The Swan Station

10/03/2012 By Kabutroid
I’m thinking that the ‘needs maintenance’ tag can be removed from this cache, since that was logged back in September, and the logbook here in March was bone dry and easy to sign. But otherwise, despite being ridiculously tired from several kilometers of snowshoeing through wet, sticky snow on a hot, windless day (and finding several geocaches amongst all of that... although admittedly I did take a break partway through the snowshoeing), I figured I might as well go after one more cache that seems to be located right near the entrance to the park. Since there was nobody inside the park entrance office, it was unusually quiet for visitors in general (despite the gorgeous day out), and it was about 6:00pm, I figured now would be about the most optimal time to go after this cache. I realize that the cache was approved by the park, and they’re likely well familiar with people looking for it... but I just get nervous when caching around others, especially when caching around buildings that would normally contain people.

Thus, with my mind made up, I pulled the car onto the edge of the road and hopped out. I apparently underestimated where the coordinates where, and had stopped my car about 30 or so meters further back on the road. But nonetheless, I quickly arrived at ground zero, and was immediately worried as to whether I’d be able to find this cache or not. What I figured would have been the most obvious place for it had about a 4-foot deep pile of snow plowed onto it, and I didn’t have even the slightest urge to attempt to dig through that, even if it wasn’t going to have become hardened from being plowed. So being worried right off the hop, I parked myself on a nearby rock and checked out cachemate on my palm pilot to see if I could glean any information about whether it was a write-off for the season or not.

Given the last log was in late February, I figured that was a vaguely good indication that the cache would still be findable. The previous log also gave me a bit of a vague, roundabout hint as to how the cache might be hidden. As with all of the ‘Dharma Initiative’ caches, the cache description didn’t make even the slightest sense to me, so if it was giving me a hint it went clear over my head ToungeOut .

But with a bit of renewed hope as to the cache being findable, I continued circling around a bit, looking here and there. Thankfully, at the time only several cars had gone by, and then it was all when I was parked on that rock. Absolutely nothing when by while I was searching, and that’s just fine by me Smile . Thanks to the pseudo-hint in the last log, I stumbled across the cache relatively quickly, and was as well somewhat surprised at its location. Again however, given it’s park-approved, it really shouldn’t be a surprise at all. So taking the cache container back to my sittin’ rock, I decided that it would look very conspicuous just... in front of me, so I decided to stomp it into the snow instead. This worked out very well, since only the lid was popping up above the snow, and could have been just about anything to someone passing by (of which another several cars went by as I was signing the logbook). I signed up the logbook, and dropped a micromail ball into the cache container (I had run out of regular sized ones at the time of this trip). With all of the formalities out of the way, I did a quick poke around inside the cache for any interesting items to trade, and closed it up. Several seconds later, the cache was hidden again, and I was on my way back to the car. I think this was universal ‘leave the park’ time or something, since another several cars were coming down the road, and passed as I got into the car. But all in all, the timing worked out in my favour. Thanks for the cache series!

Took: Nothing
Left: Logbook entry and micromail ball