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May 16, 2008

Looking for treasure. Finding trash.

I spent the past couple of evenings biking around and geocaching.

On Wednesday night, I headed to the trails behind Riverdale and found a couple, one of which I went to look for on Christmas Day (but didn't find). It was a chilly, windy night, but I enjoyed biking up and down the trails in the area and will be back there soon to do some more exploring.

On Thursday night, I went to the McLean Lake area to find a geocache there. I explored a bunch of the trails, many of which led to "squatters" cabins. I left the trails at one point and couldn't believe how much garbage there is in the McLean area - much of it hauled in by squatters.

One trail led me to a small lake upstream of McLean Lake. The lake would have been beautiful had it not been for all of the used toilet paper lying everywhere. The water level of the lake seems to have dropped by about four feet, perhaps in the last year or so. There are lots of birds and a giant beaver lodge (made larger by the low water level) so I'll go back sometime to take pictures of the non-toilet-papery bits because the lake really is quite scenic. We didn't stay there long because there was some day-old bear scat (that looked like there wasn't much decent food in it) and Nanuq was a little on-edge.

Today, Jade and Nanuq and I biked downtown to find three geocaches. Two of the caches are hidden along the riverfront which should have been a nice place to ride. Instead, I was disgusted by the amount of trash along the river - new and old. It will take a small army to clean it all up.

Whitehorse is called a "wilderness city" and that's what I appreciate about it.  Without that wilderness aspect, I wouldn't even be here.  After what I've seen over the past couple of days, I'm beginning to think that it's being treated more like a dumping ground.

2 comments:

Josh said...

Sounds like you've found the perfect place to hold a CITO event. Get an army of cachers out there to clean it up.

Geocaching With Team Hick@Heart

Anonymous said...

I hear you, Michael. I regularly walk downtown from Riverdale and I've been appalled by the amount of trash along Lewes Blvd, among other places. I also spend quite a bit of time mountain biking on the trails around Riverdale and have found the same disgraceful mess. Apparently, people love to drive up Grey Mountain Road, turn right onto the bluff just past the cemetary, and dump their worldly crap off the edge--including appliances. Why the so-called "Wilderness City" doesn't spring for some gates / barricades is beyond me.