An Adventure to Remember

Two other geocachers and I embarked on a no-trails trek through the woods on Saturday near Gemmel. The entire journey took just over three hours. It was fun and exhausting at the same time.

By Allan Olson

I’ve embarked on a few crazy adventures while geocaching over the last five years, but the one I went on this last weekend has them all beat.

On the last Sunday of January, I came up with this idea of going after a geocache that I would never attempt by myself for a couple reasons. First, I don’t trust my own navigating skills. I probably could’ve done it, because I had the final coordinates and I remembered to mark my starting coordinates prior to departing my vehicle, and as a double bonus, there was another geocache only 50 feet from my vehicle, so I had those coordinates as well. 

Another reason was safety. I knew it was going to be a nasty journey, based on everything I had read, and I was correct. So I checked with a couple of like-minded crazy friends to see if they were both interested and available. As fate would have it they were, so we scheduled it, and then confirmed it later in the week.

This cache was named: Confluence: Fargnot’s Folly and was located deep in the woods of a Cedar Swamp where there were no trails, and even the one forest road in (Gemmel Forest Road) hadn’t been plowed after the last couple snowfalls. So we met up in Blackduck at 9:30 on Saturday morning and headed straight for this cache, knowing from all other finders that we had to prepare for anywhere from 2-4 hours to make the round trip trek. I started having second thoughts about this journey when I stepped out of the vehicle at our meeting location and promptly ended up on the ground as the road was all icy beneath. Not a great way to start.

I put on my boots and snowsuit, then shrugged on another layer, stuffed a couple snacks into my jacket, and we began our journey. After our first ten steps, we knew it was going to be a struggle. After we had wandered through the woods for what felt like forever, I checked what distance we had covered and it was in feet instead of miles, and I quickly regretted even looking. On more than one occasion we all took turns falling or sinking into the deep snow. We took a few pauses, and at one point I found a nice log to sit on and announced, “Break time!” 

I took that opportunity to check the distance to the cache. We still had about 700 feet to go, and we had been trekking for over an hour. It was nice to know that the end was in sight, but at that point I didn’t care if I was to continue, it was time for a break. In the end, it took us an hour and 46 minutes to complete the one way trip and find the cache. 

We had to replace the container, as apparently sometime since it was last found in 2014, an animal of some sort had come upon it and taken the time to chew it up and destroy it. We replaced it and brought what was left of the original out with us so it wouldn’t be left as litter in the woods.

The way out was somewhat easier because we didn’t need to use GPS to lead us out as our trail was clearly marked, and we didn’t need to break trail as long as we stayed in our own tracks. I took the lead for about a third of the way back before finally losing steam and falling behind. My body felt that it needed to slow down and take its time to make it out the rest of the way, or I feared I wouldn’t make it back without my two partners having to drag me out. We finally closed the book on that journey three hours and ten minutes after setting off. 

I was glad we did it, but I’m glad I never have to go into those woods again. The only sign of wildlife we encountered on the entire journey was a few rabbit tracks about 500 feet from the vehicle – even the animals weren’t dumb enough to trek that far back into the wilderness in all that snow. I was very appreciative of the suggestion of the previous finder to bring an extra shirt along. Back at the vehicle I removed my snowsuit, and all my shirts and jackets, and discovered that every single layer was soaked through. Fresh, dry clothes never felt so good.

We had one more adventure planned for the day, but first we needed to get some food. This next cache was on an island in a lake, and the more I read about it during lunch, the more I was less excited to get it. I conversed with my partners and explained that this one would also require a trek across a snow-covered island. They also were quite okay with skipping that adventure on this day, and so instead we all set our coordinates for home.

It’s hard to explain why anyone would want to do something like this. While it was exhausting, it was still fun. I was an experience that I probably would not want to repeat, but I am glad that we accomplished it.

At home, I sent all my wet layers to the wash and hung all my outdoor gear up to dry. Then I sent myself to the shower, and about two hours later I was back in Cass Lake to pick up Nikolai from robotics.

Sunday was all about rest and recovery. I made French toast in the morning, with assistance from a couple kids, followed by more resting, followed by all of us working on house cleaning. Then I watched history in the making as I watched the last half of the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, and the first ever overtime game in the history of the big event. I’m sure the outcome was rigged, just like the presidential election – right?

I hope to see everyone out on the ice at the annual Cass Lake Chamber Winter Fishing tournament this Saturday.

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.