HAG Wrap Up and Witching Hour Redux

So in our previous blog we touched base on this years HAG XI and the lead up, and a day of caching to go with it!  Well with that month of caching out of the way it is time for the HAG Wrap Up event at the 6 Mile Pub in View Royal. 

This event is held on the first Saturday of March and this is where the winners of the various trophies accept their prize.  Normally in the past I have been able to present with this blog a list of the winning cachers and the caches associated with them, but I could not find a published list anywhere.  However, if I can happen upon a list I will update this blog with them later! UPDATE:  Since publication I have found a list, you will find it at the end of this blog post.

As usual the this event was well attended, and everyone got to enjoy the fantastic food and drink that
they serve at the pub.  And with a little twist to go along with the theme of Music Music Music, this year we had wonderful live music to listen to.

We had a great time getting to see many of our good geocaching friends, while we also got a chance to meet a few new and not so new but new to the area cachers.

As the night was winding down I was approached by tadrew who was thinking of heading out to find the particularly notorious night cache "The Witching Hour - GCZ6PR".
Those of you that have been with us for a while now will know that we did this cache back in October 2010 with alyseluvsmike, meleakett and pracademics.  And we had a blast!  If you haven't read that blog entry you can find it HERE.

Well the people that were going had heard that the reflective tacks that lead the way were in quite a state of disrepair, so they were asking for any hint or tricks to help ease the treck.  I suggested what we did to them, which was to use glow stick bracelets as bread crumbs to follow the way out.  You see even with the if the tacks were in good repair, you can't use them to find your way back out.
Oh sure you could use the tracks feature on your GPSr; but when your bushwhacking in the dark on some very uneven terrain, looking at your GPS screen to make sure you are staying on track is the last thing you want to be doing!

I also volunteered to assist the group in making their way to the cache, as I figured having a veteran set of eyes looking for the tacks would be helpful.  When I returned to my table and told my wife and geo-friends sdkonkle what I was going to do, sdkonkle volunteered his eyes as well.  So the two of us arranged with the team of adventurers to meet them at the starting point, and we headed to our homes to get changed into appropriate gear.

When we arrived at the starting point to meet the team, we learned that they had been successful in finding a party supply store that was still open to get the glow bracelets as I had suggested. We had a brief talk about what they would encounter in the bush (heavy bushwhacking).  And we headed out into the deep dark.

Well we were pleasantly surprised; as contradictory to what we had heard about the state of the tacks, they happened to be in excellent shape.  Our flashlights were catching them easily, and they led us right in.  With a good 30 min of trudging through the near head high salal and uneven terrain we made our way to the the final set of tacks (a double set of red), sdkonkle and I held back as the group headed in to make the find.  Jubilant they signed the log, rummaged though all the goodies inside, posed for a picture.  And when that was done we headed out following the glow bracelets and CITOing them on the way out.  And after a couple more finds in the area we headed to Tim Horton's for a a hot beverage and a treat.

Thanks everyone for the fun evening at the pub, and a big congratulations to all the trophy winners!

Congrats to the the intrepid team of cachers that did the Witching Hour!  I had a blast helping you all out, and getting to participate in your adventure!!

 

Left to Right: Neltra, Dutch Chocolate, Ernietr, Benicha, Pat&Rob (Rob), tadrew

EDIT:
While getting ready to publish this blog post I ran across a list of trophy winners.
The winners are as follows:

Intrepid Cacher Trophy - Sheesh695
Best Camo Trophy - Vicmorda for Cocoon
Most HAG finds - Landchatch & Jessimica02 with 368 finds
Best log – BIRDSEECER – Beatles song lyrics for "In My Life SSI"
Out-Standing-In-The-Field trophy - Mike&Lily
Evil Trophy - JuRuu for Frank Zappa
Best Multi - raakea for "Key Notes"
Faves Trophy - HAILHOLL for "Human Circuit"
Most FTFs - Jessimica02 and landchatch with 91 FTFs
Best puzzle – islandfinders for their The Beatles series of 26 puzzles!
Best Hiking or Biking Trail - TAK2 & Kamikazegirl1 - 8 musically themed caches along the Puntledge river in Courtney.
Earthcache – AnnieMaroo for Viaduct flats/Quick's Bottom and Ross Bay Cemetery Seawall.