BOOTS ON!!!

We woke up on Thursday with even more snow on the ground than what we had come home to the day before. Any plans of going caching went out of the proverbial window.

But wait, oh my...BOOTS ON!!!

BOOTS ON!!! in our house is the equivalent of the 'Whoopee!!!' cry of our first nations in times gone, of 'Action Stations' over the intercom on a warship, and of 'Supper is served' in many homes...
That is not to say that any of these can come close to the urgency in the voice that cries BOOTS ON!!! But then...oh well...

Our computer screens were full of evidence that mountainman had been a busy man indeed. But that was a few hours earlier and we had slept right through it. Six new caches had come out in our immediate area. Hopes of getting to any of them first were slim, looking at the time that had already elapsed since they came out.
However, Erica had been hoping so much for being part of an FTF adventure that we climbed in our boots and hit the snowy road, the Jeep purring contentedly as we went.

Arriving at the first one, we saw to our surprise no tracks in the snow near where we thought the cache had to be. We found the cache. Our first FTF of the day, PelikanKru's first FTF ever! Happy days are here again!

On to the next one, but that one never made it into the Garmin so we skipped it...

Arriving at the next closest one we were again surprised to see virgin snow in the area of the cache. Second FTF of the day. Snow is good!

Just when we were ready to put the cache back, someone pulled up into the parking spot next to it. Wait. Wait some more. She is in no hurry to come out of her car. Let's walk around with note books in hand as if we are inspecting. Never a look came our way. But look, she is getting busy with...it's on the floor apparently...sneak...got...cache... back... in place... and she never even looked up once. Floor is good!

Expedition continued! Arriving...oh unmarred snow...the stuff poetry is written about...another FTF...PelikanKru rules! Rules is good!

Home, picking up coords for number four. But first breakfast. Breakfast is good! So what if we don't get any more...three in a day in which we did not expect to find any....Three is good!

Up to number four. Alice is now with us too. You never know. Nobody has logged it yet. No virgin snow this time...such grief...but a virgin logbook nevertheless...o joy! Joy is good!

Four was the record of FTF's for goinggone in one day. Was it breakable?

'Guys, there is one in Mission too. Feel like going?'

'How long will that take?'

'O, 15 there, 15 back...o, about half an hour I'd say.'

'Okay.'

I'd kind of forgotten the landscape at the end of Wren ...steep down, steep up...don't really notice it so much on a summer day...but now...steep, snow, slippery... Do we or don't we? We had already been in a bit of a skid earlier that day...even a Jeep and 4x4 is no match for straight ice going down hill...

Alice went to reconnoitre the steepness and slipperyness of the situation. We got the go-ahead. Made it to the bottom of the hill without problems. Uphill was no headache either.

Arriving at the park we found the gate closed and the closest we could get to the cache was over 300m. Girls wearing just runners. Eight inches of unplowed snow. Unplowed is no good!

'Let's do it. We made it this far, a little more can't hurt.'

Nobody mentions the 'half hour or so' it would take to do this one.

Trudging through virgin snow over our ankles direction cache.

We make it. Find the cache quite quickly. Joy abounds. Another FTF! FTS's are joy!

Eventually we get home again. Nobody is unhappy with the day we have been given. The sunshine and the snow makes the mountains look incredible.

God rules!