Annual Geocaching Weekend

The group of us on the island at Long Lost Lake, which is about 23 miles south of Bagley. We were a pretty happy bunch after finding a geocache on the island that was last found in 2011.

By Allan Olson

For me, last weekend was the one I look forward to most each year (over the last four years) – the annual Northstar Geoseekers Geocaching Weekend. 

The Northstar Geoseekers consists of cachers mostly from across Minnesota plus a few from North Dakota. We meet once a year, and not everyone attends our annual event, but one thing is certain – those who do all have a great time.

This weekend’s event convened in the big city of Bagley – a mere 45 miles from my home. I thought about just driving back and forth each day, but in the end, I convinced Nikolai to go with me and camp. Actually it didn’t take much convincing; while he can be a loner, he enjoys the company and laughs of the adults in the group, and at the same time he fill the role of older sibling to some of those younger children who attend with their families.

The weekend officially began at about 7:00 on Friday evening with our traditional campfire event to kick the event off. Nikolai and I arrived at about 7:30 p.m. and quickly set up camp. I unloaded the tent and trailer, and he set the tent up and did some other things. It only took us about 15 minutes to set up camp, because there wasn’t much to set up. I didn’t bring much in terms of food, or grill stuff, since I had no intentions of cooking anything that didn’t take more than five minutes over an open fire. Many of us spent Friday evening around the fire, laughing, telling stories and playing games until nearly midnight.

As usual, Nik chose to sleep in the vehicle, leaving the tent and the airbed to me. Either I didn’t air it up enough, or I aired it up too soon, because it was a very uncomfortable night’s sleep. When it comes to camping, I typically don’t get a lot of sleep anyway, since I usually stay up late and get up early.

The event host kicked things off at 8 a.m. on Saturday with a live action game of Clue and a scavenger hunt, along with the coordinates to the geocaches she had placed. A few players jumped in my vehicle and we were off and running. When we got to the first coordinates, we determined they were wrong; nobody could find it. I finally called for assistance, and we were soon pointed in the right direction and off to find the remaining caches. We got back to the campground at about noon and learned that we still had three hours to go before the final festivities were to begin.

We headed to the local pizza joint and discovered the best breadsticks in the world. To make things even better, because I was doing all the driving, our caching partner picked up the tab for lunch. The meal was fantastic – I will definitely be going there again! 

With full bellies, we headed back to camp, where we recruited a couple more cachers and set off in search of a certain cache I wanted to find. One of our party had located it before and gave us some assistance, but the discovery was all ours, so I am finally able to knock that one off my map. From there we headed back to the camp for the closing of the main weekend event and planned our next adventure – a canoe trip.

The week prior we had discovered there was a cache on an island 23 miles south of Bagley which had not been found in six years. A group of us welcomed the challenge and decided to tackle it head on. Some rode there with Nikolai and I, and others drove separate. The party consisted of eight people in two canoes, one double and two single kayaks on a lake none of us knew anything about. We found out through the AIS inspector that the lake’s water level had risen 13 feet at one time, and that there are some structures that still remain underwater. We did discover the foundation of one structure that was just above the water and took some photos while enroute to our destination.

The canoe trip was just over a mile in length and was the highlight of the weekend for the eight of us. We paddled the lake, found the lonely cache, did some repairs and put it back for hopefully someone else to find in the near future. Round trip it took about two hours to make the paddle and find the geocache. It was a great time, and all of us were exhilarated about the discovery. Making it even better was that not a single one of us tipped our canoe, although at least three of us admitted that we came close once or twice.

We finally managed to get back to campsite for one last fire for the weekend, and once again we sat around the fire until close to midnight.

Sunday morning came early, with the breakfast call at 8 a.m. at another nearby establishment. A bunch of us gathered for more stories and conversation before parting ways. I planned for Nikolai and I to knock down three more caches that have been published for a couple years that we still haven’t got to, but it wasn’t meant to be. 

My wife called and said she had an appointment and needed to do some work before that individual arrived, so I needed to get home. So we hooked up the trailer, packed our gear and set our course for home. We  didn’t get any more caching done, but at least I got to take a brief nap after we got home.

The next couple of year’s camping adventures for the Northstar Geoseekers have been set – in 2018 we will be in Park Rapids again, and in 2019 it looks like our destination will be Roseau, with a tentative return to Cass Lake in 2020, unless another party decides that they would like to host the event.

This week we celebrated the twins’ (Abigail and Marcus) 11th birthday – it’s crazy to think that in just nine more years, all my kids will have graduated from high school. I’m not sure where that time is flying off to, but I wish it would slow down – at least a little.

With classes resuming in just a couple short weeks, please remember to watch out for the buses that will be 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.