Roy Lake: October 2007

I’ve wanted to do this geocache ever since it was posted, but just did not have the time. It was looking like it would have to wait until next summer until a group of friends said that they wanted to come out to Roy Lake in October for a fall vacation. I was more than happy to have them come out. I enjoy their company and sure like the help pulling the boat and the solid steel 1950’s sectional dock out of the water for the season. I mentioned the tricachealon to them and they were excited to join the Roy Lake team.

The main team consisted of Ed, Jeff, Penny, Hayden and I. Our support team was Jayna, Jo and little Reese. The adventure turned out to be a 12-hour day.

We left for Bemidji at 9:30 am and began the adventure. We got to the first staging area and quickly found the first geosign. The geosign gave us the cords for the parking area of the “The Bike.” We drove to the parking location to begin (of course) the biking portion of the tricachealon to find the numbers to release the red seal. Some of us had been to this place before to find a cache earlier in the summer and to our good fortune there were no muggles in the lot. I think that this can be a very busy area in the summer.

The after punching in the numbers into the GPS we were quickly on our way to find the geosigns. I have wanted to bike here for a few years and now I got my chance. With the leaves down you get a real open view into the woods which must be a very different look from when the leaves are still on the trees in the summer.

We headed out with the wind pushing us to the next geosign. We found all of the bike geosigns with last one giving us the cords for “The Boot.” On the trip back down the path we faced a cool wind off the lake. Wish I had brought a cap along. After our 12 miles of biking, we loaded up the bikes and the support team picked up Hayden and took him for lunch. Ed, Jeff, Penny and I made a quick trip to McDonalds and then drove out to the next parking area to start the hike. I had been out to this area before to find a couple of caches this summer.

We arrived at “The Boot” portion of the cache and after putting on our blaze orange we set out to find the numbers to the green seal. This was not as easy as the biking portion. I think that there is some kind of secret gps jamming device hidden in the woods. My gps was bouncing quite a bit during the hike. It actually made the search a bit more fun.

We would stop and start searching and then the gps would point us 50 feet north, then 30 feet west, then 45 feet north. This was quite the hike up and down and over the water. We ran into an ATVer who said that a week ago it was all dry and now he could not make some of the trails because of the recent rain. The water areas were easy to walk around on foot, although Penny almost made a splash. These trails went up and down and the gps would point into the woods. Jeff wanted to take off bushwhacking, but I told him to trust the trails and I’m glad we did. The only wildlife we saw was a deer and a woodpecker.

After finding all the geosigns, we made it back to the parking area and met up with our support team. Fall was a perfect time to do this cache, “no bugs.” Jo said that she and Hayden had started walking down one of the paths to see if they could see us coming, but she thought that see saw bear poo and changed her mind.

Part of the support Team!

We picked up a canoe and headed out for the boat portion of the tricachealon to locate the numbers for the blue seal. I had been by this area before during the summer to find a cache. The tenth geosign took about 10 minutes of looking. I loaded the cords in the gps and then we unloaded the canoe. There was only room for three of the team so Ed, Hayden and I headed into the wind looking for remaining boat geosigns. It seemed like it was taking forever to get to the next geosign, but once we got closer to the other shore the wind went away and it was smoother paddling. The cords were right on and we paddled right up to the geosign. After loading the cords we paddled around an island and found another geosign. This was getting easy, I loaded the cords and was thinking that the next geosign would be a piece of cake.

As we paddled the gps was pointing us to a beaver structure, I said “hey this is going to be easy.” Once we pulled up I was proven wrong. Those darn beavers decided to move back in. We paddled around and looked and looked. Lots of fresh mud, weeds, sticks and logs packed around the structure. Hayden thought that I should step out and look on the structure and of course I always take the advice of a 6 year old, so I did. Man those beavers can build. I poked around and looked, but the beavers had buried or hid the unlucky 13th geosign on us. As I was doing the beaver house shuffle a thought came into my head, maybe we could send someone into town and buy a metal detector. Then Ed mentioned something about dynamite.

After retrieving my shoe that got sucked into the beaver house muck, I got back into the canoe (without falling in) and we headed back to shore. The trip back was with the wind to our backs, but the paddling didn’t seem any easier. It was starting to get dark. When we reached the landing the rest of the team was bummed out that we could not find the geosign. Luckily I had the tricachealon emergency hotline number.

The Boat.

Jo and I had been to the three geosign caches earlier in the summer before they had held geosigns. We had paid a visit to Paul’s Pocket the day before to get the number and the support team had paid a visit to Cache-R-Us while we were on our hike. Reese and Hayden also got their picture taken in pirate garb.

Our next stop was to pay a visit to a giving tree for another geosign. While we were looking in the dark for the giving tree, Jo made a call to the hotline and got the numbers from the missing geosign. Hayden was quick to find the cache and we now had the numbers to the yellow seal. We now made our way towards the final geosign.

As we approached the final parking area we were greeted by a very friendly half bear half dog. I believe it is the guardian of babe. We gave the guardian a hug and we were allowed to pass. I loaded the final cords and we made the last part of the journey. We found a path that led us to the Egyptian Urn and Babes ashes. It was dark so we had to unlock the seals by flashlight. I was laughing at myself, because I did not bring my reading glasses and it was a challenge for me to open the seals. I managed to get three opened and had to let the Ed opened the last seal. We carefully lifted the top and retrieved the log.

Wow, what a sight! The ashes of Babe! We are now among the lucky few who can say that they saw the ashes of a true legend! We were very excited to say the least! The Third to find prize was awesome. The “cache me if you can” coins are incredible. As Hayden said “Sweet.” The T-shirts will be worn with pride.

Jo and Penny volunteered to sign the log as Ed and I went back to the truck for some geoswag. I can’t believe that I didn’t have any swag in my pockets. As I dug through my truck I could not find any geoswag. After about 10 minutes of frantic searching, Jayna, waiting in the van, said “are you looking for a bag of stuff?” She opened the van door and pulled out a bag of swag. Ed and I quickly made the trip back to the cache with my million candlelight powered flood light (which ran out of juice after 5 minutes). We let Hayden pick a piece of swag from the cache and he wanted the compass, so that is what we took. We left two lapel pins--a Lewis and Clark and a North Dakota.

At the ashes of Babe!

Wow! This is the best conceived and placed cache that I have seen. During the day we all came to appreciate the amount of thought, time and work that had to go into placing the Tricachealon cache. Our hats are off to Netinator and Fargnot! Thanks!!