The Great Coal Rush

What can I say about such an awesome event, Dustanne an I had an amazing time. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves each and every minute of the event. To sum it all up I am going to share with you my post for just one of the 34 amazing caches we found that weekend which pretty much says it all. May 16 by TESKELLY (896 found) FTF May 16th 2009. Ok this will take allot of words to describe this find so I’m sorry for those who hate long logs. Just as we were getting close to the cache we find ourselves stopped at a point as far as we could on the road. There were trucks with snow mobile trailers parked right at the beginning of snow on the road. I snuck past them and parked in front of them all in case they wanted to leave before we got back. Nothing like an angry snow mobiler who can't go home cause of a 4x4 is blocking his way. So with that nightmare smartly averted we surveyed what challenge we had before us. The distance didn't seem so bad and the area had not even one foot print to be seen ten feet ahead of where the snowmobiles took off from. I looked at Best Red and said to her in as confident a voice as I could muster "If we do this cache I can guarantee you an FTF on this one as I believe no one has been there yet". I know I know what a huge chance I was taking of being wrong and getting the beating of a life time from my wife if I was. Somehow though it all just felt right in my heart that we would truly succeed. So we loaded up with water, food, and an emergency kit into my pack just to be safe and wrote down our departure time of 2:35pm on a card for the dash of my truck. Off we went and well it started off kind of sloppy as we were sinking down a foot or so with every step. We quickly figured out that if we followed the snowmobile tracks we only sunk down every so often as the snow was somewhat compacted from their tracks. Although this was working somewhat we did notice each time we sunk down it was getting deeper and deeper. We past a side road on our right at about 1.4 miles away from the cache but did not see any snow mobile tracks going down that road and the cache was still showing somewhere along the road we were on. I said let’s continue straight and we did until the compass arrow finally took a turn to our right and was showing 500ft to the right into the forest going downhill. Well we looked for an entrance into the forest or any signs of a trail but could not find one. I looked at Best red and said that the snow would get much deeper if we try to hike into the cache from here and it was a long 500 feet if we were going to even try. She agreed that was asking too much and she opted to head back to the other road and see if that would get us closer. We got back to that side road we found on the right of us and decided we would walk down a way’s to see if the countdown to the cache improved and it did. So we were back on the hunt to find the cache. A little ways down we got a reading of about 500ft or so and we saw what we were looking for a trailhead sign naming the lake. I yelled out yes honey there it is the entrance to the lake trail. Well we looked down the trail and again I said to my wife it’s going to get allot deeper in there once we set in. She being the trooper that she is said that’s fine lets go. We took a first big step each and sunk down to the bottom of our hips. I said to Best Red we will have to take pictures of this first step when we come back up. She agreed and we continued on. As we were trekking in I could hear running water under the snow every so often but couldn’t quite judge exactly where the running water was under the snow so I proceeded to sink down and step into the rushing water under the snow about half a dozen times along the trail. 450 feet or so later and I could see a green roofed structure ahead. This became comforting as it was now 3:23 and the clouds were rolling in and it was getting darker out. By no means was it sunset yet, however the light change was significant enough that we wanted to hurry up and get done with finding this cache. At this point I also started to hear the freaky creaking of the trees that sent shivers down my spine. There was quite the gust of wind blowing across the still frozen lake which wasn’t helping the situation. We zeroed out at the structure which was now discovered as a snowmobilers open concept cabin. Inside was a wood burning stove and a few other furniture pieces. My hunt began and took like what seemed forever but I just couldn’t find the cache. We didn’t have any info with use as far as a hint goes so we were starting to get discouraged. The wife was getting mad and at one point mentioned we were not leaving here until we find it as she was NOT accepting a DNF on this hugely fought adventure. I kept looking and looking until bingo I found it. We opened up the ammo can with HUGE anticipation and I gasped and shouted out yahoo first to find. My wife broke out in a huge smile and threw up her hands for a big high five. I can’t remember the last time we were so closely bonded in excitement for an achievement we shared together and I felt so proud to have her with me accomplishing this together. She was such a trooper and didn’t complain even once during all the trouble she was having keeping up to me on this trek as she endured soaken feet, a few falls face first into hip deep pockets of snow, and many painful knee twists during some of those falls. Well it was now 4:15pm and I said we better get back before someone notices we have been gone over two hours. We came out the same way we went in and made it back to the truck by about 5:15pm. We looked at each other and I thanked her for being so brave and taking on the challenge. I also told her I loved her and felt very proud to be her husband. We kissed and climbed into the truck and smiled the entire way back to the tent with a deep sense of accomplishment and pride on a truly awesome adventure indeed.