I will add to this blog on a separate page. I will announce when these are added. In the meantime keep an eye on geocaching.com and the geoartcache site for the launch of the project this coming Saturday.

Project Development II

Wow! Nearly a month since my last post. With all the holidays around Easter time has flown by but my locations for caches have mostly been passed. Now it is on to the detailing of the caches and the admin involved with getting them live on geocaching.com in time for the project launch on the 28th May.

I've still got to buy the containers for the caches and add their contents before I visit Upper Wharfedale at the end of the month to hide them. Lakeland looks like a good bet with their lockable food storage containers.

Now I know the locations of the caches I can get on with designing and producing the artist's book 'prizes' for successful discovery of the series. The edition for the artist's book will be relatively modest at about 50 to 75 as a survey of the National Park geocache series in Upper Wharfedale shows a maximum visitor number of 43 to a single cache in any one year.

The geocache that I hid at the Parkinson Building in Leeds seems to have disappeared into a void and needs replacing. Hopefully it will be back in the next few days.

Site Visit

I caught the train to Gargrave and cycled the 17 or so miles to Buckden for a meeting with the folks from Chrysalis, Jackie Calderwood and representatives from National Trust and the National Park.

The ride was fine - it wasn't warm but cycling kept the chill at bay. There had been snow in the area a couple of days previously but this had now thawed apart from on the fells. The roads were quite quiet as I took mostly back lanes through Hetton, Grassington, Conistone and Kettlewell. Spring was hinted at in the form of snowdrops but otherwise all was still muted.

We met at Town Head Barn in Buckden and had a productive meeting. After introductions we learnt a bit more about the area, some of the do's and dont's about geocaching in the National Park and also some potential themes and places to site caches. I tried to find a geocache that I thought was in Buckden afterwards finding that it was the co-ordinates for parking for a multi-cache!

The light was just begining to go by the time we finished our meeting and I headed back the few miles to Kettlewell and my B&B for the night. After settling in at the B&B and before an evening meal at the King's Head I had another failed attempt to find a geocache. This time in Dowber Gill I was beaten by the darkness and realising I was above the site of it on the side of a steep hill!

The following morning I left my bags and cycled out on the Leyburn road to attempt Park Rash. Another failure as my cycle-unfit legs and high gearing saw me off and walking before the first hairpin! A cycle, walk, cycle, walk approach eventually got me to the summit of Park Rash in miserable weather but a successful find of the geocache on Tor Dyke. I couldn't record my visit though as the log had all but dissolved.

I descended back down Park Rash (easier said than done) to try and find the micro-cache hidden at the foot of the hill. Another failure and a wet foot to add insult to injury. Tail between my legs I went back to the B&B to collect my bags and headed up Wharfedale to seek inspiration for cache sites and find a couple of the National Park caches.

I cycled all the way up to Low Green Field in deteriorating weather. Cars became fewer and further between and the road grew narrower until it turned into not much more than a track on the dead-end lane from Beckermonds. I tried hard to imagine the dale in the spring with green in the landscape and sun in the sky but it wasn't easy.

I passed the limestone pavement and continued up to the entrance to Low Green Field before I turned back in search of geocaches at Yockenthwaite. I left the bike by the farm and walked the short way up the hill to find the first one and then decided to walk on to the next one. It wasn't far and was easy to find. Both were in good condition and full of items left for swaps.

Then it was back on the bike for the ride back to Skipton station. I stopped off in Grassington for some much-needed food and to dry out a bit and was glad to finally reach the station and change out of my mud-spattered and soaked clothes to look (and smell) a little more presentable on the train.

Update

The first site meeting has been confirmed for Tuesday 22nd February in Buckden when we (Jackie Calderwood is also working in this area) will meet with representatives from the National Park and the National Trust. This will be a good opportunity to learn more about the area, have an explore and maybe find a cache or two.

Research has been continuing and I am beginning to finalise some themes and approximate locations. For the final decision a lot will depend upon availability of hiding places for caches in the right locations.

I also need to research the guidelines for hiding caches so that I am ready to hide the book fair cache and understand how to set up a multi-cache. The exact contents of the caches will need to be finalised although this will be influenced by the choice of container - to this end France-Leigh at Chrysalis is fast becoming an expert on Tupperware!

Artist's Meeting at Art Depot

I got the train to Skipton and decided to pay a visit to my first geocache en-route to the meeting in Gargrave. It was a beautiful, bright day which made for an enjoyable few miles via Sharp Haw. I found the cache there relatively quickly but the cold wind meant I didn't want to hang around too long and I soon descended down into the shelter of the trees below.

I carried on down to Gargrave in good time for the meeting. After welcomes and introductions we shared our plans for our individual projects. There was plenty of cross-over in approaches but also variety in how we would set things up and it should make for a strong and varied programme.

After the meeting Jackie and I walked back to the station via a detour to another geocache on the bank of the canal to the west of Gargrave. Both of today's caches were in good condition and have offered some options for size and style of container.

Artist's Meeting, etc.

The other artists selected for the Geo Art Cache project are Jackie Calderwood and rednile. We'll all be getting together at the Art Depot on 3rd February to discuss our ideas and the practicalities for the project.

We've all been sorting out the paperwork for the project and begining to look at the areas we are going to work with. Jackie and I are in the Yorkshire Dales and rednile will be in the Wolds. I bought a copy of The Yorkshire Dales by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby and although written in the 1950s it gives a good idea of the landscape, traditions and infrastructure of the area.

Why WSI?

I have decided to call my part of Geo Art Cache Where Spheres Intersect as it combines the science behind GPS and the notion of fields of knowledge and interest that make us who we are and help shape the landscape around us. Here is what I plan to do:

The intention is to create a series of caches that respond to a local fact or theme. Each cache will provide part of a clue to find a final prize cache. An overall aim of the series is to underline the human experience of geocaching and to promote the sustainable side of the activity and so caches will be sited for access on foot, by bicycle or by public transport.

My starting point will be desk-based research; to get a feel for the whole Yorkshire Dales region and to establish an understanding of broad topics such as geology, topography, industry, culture and traditions. Through this phase I will begin to identify themes that the individual caches might represent. [January / February]

At this stage it will be important to begin discussing practicalities with people who know the area. The project has certain aspirations and one is to promote quieter parts of the area, other factors might be sensitivity to local land ownership issues and environmental / sustainability concerns.

It may be that the themes themselves dictate exact locations for the caches but the next step will be to get out in the landscape to identify potential sites using the background knowledge gained in the first phase. This knowledge will be augmented by the discussions outlined above. [February / March]

I will identify 6 to 8 themes and cache locations and ideally this series will form a narrative that builds towards a final ‘secret’ cache that gives successful geocachers information to obtain their hard-earned ‘prize’. This prize will be in the form of a limited-edition artist’s book.

This series of caches will have a pre-launch presence at the Leeds Artists Book Fair in mid-March. This presence is intended to make an art audience more aware of geocaching and to introduce the geocaching audience to the secret world of artist’s books. This identification of secret or lesser-known groups and activities may become a guiding theme through the work. For instance caches might deal with specialist botany or localised sporting events that perhaps have a link to a wider frame of reference but are often hidden from the majority of the population. [March]

The individual caches will comprise standard containers but they may (in addition to the logbook) offer a small physical reward to successful locators. It is also intended that geocachers visiting each cache can feed back their comments about the physical and human effort taken to find it.

The scale of the cache containers will be developed through consultation with existing the project team, geocachers, park rangers and landowners once exact locations have been identified. Caches can then be constructed and sited and their presence registered with geocaching.com ready for the start of the project. [April]

The complexity is in the organisation and linking of the caches. The finding of the caches should be no more complicated than usual but they will vary in location from roadside to high moorland so a certain level of fitness and navigational skill will be required.

Hurray!

Today I have been told that my proposal has been successful and things will get underway in the new year. I'm looking forward to working with the team at Chrysalis, meeting the other artists on the project and getting to know the Yorkshire Dales - a part of England I've only visited once.

Homework for Christmas: start to research the area and also learn about geocaching.

Start of Project

Interviews were held at Chrysalis Arts in Gargrave today. After the interview I enjoyed a walk back to Skipton railway station along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal which runs right behind CA's Art Depot building.