TAG :: Toronto Area Geocachers

The Ontario Trails Project has been updated just in time for your new Christmas present (a GPS, right?)

Here’s what changed:

 

Ont-Trails 0.82

Added – Robert Baker Forest – Caledon – Randall Banning
Added – Eqsuesing Trail – Milton – Randall Banning
Added – L Lake Trail – Grand Bend – Brook22
Added – McLaughlin Bay Wildlife Preserve Trails – Oshawa – Dave Stabler, Barb Murray
Added – Dofasco 2000 Trail – Hamilton – Sebastian Irazuzta
Added – Elliot Tract – Milton – John Robb
Added – Four Mile Pond – Niagara On the Lake – David M
Added – Altona Woods – Pickering – Barnie’s Band of Gold
Added – Guildwood Park – Toronto – Barb Murray
Added – Lanthrop Nature Preserve – Fonthill – Jabba / Sheryl Ferris-Little
Added – Selwyn Beach Conservation Area – Selwyn/Lakefield – Team Murfster
Added – Robert Johnson Eco Forest – Douro – Team Murfster
Added – Roseville Tract – Goodwood – adventurerat
Added – Glen Major Forest – Claremont – adventurerat
Added – Log Boom Lake – Killarney PP – Fizbot
Added – Brush Camp Lake – Killarney PP – Fizbot
Added – Lake of the Woods Trail – Killarney PP – chris-mouse
Added – Chikanishing Trail – Killarney PP – chris-mouse
Added – Meadowlily Woods ESA – London – Frank Bax
Added – Varna Trail – Bayfield – maxter86
Added – Langdon Trails – Cambridge – res2100
Added – QE Wildlands Trail – Minden – northernpenguin
Added – Anstruther Lake – Kawartha Highlands PP – northernpenguin
Added – Rathbun Lake – Kawartha Highlands PP – northernpenguin
Added – North Rathbun Lake – Kawartha Highlands PP – northernpenguin
Added – Wolf Lake – Kawartha Highlands PP – northernpenguin
Added – Guelph Lake CA Trails – Guelph – norhternpenguin
Added – Herb Lake – Kawartha Water Trails (Dorset) – northernpenguin
Added – Knife Lake – Kawartha Water Trails (Dorset) – northernpenguin
Added – Ernest Lake – Kawartha Water Trails (Dorset) – northernpenguin
Added – Gun Lake – Kawartha Water Trails (Dorset) – northernpenguin
Added – Blueberry Hill (Crab Lake) – Kawartha Highlands PP – northernpenguin
Added – New section of Canada Goose Side Trail – Halton Hills – northernpenguin
Added – Riverfront Trail – Belleville – Mike Kennedy
Added – Waterfront Trail – Belleville – Mike Kennedy
Added – Rideau Trail – Kingston – Mike Kennedy
Added – Waterfront Trail – Kingston – Mike Kennedy
* Also some other small trail systems around Belleville and Kingston
Added – Maitland Hiking Ski Trails – Maitland – Binrat
* Note – Ski use of these trails requires a membership, see http://www.maitlandhall.ca/programs/skitrails/index.html

Updated – Royal Botanical Gardens – Hamilton – Tys Theysmeyer, Head of Natural Lands – RBG
* Note several incorrect trails were removed from Rock Chapel, Hendrie Valley, Arboretum and official GIS used by request of Land Manager.

Related Posts:

• Logged a DNF for Related Posts :(

Just posted a quick update to the Trails Project on the site.  Here’s what’s new this outing:

Added – Barron Canyon – Algonquin – northernpenguin
Added – Duck Island – Lake Ontario (Kingston) – dfx, Team Murfster
Added – Vittoria Conservation Area – Norfolk – Dr. House
Added – Marshall Memorial Forest – Dunnville – Kreamer&BearsKrew
Added – Elgin Trail (Portion) – Port Stanley – GR812NV
Added – Municipal Park Trails – London – GR812NV
Added – Westmount Park – London – GR812NV
Added – Chrysler Canada Greenway Extension – Essex – GR812NV
Added – Chrysler Canada Greenway Access Trail – Harrow – GR812NV
Added – Parkwood Hospital Trails – London – GR812NV Added – Euston Park – London – GR812NV
Added – Cataraqui Trail (Portion) – Napanee – snoozejade
Added – Meadow (Orange) Trail / Cawthraw Mulock Nature Reserve – Christopher Lenort
Added – Porter Road Loop – Ganaraska Forest – Dave Stabler
Added – Darling Conservation Area – Peterborough – Dave Stabler
Added – Dobrich Dragicevic Conservation Area (Portions) – Essex – Teamvoyagr
Added – Abe’s and Essen’s Trail – Bon Echo Provincial Park – Stephen Switzer
Added – Hope Smith Tract – Washago – Ronald Kluger

The downloads are on the site right now. Enjoy!

Related Posts:

• Ontario Trails Project v0.79 posted
• Ontario Trails Project Updated to 0.78, now with Canoe Routes
• Ibycus Topo Canada updated to v4.0

Well it’s been a while (5 months!) but a freshly baked Ontario Trails Project release is out the door.  As usual, we’ve got new trails, cleaned up trails and we even removed some incorrect trails.

If you want to skip the details, the map can be downloaded (as always) from http://trailmaps.torontogeocaching.com
* Note: If you are downloading this data for commercial use, please contact me first. The data is creative commons, with attribution.

Here’s what changed this time:

Ont-Trails 0.80

Added – The Gut Conservation Area – Havelock – northernpenguin
Added – Flowerpot Island Trails – Tobermory – Nozzletime
Added – Merle Gunby Side Trail – Owen Sound – Nozzletime
Added – Trent-Severn Waterway Trail ( Parkhill to McFarlane ) – Peterborough – Murfster
Added – York Region Trails, Scout Tract (added to existing) – Speedy54
Added – Mud Lake Trail – Port Colborne – dfx
Added – Local trails – Ancaster – dfx
Added – Local trail – Niagara Falls – dfx
Added – Local trails – Port Colborne – dfx
Added – Breithaupt Park – Waterloo – cache4pat
Added – Mount Albion Conservation Area – Hamilton – northernpenguin
Added – Welland Recreational Waterway – Welland – northernpenguin
Added – Bond Lake Lower Trail – Oak Ridges – northernpenguin
Added – Hyde Tract – Flamborough – teamvoyagr
Added – (Partial) Niagara Glen Trails, Whirlpool Trail – Niagara Falls – northernpenguin
Added – Cawthra Mulock Nature Reserve – Bradford – Christopher Lenort
Added – Innisfil Town Hall Park Trails – Innisfil – Juicepig
Added – Lingham Lake Trail – Tequila, Lifeguard1
Added – Lingham Lake Dam Trail – northernpenguin, Lifeguard1
Added – Mill Pond Hiking Trail – Dorchester – maxter86
Added – LAwrence Walkway – Toronto – Derek Pugh
Added – Bronte Creek Camping Trails – Oakville – Alexandar Karmanov
Added – Peacock Tract – Erin – Res2100
Added – Seaway Waterfront Trail – Upper Canada Village – Stewart Winter
Added – Delhi-Simcoe Rail Trail – Simcoe – Swamper68
Added – Vance Tract – Guelph – maxter86, rovers3
Added – Durham Regional Forest Timber Tract – Uxbridge – Terra Scout
Added – Etobicoke Creek Valley – Etobicoke – Psychocyclist
Added – Dryden Tract (Alps Woods) – Cambridge – Rovers3
Added – Humber Valley Heritage Trail (Kleinburg Chapter) – Kleinburg – Barry Westhead
Added – Mill Pond Trail – Cambridge – Doug Mathieson
Added – Bruce Trail Side Trail – Mulmer – Nozzletime
Added – Waterford Heritage Trail (Missing Portions) – Brant – Swamper68
Added – Elgin Trail (Fingal to Lyle) – St. Thomas – Dr. House
Added – Cedar Valley Conservation Authority – Oshawa – Capers4
Added – Rock Glen Conservation Area – Arkona – northernpenguin

Added – Canoe Routes & Portages – Algonquin Park – Stewart Winter
- Ironwood Lake
- Bug Lake

Updated – Micheal Starr Trail – Oshawa – northernpenguin
Updated – Harmony Creek Trail – Oshawa – northernpenguin
Updated – Joseph Kolodzie Oshawa Creek Bike Path – Oshawa – northernpenguin
Updated – Bruce Trail Reroute – Speyside – Avernar
Updated – Rouge Park Trails – Toronto – Chris-Mouse
Updated – Westminster Pond Trails – London – maxter86
Updated – Silverheights Trail – Cambridge – Doug Mathieson
Added Parking:
Pottawatomi Conservation Area
Mount Albion Conservation Area
Breithaupt Park
Upper Kings Forest Park
Old Colony Road Parking – Oak Ridges Trail
Cedar Valley Conservation Authority

Added Information:
Johnson’s Hole (Lingham Lake)

 

 

Related Posts:

• Ontario Trails Project Updated to 0.78, now with Canoe Routes
• Ontario Trails Project 0.81 Available now
• Garmin Updating GPS Units for OpenCaching

Geocaching.com has long offered Pocket Queries for loading up your GPS with a large amount of geocache entries at once. Well, it didn’t take long for many cachers to cobble all their Pocket Queries together and keep them in an offline database, like GSAK. Offline databases are handy, as you can perform analysis, load up your GPS in a custom way, or go out caching even if geocaching.com is offline (for maintenance). There is a problem with GSAK databases though: Archived Caches.

When a geocache is archived, Groundspeak stops providing it in Pocket Queries, except your “My Finds” Pocket Query. From Groundspeak’s perspective, this makes perfect sense – an archived geocache is not something they want people seeking. Sometimes a cache is archived due to lack of maintenance or otherwise abandonment in the field … but other times it is due to a landowner request or more. If Groundspeak provided archived caches in Pocket Queries then we could potentially have conflict with these landowners who were told the information would no longer be available for cache hunters. Fine. But what about GSAK databases?

Traditionally, the way to handle archived caches in your offline database has been to filter caches that were not received in your last GPX download, or within the last x number of days (I’ve used 14 for that). If you don’t filter you could end up loading archived geocaches on your GPS and, well, you’ll find your self hunting for a cache that isn’t there or worse – dealing with that angry land owner. Even using the last GPX date / GPX in the last 14 days method leaves you open to a cache that has been archived in the last couple days.

Now that GSAK supports the Geocaching.com Live API, there’s a nice little trick we can use to clean up our archived caches: The refresh cache data function lets us mark the archived caches in our database without exposing us to new archived cache listings that aren’t already in our database.

First off, set up your filter. Remember you can update a maximum of 6,000 caches in one day so if your database is huge then you may need to break the task up. I started out by selecting all active and disabled caches that haven’t been updated in 14 days.

The screenshots above show my filter settings that I used. This returned 3,977 caches in Ontario for me. Since that was less than 6,000, I set GSAK to “refresh” this cache data. Since archiving a cache creates an “Archived” log, and changes the individual GPX information, this will grab the “Archived” status for every cache in the list that has been archived.

This requires GSAK 8, and you need to be a Geocaching.com premium member … if you have an offline GSAK database you’re most likely a premium member anyway since that’s the only way to get Pocket Queries.

In GSAK, go to the “Geocaching.com access” menu, and select “Refresh cache data….”

Once you have done that, a new dialog box will appear asking if you want this to update the current cache, or everything in your filter. If you have less than 6,000 caches in your filter pick “All in current filter”. If your filter was over 6,000 caches you may want to hit cancel instead and refine your filter first.

So, once you hit OK, it’s a good time to get a coffee, or perhaps lunch as your wait for the data to come in and GSAK to process it.

After a long wait, this process will come back and your caches are up to date. Since my filter excluded caches which haven’t been updated in the last 14 days, most of the caches in my filter disappeared. 8 caches were still in my filter, however as those caches had been retracted. A retracted cache is different from an archived cache as it has been un-published. These caches should be *deleted* from your database or manually marked as archived.

You can see in the summary screen above that 3,969 caches were updated – the archived ones are marked as archived in my database and the rest were brought up to date. The 8 retracted caches were not updated as they were never published, which explains the discrepancy between the 3,977 caches that were in my filter and the 3,969 caches that got updated. The retracted caches did spend a brief time as “published” which is how they got in my database to begin with.

So here you have it. Use the above process every couple weeks or so, or even before your next GPS load and you’ll never load another archived cache into your GPS from GSAK again.

[ GSAK ] [ Geocaching Live ] [ TAG Pro Tips ]

Related Posts:

• Logged a DNF for Related Posts :(

Today’s featured geocache is located in Oakville (near Burlington), along Bronte Creek. It was placed on October 27 (just a couple weeks ago) by TROOP CHIEF.  Now that daylight savings time has ended, the nights are getting longer. While fair weather cachers hang up their GPS for the winter there’s another option – go caching even though it’s dark outside.

GC36GEA HUNGER GAMES (Night “fire tack” cache) is a great way to get started caching at night. The posted co-ordinates lead you to a parking area on the shoulder of Dundas Street in Oakville, best approached heading westbound on Dundas. The cache is themed after the popular book series “The Hunger Games” with references to Katniss Everdeen and the Hunger Games Arena.

Once you arrive at the posted co-ordinates, you look around for a fire tack which is a retro-reflective marker. To see these best, your light source should be close to your eyes – ideally a head lamp. If using a flashlight, hold it up beside your eyes. Once you spot the fire tack, walk over to it and look around for the next one. Follow it until you reach the three fire tacks that are together and look around for the cache.

It’s a great introduction to night caching, and can be visited in under one hour.

[ GC36GEA HUNGER GAMES (Night "fire tack cache) ] [ TAG Featured Caches ]

Related Posts:

• Groundspeak Recognizes BFL Bootcamp
• Featured Cache: GCX3K4 Eagles Nest; Caverns Walk
• Pro Tip: Night Mode Map for Colorado/Oregon.

Clyde has just released the newest iteration of GSAK – The Geocaching Swiss Army Knife. This is the de facto geocaching utility for cachers with access to a Windows computer. The product enables cachers to keep track of geocaches, waypoints, logs and their geocaching statistics in an offline database. This can be used for purposes like custom loading GPS units or running various macros against the data.

This version adds support for the Geocaching.com “Live” API (as hinted in yesterday’s release notes). This lets your macros access data direct from Groundspeak without packaging it in a Pocket Query first. There are more updates, but you can find all the nuts and bolts in the release notes.

Note this is not a free upgrade. Depending on when you purchased GSAK v7  (or v6) your upgrade price ranges from $25 to $5.

[ GSAK ] [ GSAK v8 Release Notes ]

Related Posts:

• Geocaching API Distance Limits
• GSAK + Geocaching.com API – First Look
• GSAK Version 8 Beta Posted … Supports Geocaching.com API

Another little tidbit came out of today’s update at Geocaching.com. You can edit/nuke an image that someone uploads with their log entry.

That means you can remove spoiler pictures without deleting the actual log entry.

For example, here’s a log on my cache – GC2DN1K Leaf Peeper Leap, by cache4pat. This one I just chose at random from my owned caches.

Before today, I could view the image. If I wanted to remove it, I had to delete the find log.
Today, I have a new “Edit Image” option when I view that log as the cache owner.

Once I click on that “Edit Image” button, I have the familiar screen as if I owned that image. I can change the title or delete it altogether.

Now I’m not actually going to change this log entry, I just pulled it as an example to show that it can be done now. This is a great feature (that should be used with care) that puzzle owners can use to remove spoiler images without affecting the finder’s find count / log order.

 

Related Posts:

• Geocaching.com Adds Corrected Co-ordinates Feature
• Geocaching.com Update Teaser
• Geocaching.com Update Tomorrow

Geocaching.com has gone down for it’s monthly maintenance update, and it’s usual host of bug fixes. Notable this month are new Geocaching Live! partners (namely GSAK) and corrected coordinates for Mystery and Multi-Caches.

That last one is what has me paying attention – the feature has been one that geocachers have waited about 10 years for. You can adjust co-ordinates for a mystery you have solved or a multi you have finished so the cache will reflect the actual co-ordinates. You can download them in individual GPX files from the cache page but not from Pocket Queries just yet. While this will wreck havoc on GSAK databases in the short term, cachers without GSAK (for example, Apple Mac owning cachers) now have a way to load corrected co-ordinates in their GPS without having to fire up GSAK in Windows Virtual Machine.

Other updates today, as posted by OpinioNate:

Release Notes:

• Added a feature to correct Multi and Mystery cache coordinates for personal use (note: Coordinates are fixed in individual GPX downloads however Pocket Query functionality will follow in another release)
• Added the ability for cache owners to delete spoiler log images without also deleting the log text
• Added GSAK, Sachsencacher.de, GeoGet and Cachebox to list of partner applications on geocaching.com/live
• When a geocache is created or edited we now associate (behind the scenes) a Yahoo GeoPlanet WOEID to the cache allowing us to tap into 6 million named places globally. This provides opportunities to expose the data in creative and helpful ways
• Separated out Challenge stats to a new profile tab and added the ability to view a user’s Challenges completed and created, as well as your own accepted
• Avatars are now resized to 48 x 48, down from 75 x 75
• Added Romanian to the list of Geocaching.com supported languages
• Added new French translation of the Intro to Geocaching presentation at geocaching.com/tools/intro.aspx
• Updated site-down notice with Facebook link and “hamster” video
• When viewing a bookmark list you own it is now possible to see which caches in the list you have already found
• Transitioning away from User Voice and back to IPB forums for support inquiries and feedback
• Fixed map bug which caused the map not to update a Pocket Query properly when making changes to the PQ
• Fixed map bug which caused the mouse pointer to identify filtered caches by name even when the icon is hidden
• Fixed display of updated coordinates log in print-friendly version of cache pages to actually include the new coordinates
• Updated text for Discovering a trackable on the Travel Bug tutorial page
• Added clarification to Terms of Use, Section 3 (language now allows for under-18 usage of the website with parent or guardian supervision)
• Fixed the CITO gallery to include a log link when viewing an image
• Fixed link on /about/history.aspx page to updated noaa.gov description of Selective Availability
• Added new teaser video for “Discover” challenge type on types page
• Fixed display issue on Trackables pages when the title is especially long

Geocaching Live API Beta

The beta launch of the Geocaching Live API continues! This time we’re pleased to announce four new partners:

Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (Coming Soon)

This application will scheduled to launch with Live support tomorrow. GSAK is the all-in-one Geocaching and waypoint management tool. Features include: Groundspeak API support, multiple databases, sending/receiving waypoints to GPSr, Google maps, conversion to many mapping formats, PDA output (including CacheMate support), HTML output, extensive searching, macro support, and much more. GSAK runs on Windows operating systems (2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7).

GeoGet

A complete geocaching solution for Windows. Import Pocket Queries, solve mystery caches, add notes, plan trips, and export information to the GPS or browse your database in your PDA.

CacheBox

Cachebox is a paperless mobile geocaching software for Android with offline database support and Geocaching.com Live API capability. Manage and find mystery caches with intelligent handling of Final Waypoints and the Mystery-Solver module. Features include multi-database support, image and spoiler view, Field Notes upload, track recording and viewing. Cachebox is a free open-source application.

Sachsencacher.de

Sachsencacher.de is a website providing statistical evaluation of geocache quality in Saxony (Germany) by examining log content.

[ Geocaching.com ] [ Release Notes ] [ GSAK ]

 

 

Related Posts:

• Geocaching.com Update – Delete Spoiler Images
• Geocaching.com Update Teaser
• Geocaching API Distance Limits

Today there has been a mass-archiving/disabling of geocaches along the Bruce Trail near Orangeville. Normally this wouldn’t be something to write up an article on a geocaching site, but there is an interesting twist to the story. TheCarterFamily has removed several geocaches placed along the trail, with log entries that it was at the request of the Bruce Trail Conservacy. Here’s a couple of the caches that have been disabled:

On GC1202G Elbow:

I’ve been asked by the Bruce trail to remove all my caches on the Bruce Trails. If anyone is in this area can you pick up the cache. Might be a while before I can get to this one.

On GC117QV Hockley Valley Book Exchange

I’ve been asked by the Bruce trail to remove all my caches on the Bruce Trails.

Now that you’ve got your eyebrows up, I do have to mention a few things. First off, Groundspeak isn’t acting here – it’s the cache owner pulling their caches. Also, this is at the moment localized to Orangeville/Hockley Valley – this may be just the Caledon Bruce Trail Club or Dufferin Highlands Bruce Trail clubs that are pursuing this course of action. Finally, I do need to mention that as far as Groundspeak has been concerned in the past, it’s the property owner who holds the authority here, not a trail association. Hockley Valley Book Exchange, for example, is on Ontario Parks property, not Bruce Trail property. While the Conservacy does hold large tracts of land along the trail, they don’t own all of it so a blanket ban on caches along the Bruce Trail is not exactly an automatic thing.

The Bruce Trail is one of the most popular geocaching destinations in southern Ontario. There’s even a recurring event cache that has a group of cachers hiking the entire length of the trail. To lose caching on that 800+km long trail (with at least that many caches along it) would certainly hurt geocaching around here, but don’t panic just yet. This person who contacted TheCarterFamily may not even be an official with the Bruce Trail – that sort of thing has already happened on other trail systems where a muggle or geo-hater pretends to be an official and sends out cease-and-decist type emails.

When I’ve had discussions with the Bruce Trail Conservacy they were actually quite positive about geocaches along their trail. There are actually several promotions that the club has been using to encourage trail use, including a geocaching like “spot the heritage tree” challenge and side trail quests with prizes where hikers hike along looking for signs with numbers on them.

When in doubt, contact your local reviewer for information. Forward the land-owner’s email to your reviewer so they can verify the validity of the claim and also to update listing guidelines in the area if a change has, in fact, occurred.

[ Bruce Trail Conservacy ]

Related Posts:

• Ministry of Transportation Bans Geocaches – In BC
• Geocaching API Distance Limits
• GSAK + Geocaching.com API – First Look

Friday night, Cachedrone made an interesting post in the Groundspeak Forums – “Testing in Ontario: Organized Group Hunts“.

The text of his post reads:

Recently the reviewers of Ontario approached Groundspeak with a request. We asked if Ontario could be used for a two month period to test the idea of allowing an Event to be listed for the sole purpose of group caching (organized cache hunt). We are pleased to announce that they agreed. For the months of November and December it will be possible to create an Event Cache to simply go geocaching. We are very interested to see what the community creates during this period and how these events are received. This test is exclusive to Ontario and will end on the 31st of December. We may have to limit the number of group hunt events that are listed in any given area. With the exception of allowing group hunts, all other guidelines still apply to the review process, like the 14 days advance notice. It should go without saying that each of these events, the logs posted on them and any forum feedback will be tracked for discussion with Groundspeak at the end of the test. This should be viewed as a one-time opportunity to explore a new way to be social with fellow geocachers on the trail and not an indicator or future developments. We look forward to this study and your feedback.

If you have questions about this you can reply within this forum thread or email me directly at cachedrone@gmail.com

What does this mean, exactly? Well, it means that for two months – November and December 2011 the rules regarding event caches are being tweaked in Ontario, Canada as an experiment. Normally a geocaching event must be a social activity that is more than just a group of people going geocaching together. This is to prevent people from listing an event every time they go caching with friends (overwhelming the event listings).

Now, these organized cache hunts can be listed as an event. That means activities like the Ottawa GeoMob’s weekly breakfast, or the BFL Crew’s friday night get togethers could conceivably be listed as events. More likely, gatherings like the massive GHMGC organized cache hunts that occur monthly will be listed as a monthly get together.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out. It could mean a new social dynamic with regular caching events bringing more cachers together. Or it could mean losing sight of the big events like Spring Fling / GHAGAFAP, as the events are drowned out by a sea of “Lamp Post Micro Events”

Is this another quantity over quality concession from Groundspeak – power trails for event cachers?  Time will tell – at the end of the day, how Ontario geocachers respond to this experiment could define the future of events for everyone.

Events still need to be listed 14 days in advance, and the reviewers will be limiting the number of events in the same area if necessary. Events that are posted will be analyzed by Groundspeak. The experiment ends December 31,2011.

 

[ Groundspeak Forum Thread ]

Related Posts:

• Groundspeak Recognizes BFL Bootcamp
• BFL Boot Camp 6 – Coming October 29
• Parks Canada – Geocaching Event in Ontario – July 16, 2011