A Day Outside

Nikolai at the first island cache of the day on Crystal Lake, south of Highway 34 between Walker and Akeley.

By Allan Olson

Oh, the weather outside is so delightful… please hold off with the snow.

I had spent the previous weekend mostly working and/or just staying at home, so I vowed that one way or another I wasn’t going to let that happen for a second weekend in a row or I just might go crazy.

I had some tentative plans made for geocaching with a couple kids, perhaps in the Menahga area, since there are some new ones there from this summer I haven’t logged yet. Then my Roseau friend messaged me about my weekend plans, since he had secured it off. We discussed some options and since he has this area mostly cached out, there were not a lot of options for us both. My budget limited me to no real distance and one day only, especially since my wife was gone for the weekend and kids would be home solo if they chose not to go with me.

We finally came up with a workable solution – quality over quantity, on Saturday, and he would head off in a different direction after we were done with our few mutual selections. Game on – or so we thought. We planned to meet at the trailhead in Akeley at 8:30 on Saturday morning, and since he doesn’t have a cell phone, if something came up and there was a no-show, at 9 a.m. either party was free to do their own thing. I was all set. Nikolai and I were going to meet him; our alarms were set for 6 a.m. and we would be on the road by 7. I woke up at about 5:30 and I had two messages from my caching friend. “Getting an early start," the first one said, and then the second one: “Flat tire – game delayed.” He finally got his tire fixed at 11 a.m., but by that time the day’s plans were changed again. 

I took Nikolai to BSU for his back-to-campus event and then went home before coming in to Cass Lake to see Santa at the Elementary. After a couple hours in town, I was on my way back to Bemidji to get Nikolai, since my wife was at a wedding. I had decided I wasn’t cooking, so pizza it was.

Finally back home, we all dined on our fine cuisine, and we all mostly hid in our own rooms. I worked on my computer, using the television for background noise, and the kids hid downstairs – perfect. By that time, new plans for geocaching were in place for Sunday – pending any more flat tires or other issues.

I had my alarm set once again, and Nikolai was already up and dressed before I had even crawled out of bed. We were out the door by 6:30 a.m. We stopped for some fine dining at the Teal’s Market Deli and continued on to our destination. The only things different from the previous day’s plan was that we were meeting at 8:00 instead, and my friend was just going home afterwards versus somewhere further down the highway. We arrived about 20 minutes early, and he was there 10 minutes prior to us. 

Our first stop Crystal Lake PWA for the first of three ice-walking adventures for the day. This was a multi-stage stop – taking us first to one part of the lake and then to another for the final discovery.

From there we shuffled back to grab his vehicle, left it in Nevis at the trail parking and headed north to Waboose Lake in the Paul Bunyan State Forest for another ice walking trek. We had an idea this cache was missing, and got permission from the hider to replace it, but we all forgot to grab a replacement container when leaving the vehicle. After a fruitless search, I trekked back to the vehicle for a replacement cache while the other two continued looking. When I returned, we replaced the container and headed back to Nevis to grab his vehicle. 

This time we traveled Arago, north of Park Rapids. We had a couple easy ones to grab there before our next ice walk. We found the easy ones and then moved on to what we figured would be a challenge. In reality, the biggest challenge was finding a good access point – which we determined to be a cross country ski trail. That location made it easy for us – public parking and nice trails to walk on – until the point where we had to cross the lake to an island. Thankfully, the ice was plenty solid, and after crossing the lake we trekked the remaining 430 feet to the where the geocache was hidden. In all, that round trip walk was about two miles, but it was pretty easy terrain – thanks to the nice smooth ice, we didn’t have to tromp across a swamp or wade or swim across a small stretch of lake between two pieces of land – a perfect recipe.

We wrapped up our day with that cache while the day was still young. My friend still had three hours to drive home, and I promised to be home early so we could take our family Christmas photos (late again this year). My wife got home before me, but wasn’t in a big hurry for the photos. I had time to get myself in a more presentable condition, and a couple hours later that task was once again completed for the year.

In all, it proved to be a great weekend to spend time outdoors.

Unfortunately, it will be a couple weekends forward before I get the opportunity to do that again, but then I will have two days and about 86 caches to find in challenging terrain – assuming we don’t get any snow.

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