Cypress Hills Massif Earthcache EarthCache

An Earthcache is a special place that people can visit to learn about a unique geoscience feature or aspect of our Earth. Earthcaches include a set of educational notes and the details about where to find the location (latitude and longitude). Visitors to Earthcaches can see how our planet has been shaped by geological processes, how we manage the resources and how scientists gather evidence to learn about the Earth.

Taken from the Earthcache Website

Your visit will start here on the webpage, make sure you take the time to read the entire page and record all the information you will need to obtain to make sure your log is validated. There are a series of questions you will need to answer and information you will need to provide. All Earthcaches offer you a chance to learn about the Earth but this process requires you to participate by recording information about the site.

This Earthcache is at the heart of a series called A Day in the Hills. This series takes most of a day and involves a fair amount of hiking. If you complete the entire series you will walk on every major trail out of the Spruce Coulee Reservoir Campground which is a tent only campground, full facility camping is available in Elkwater. Bring your own firewood to this campground, none is supplied and using wood found nearby is against park rules. No bushwhacking is required. The caches in this series include the Cypress Hills Massif Earthcache, the Wild Raspberry geocache and Treeduck.

Your specific tasks are listed here. One task is to obtain a photograph of a modified signpost which marks the approximate midway point of the Spruce Coulee section of the Trans Canada Trail, a symbolic divide. You need to post this photograph with your online log. YOU WILL NEED A CAMERA TO RECORD A PHOTOGRAPH OF A MODIFIED SIGNPOST, YOU WILL NEED THE PHOTOGRAPH TO LOG THE CACHE, IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A CAMERA THEN THIS REQUIREMENT IS OPTIONAL.

Here is another task, when you first see the Cypress Hills Massif record your coordinates and your elevation. Make sure you keep all these numbers as they will be used in your log.YOU MUST HAVE THESE NUMBERS, YOU WILL NEED THEM TO LOG THE CACHE.

An additional task will involve some calculations. When you reach the listed coordinates you will need record your elevation and calculate the difference between this reading and the elevation taken at the first sighting of the Massif.YOU MUST HAVE THIS NUMBER, YOU WILL NEED IT TO LOG THE CACHE.

You will be required to read the description and do some research to answer this question. You need to compare the age of the oldest layer of the Cypress Hills to the age of final formative periods for the nearby Rocky Mountains in SW Alberta, which is the older event and how much older is it? YOU MUST HAVE THIS ANSWER AND BE WITHIN TEN MILLION YEARS OR SO, YOU WILL NEED IT TO LOG THE CACHE.

You are going to have to do a little research and come up with the possible age for the final layer of glacial loess that covers the Cypress Hills Massif? YOU MUST HAVE THIS ANSWER AND BE WITHIN A FEW THOUSAND YEARS OR SO, YOU WILL NEED IT TO LOG THE CACHE.

RECORD ALL THESE REQUIREMENTS PRIOR TO SEARCHING FOR THIS CACHE, READ THIS CACHE DESCRIPTION CAREFULLY. CHECK BELOW TO SE A SAMPLE OF THE VALIDATION EMAIL.

The listed co-ordinates will take you to the Spruce Coulee Reservoir Campground. This Earthcache is actually found on a hike into the heartland of the West Block of the Cypress Hills using the TransCanada Trail. Logging this cache involves some research and you need to obtain some coordinates but it is an actual hike to a physical signpost that acts as a symbolic divide. This fun hike will be an opportunity to see some of the features of the Cypress Hills Massif.

The Massif in SE Alberta and SW Saskatchewan is arguably the most unique land feature on the North American plains. Rising from the surrounding prairie the massif is home to a unique ecosystem and the result of unique geologic processes.

Your first task involves recording some numbers during your journey to the cache. No matter which direction you approach the Cypress Hills from you are going to see the Massif from a long way off. The fact that the Massif stands head and shoulders over the surrounding country side is one of the unique features that separates and defines this ecosystem from the surrounding prairies.

Your next task is closely related to the first, the Cypress Hills Massif has risen above the surrounding countryside for a long time. To log this Earthcache you are going to have to determine some numbers based on geological events. The geological clock ticks at an amazingly slow rate. The Cypress Hills are the result of erosion and uplift and the mountains to the west have played a large part in sculpting the Massif out of a once much larger plateau. The oldest rocks in the lower levels of the Massif are part the Bearspaw formation and they are associated with the inland sea that once covered most of this area. The Rocky Mountains are the backbone of the North American continent and the mountains in SW Alberta were actually formed during the later periods of the Laramide Orogeny. The Cypress Hills Massif was once part of a much larger plateau but erosion has largely removed all evidence of that feature leaving just these Hills. Once you arrive at the initial coords you must use the Spruce Coulee Trail to head towards the Reesor Lake viewpoint, you do not have to reach the viewpoint to log this cache. During your hike you will come to a distinct double signpost at N49 40.510 W110 9.905 that marks the place where the historical Streamside Trail used to connect to the Spruce Coulee Trail. Alberta Parks closed the Streamside Trail in 2011 due to a flooding event, it is now closed and marked as "Use at Your Own Risk". They didn't remove this sign though, they just added a cover over one of the arrows marking the trail fork. If you do continue on the hike to the Reesor Lake Viewpoint you will traverse the divide that helped to shape the continent. The Spruce Coulee reservoir drains into the watershed for the South Saskatchewan, you can walk the Spruce Coulee Trail and quickly encounter one of the small streams so common in the massif. At N49 40.334 W110 10.078 there is a small bridge crossing a rill that bubbles up nearby. Anywhere these small streams erode the the surface and expose edges you can see the glacial loess that covers everything in the massif. This final layer of gravel and material was deposited at the end of the last glaciation.

Continuing to walk south and east will bring you to the top of the ridge and you will be looking south and east from the viewpoint into the Battle Creek drainage, the northernmost point of the Mississippi watershed. Water you see at the start of the hike and water you see at the end of the hike are going to different parts of the world. The water from Battle Creek will end up in the Gulf of Mexico and water from the Spruce Coulee Reservoir will end up in the Atlantic Ocean.

Water is always a part of the story here, you often encounter groundwater sources in action. Groundwater sources supply both Spruce Coulee Reservoir and Elkwater Lake. Because water is abundant here the Cypress Hills have provided protection to men and animals for many thousands of years. During sustained droughts that lasted hundred of years, the springs in the Cypress Hills never failed so the hills have a rich record of early aboriginal peoples and the technologies they employed. Archeological digs south of the Rodeo Grounds in Elkwater were conducted to learn more about this aspect of history in the Cypress Hills.

*****IMPORTANT INFORMATION******

When you log this cache you must send an email to validate your online log. Your email must provide the answers to all the questions but your online log only needs to contain a photograph of the sign post that marks the symbolic divide, do not put any answers in your online log. Here is a sample email, this is the information you need to collect, remember the descriptions and information you need might be right here in the cache description;
First Sighting of Hills : N50 00.000 W110 00.000 Elev. 000m
Calculated Elevation Difference : 000m
Oldest event is ______________.
It is 00 million years older.
Last layer placed 000 yrs ago

During the summer all facilities are available, but only at the Spruce Coulee Reservoir Campground and nearby Elkwater.