A Fun (Cold) Weekend

A Fun Cold Weekend

By Allan Olson

A friend of mine sent me a message early in the week and said he was going to be in the area and asked if I wanted to join him on a geocache hunt on Saturday. We knew it was going to be cold and windy but our plans were to be deep in the forest and we had hoped that would be enough to protect us from the wind of course the plan failed.

On Thursday night I was reading one of the previous logs from someone who had found the same set of geocaches that we were aiming for about the same time year. The discovery from reading those logs was the closure of the forest roads during spring break up, that wasn’t something I was expecting. So because of that I contacted the Cass County Land Department to see if those same roads are still closed. The next morning I was informed that yes, they are indeed closed. Since my friend has no cell phone and was at work I left him a message at his home and hoped that he would check it before leaving for the weekend and also wouldn’t think it was an April fool’s prank.  Thankfully, he listened to his message and after a conversation we decided to stick with our geocaching plans south east of Walker but we weren’t going to be hitting the Land O Lakes forest that had over 70 caches for us to find in one area.

Saturday morning Marcus was my geocaching partner and we headed to meet our caching friend in Walker, we were equipped with some snacks, water, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and of course warm winter clothes. We met up with our friend transferred our gear into his and took off for a day long trek across southern Cass County visiting several different boat landings and backroads south, east and north of Longville. One of our first stops was at the Stony Point Campground for a cache and this was the most brutal one of the day. We parked the vehicle and set off for a very brisk walk about 1/3 of a mile through a trail in the woods that ran parallel with mighty Leech Lake. The wind was howling across the lake and snow was falling in our faces once again, but we still trudged on. We finally approached the area where the geocache was supposed to be hidden and we began our search before finally uncovering it. We hurriedly signed our names to the log sheet and took off for the van with the winds at our back hurling us forward. We were ever so appreciative of the warm vehicle to harbor from the wind with all of us wondering if we were crazy to go out in this weather at the same time we turned the heat on high and headed off down the road with another cache at our destination.

The next two caches we were unable to find and with the wind cutting us down we were unwilling to work at it too long. The third one we attempted I had previously found and my caching partner was able to make the discovery on that. We again made a futile effort at one of the two we had just failed to find since it was on our way back but to no avail and after a brief search gave up again. Marcus did not join us in either of those searches as he was still chilled from the previous adventure at Stony Point so thankfully the van was left running and it was nice and warm for us to warm our cold hands and faces.

As the day progressed Marcus started to not feel well getting a migraine – I gave him some medicine and we let him guard the car on our brief forays out and eventually he started feeling better again after some caffeine and more food he was full of energy and ready to go – which was a good thing because he showed us up a couple of times making the find in places we had already disregarded. At one spot in Pine River he came up with the big find twice in a row before the adults could make the discovery – and it wasn’t for lack of trying.

We migrated through the county as far south as Jenkins where we attempted to find a cache that had yet to be discovered since it was hidden in September. According to the description it is 50’ up a tree, we looked at all the nearby trees from the ground hoping maybe we could spot something but the luck wasn’t with us. Marcus was a willing participant eagerly wanting to climb each and every tree, however I wasn’t such a willing parent as I’m afraid if I brought him home broken his mom might be just a little upset with me. However, the deal was if we could spot it the cache, he would be the one to make the climb, but luck was not with us either and we left without sending him up a tree for a cache recovery.

We finally made our way back and arrived at home around 6:30 p.m. our friend had plans to stay in his vehicle one more night before heading back to Roseau, however the next morning I had a message from him that said, the weather got to him and after being in it all day was chilled and he needed his warm house. After our adventure together I did a search and filtered out all caches we had both found and own discovered that we could still attempt, 1,487 more caches within an 80 mile radius of my home – game on.

Plans for the weekend include working on Saturday and hopefully finding some time either before or after for some fun. We also need to make plans to head to Bagley soon as Nikolai’s pony had a little filly on April 1.

Please remember to watch out for the buses that are carrying our most precious cargo. Also snap a photo or two to preserve a lifetime of memories. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! Feel free to drop me a line at cltimes1@arvig.net or stop by the office for a visit.