Winterfest 2011

When we left our house the temperature was -3. Ten miles later when we arrived at Chapman State Park, the temperature was down to -6. A team of cachers from Buffalo were already there for the event.



When we spent New Years Day here placing the caches, the trails were so icy we had to shorten the event. We usually spread 8-10 event caches over about 3 1/2 miles of hiking. On New Years we gave up with eight caches spread over about 2 1/2 miles of trails. The weather today was so cold, I was glad the attendees were on the trail for a much shorter time.




Big congrats to GEOCATZ!. They celebrated find number 1,500 at today's event. Last January, they celebrated 1,000 at the Winterfest.




Ali with a bag of prizes on our way to the final meeting area. As usual when we host this event, we didn't get to enjoy much of the day so this walk was special.





Besides us, five NEOGEO's braved the cold and snow to make the trip east. loftongal is not in the picture. She was signing the cache log.


Ahhhhh... our reward at the end came from the newly opened Tims in Warren. Hot chocolate in a mug!


There were a lot fewer people this year than last. I was amazed 110 people showed up to cache in weather this cold. By the time we arrived at the park the Polar Bear Plunge had already been canceled since the cold water team couldn't guarantee getting participants from the open water to the warming hut without skin damage in the single degree temperatures. We had two brave cachers planning to take the plunge this year.

It literally takes days to prepare for this event each year and each year I say this was the last. Why break tradition? I can't imagine doing this one again. Maybe it's time for a big March event in NEOGEO land. We haven't had time to host both winter events since we became reviewers. Hmmmmm.