26 people attended this years event. We removed an entire truckload of garbage. More information about the event and following adventure will be posted to my blog very soon. Thank you for the the great job and making this an exciting event. 

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April 25th and 26th is the geocaching.com CITO Weekend. In case you haven’t heard, CITO stands for Cache In Trash Out. It’s the geocacher’s approach to keeping our game board (i.e. the entire planet) in great shape. On the weekend of April 25 and 26, geocachers around the globe will gather together, pick up trash, remove invasive species, repair trails and more—plus earn a pretty sweet new souvenir.

The parking area at the end of slack road gets pretty well trashed and we will clean up the immediate area around the Slack Road Parking Area to make it look inviting again.

Event time will start at 10:00 and end at 10:45 am leaving plenty of time after the cleaning to get some geoaching in after the event. Location is at the end of Slack Road off County Road W. Same place the Grundy Canyon Event was last year. It will be a great way for everyone to get together again after a long cold caching season. There are many options available for geocaching in the Blue Hills. There is the Blue Hills Trail with 386 geocaches. The Devils Kettle. Grundy Canyon. Rock Creek Felsenmeer. Harris Felsenmeer. Skink Mountain Felsenmeer and several un-named water falls in the area.

The main plan is to head into the Felsenmeer at 10:46 after the CITO Event. As with last year the CITO Event does go on throughout the day as we hike but that is not "Officially an Event". It is just geocachers seeing great sites, having a great time and making the area a little better then we found it. Bring a pack lunch if you like because there are very few places to get a bite to eat other than some wild spring onions.

Depending on time and yearning we may also swing down into Grundy Canyon to grab some of the newer caches placed after last years event. I found another very small waterfall and placed my first multi there. The water flows over a very unique stream bed of solid bedrock. 

Just a very small sample of a very large unique area that offers quite the adventure. I will post the rest and many more picture after the event. 

Despite 40 mph wind gusts and 30 below windchills this tough group still made it 3 miles.  After this year seeing how many ventured out into the frigid temps I will never worry about the cold again and just keep everything running as planned.  Hope to see you again next year. 
 

The Event must go on. The 2014 photo below was at 15 to 20 below windchill's and still 22 people came and snowshoed for a couple hours, so I will not cancel the event.

The meet up and plan the day portion of the event is still on from 10:00 - 10:30 inside the Interpretive Center. Take a photo and then by 10:30 we should have our day planned which might just be to play with the animals inside the Ice Age Center, go grab a couple park and grabs, see how far we can make it right behind the Ice Age Center, or disperse and go our own ways. I am very flexible on what to do but cannot reschedule. You still get a smiley for attending.

Things to do in the interpretive center, hold a snake, pet a turtle, dig for fossils, borrow snowshoes, watch a nature video, do a scavenger hunt, feed the fish a bug, discover how ice formed the Chippewa Moraine, try the voyageurs' paddle race or play voyageurs' tug-of-war

Next snowshoeing event will be in Barron Wisconsin on March 14th at 6:30 pm. Moonlit Snowshoeing and Hot Chocolate Party

The 3rd Annual Snowshoeing at the Chippewa Moraine is planned February 13th, 2016. I was planning on going from Knickerbocker Lake to Horseshoe Lake but now could probably just go to Hodge Lake. I have all these nice maps already made up. I have time to figure it out.

The plan again is to meet up, do some snowshoeing, grab some caches, eat lunch and have some fun.

Event is set for Sunday February 14th from 10:00 am to 10:30 am at the David R. Obey Ice Age Interpretive Center. Address is 13394 County Highway M, New Auburn WI 54757


Start showing up around 10:00 - 10:30 am at the Ice Age Interpretive Center, the Ice Age Center opens at 8:30am, then by 11:00am we'll head to the Hodge Lake Gate. Bring your own lunch because we will be snowshoeing .5 miles (1/2 a mile) to the Hodge Lake Dining Hall and eating there. After lunch we can leave our stuff behind at the Dining Hall and continue on snowshoeing and geocaching or you could snowshoe back out with any trash. On the way back out we will stop at the Dining Hall to grab our trash and head out. If you want to head off on your own you can make it as easy or as challenging as you want. Some of the loop information is at the bottom of the page.


The Ice Age Center is a very nice facility to visit. You can borrow snowshoes from the center and I'm sure they would appreciate a donation for them.

More Information about the area:

Things to do in the interpretive center, hold a snake, pet a turtle, dig for fossils, borrow snowshoes, watch a nature video, do a scavenger hunt, feed the fish a bug, discover how ice formed the Chippewa Moraine, try the voyageurs' paddle race or play voyageurs' tug-of-war

The Chippewa Moraine segment of the Ice Age National Scientific Reserve includes 23 miles of well-marked trails. The trails are for foot travel only, and motorized vehicles, horses, or mountain bikes are not allowed in the Chippewa Moraine.

The most popular trails at Chippewa Moraine are the three, self-guided trails that begin at the interpretive center. Hike or snowshoe the trails to see glacial kettle lakes, hummocks, ice-walled lake plains and wildlife.

Mammoth Nature trail (0.75-mile loop) Dry Lake trail (1.8-mile loop) Circle trail (4.5-mile loop)

And of course the Ice Age Trail runs 30 feet from the parking lot.
 

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