The route this day took us from Canmore, Alberta to Moses Lake, Washington. A very long day filled with lots of earthcaches, plenty of asphalt and nice scenery.
Approximate time on road/out caching: 17 hours, 25 minutes
Total miles driven: 482.4 mi / 776,3 km
Total caches found: 36
Total DNF: 4
States/provinces visited: Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Washington
Famous places visited: Banff and Kootenay National Parks
Most memorable cache: GC5TJZB Rocky Mountain Trench Glacial Lakes Invermere
Biggest surprise: How many earthcaches we managed to find
Weather: Sunny, some clouds
Highest temperature: 79°F / 26,1°C
Lowest temperature: 36°F / 2,2°C
Very early up, again
Just as the day before, we had to get up early – we had a long day ahead of us. Almost no traffic, and calm weather – not the worst day for an early start. And since we started earlier than planned, we figured we had time to start the day with a bonus find on GC1VCWG Travel back in time to Castle mountain.
Last province of the trip
The next cache was GC8160 Great Divide, which was right at the border between Alberta and British Columbia.
We’ve found caches in British Columbia before, but we had some new “counties” (subdivisions?) to visit. Once the fog lifted, the scenery was impeccable!
Hot earthcaches
We had lots of earthcaches on the plan, and with both Radium Hot Springs and Fairmont Hot Springs, there was enough hot water to learn about! We even managed to find a bonus earthcache!
Earthcaches everywhere
There’s earthcaches everywhere along this road, so we had to focus on the ones that were near the route. Several of them were placed right next to each other, so we managed to get both two earthcaches and a traditional when stopping to find GC5TJZB Rocky Mountain Trench Glacial Lakes Invermere. We took the long road to the other earthcache, but were rewarded with amazing views.
Jumping back in time
Once we got closer to the border, we jumped back in time, one hour to be exact. When stopping at the last cache in Canada, GCWE9Z YAHK 2006 Centennial, we had to wait for some really suspicions muggles to leave. They stared at us like we were from a different galaxy.
Crossing the border
Crossing the border back into the US took considerably longer time than crossing the border to Canada. We made it across exactly 30 minutes after we arrived at the crossing, so it wasn’t too bad either. And since we crossed a border, we had to stop at the Idaho sign.
A quick trip through Idaho
We didn’t have much planned for Idaho, we only needed to find a cache in the northernmost county. But that turned out to be harder than we would like it to be. After two DNFs, we finally found a cache and made the county “green”.
Another bonus at the state border
A couple caches later, we stopped at another bonus earthcache, GC2EFGM Purcell Trench. Right next to the border to Washington.
Meeting an ambassador
Many miles later, we met platoaddict at GC203T7 Don’t hog the road. We decided to join her and find a couple bonus caches. Another nice bonus was these cool creations.
Driving into the sunset
We were all hungry after a long day, so we decided to head to Moses Lake to get something to eat. We got to enjoy the sunset all the way to Moses Lake. Another long day was over, and it was time to rest for a few hours.
Pictures
