Friday, March 19, 2010

Warm weather concerns

From the looks of it, I think we did the easy section of the Groundspeak series last weekend.  Based upon Topo maps and satellite images that I've been looking at, plus some comments I've received from Chaosmanor over the week, the southern part looks to be a little bit easier to maneuver around than the northern part of the G+.  I guess it's good that we have an extra  hour of daylight now.  More daylight, means more time to cache.

It's been warming up nicely in Southern California.  That's good in one sense, but not so good in another.  Last weekend, it was downright cold and I don't recall seeing another animals of the reptilian variety out while we were hiking out in the desert.  I noted to Chaosmanor that there were some spots where caches were hidden where it could get really interesting if the weather warmed up at all.  We hiked through some rocky areas on Saturday, the kind of areas that are prone for lizards to be found sunning themselves and also for other creatures that aren't as benevolent.

Last November, we had a cacher in our local area get bit by a rattlesnake, without any warning.  It bit, then rattled its tail after the fact.  You can read about the experience here.  November is not a month where one would usually be concerned about rattle snakes, yet here we have an incident that should also serve as a wake up call for anyone who lives in warmer climes.  My only encounter with a rattlesnake while geocaching happened in May of 2007.  We had been making quite a bit of noise that morning and we still ended up near a five to six foot rattlesnake, who wasn't at all pleased with its morning siesta being disturbed the way it was.  Needless to say, we always need to remember that snakes can be there, no matter what the season.

Picture was taken at or near the following geocache:
Groundspeak Series - Latitude - by HDGC

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