This game is for I-5 travelers through Washington state.
There are several steps to take before locating the cache,
but it will not take an MIT graduate to pull it off.
I opted to make finding my cache a task in several steps because simply
giving the final co-ordinates just doesn't sound all that fun or challenging.
The cache site is only about twelve feet off a road not heavily used.
Getting from the road to the cache requires a small descent down about
five feet of loose, sandy gravel. (I am a very out-of-shape 57 year-old,
and I did it. So you should be able to do it too.)
GPS & COMPASS VERSION:
Steps:
1. Locate the intersection, then the gazebo.
If you are traveling SOUTHbound on I-5 you must take the first off-ramp after you pass latitude 46 30.000. From that mark it will take you a little more than one minute at 70 mph to reach the off-ramp and stop sign. When you come to the stop sign, you should see the gazebo. The gazebo is about 8 feet in diameter, and there are many small alder trees growing up between it and you.
If you are traveling NORTHbound on I-5 you must take the first off-ramp after you pass latitude 46 27.000. From that mark it will take you just over one minute at 70 mph to get off the freeway and to the stop sign. When you come to the stop sign, you should be able to see the gazebo. The gazebo is about 8 feet in diameter, and there are many small alder trees growing up between it and you.
If you can't see it from the stop sign, turn left/west and drive over the freeway. Look for the gazebo immediately after you cross the freeway. If you drive to the top of the hill, you've gone too far.
This small structure is located at the edge of a paved area.
2. Locate the light, then the numbers:
If you stand before the entrance to the gazebo (not entering, but just about so,) locate the first vertical support post of the gazebo on your right. Then locate the second vertical support post in a counterclockwise direction. By visually aligning these two posts you can sight off into the near distance. Look for a tall light roughly 1,000 feet away. If you sight correctly with these posts, there will be only one tall light. This light is for the safety of those who leave their cars near it.
Drive to this light pole and look behind the sign fastened to it. There you will find a label with a large two-digit number. (Probably the year the sign was put up.) You will use these two digits to figure the latitude and longitude of the cache.
3. Locate the cache:
Take the first digit and multiply it by 3.1403 to get the minutes of 46 degrees latitude.
Take the second digit and multiply it by 10.572 to get the minutes of 122 degrees longitude.
If you have any trouble calculating the minutes precisely enough, here is a bonus, course-correcting clue:
Assuming your calculations got you in the ballpark, you should have found yourself very near a set of guardrails at the edges of the road not far from the light. Remember the two digits behind the sign? Multiply the first by the second. This new number is the direction in degrees you need to move in.
Stand at the north end of the guardrail that borders the west side of the road. Using a compass, walk in the direction of the number of degrees you arrived at (by multiplying the two digits) until you reach the trees. Look in the brush beneath what I believe is an ash tree. You do not enter the brush or woods to find the cache.
MAP & COMPASS VERSION:
Steps:
1. Locate the intersection, then the gazebo.
For this orienteering version you must have a decent Washington state road map, one that has a good list of the state's cities and towns, and that has a two dimensional grid format to locate them (F-7, A-3 and so on.) It must have all of I-5's exits marked as well. Using the map, you will locate the freeway exit nearest the cache.
The freeway exit can be found in any one of the following ways:
A. Locate the towns of McKenna and Cedarville. Using a compass (the kind that holds a pencil) place the pointed end directly on McKenna. Then position the pencil directly on Cedarville. Where you swing the pencil across I-5 is the exit you need to visit.
Or, connect the two towns listed in B, C, or D below with a ruler, and where the ruler crosses I-5 that's where you need to go.
B. Locate and connect the towns of Seaview and Tieton.
C. Locate and connect the towns of Ilwaco and Morton.
D. Locate and connect the towns of Klipsan Beach and Sawyer.
If you are exiting I-5 from the SOUTHbound lanes:
When you come to the stop sign, you should see the gazebo. The gazebo is about 8 feet in diameter, and there are many small alder trees growing up between it and you.
If you are exiting I-5 from the NORTHbound lanes:
When you come to the stop sign, you should be able to see the gazebo. The gazebo is about 8 feet in diameter, and there are many small alder trees growing up between it and you.
If you can't see it from the stop sign, turn left/west and drive over the freeway. Look for the gazebo immediately after you cross the freeway. If you drive to the top of the hill, you've gone too far.
This small structure is located at the edge of a paved area.
2. Locate the light, then the cache:
If you stand before the entrance to the gazebo (not entering, but just about so,) locate the first vertical support post of the gazebo on your right. Then locate the second vertical support post in a counterclockwise direction. By visually aligning these two posts you can sight a tall light roughly 1,000 feet away. [If you need a visual graphic of this gazebo, see the graphic above.] If you sight correctly with these posts, there will be only one tall light. This light is for the safety of those who leave their cars near it.
Drive to this light pole and look behind the sign fastened to it. There you will find a label with a large two-digit number. (Probably the year the sign was put up.) You will use the second of these two digits to figure the distance to the cache.
3. Locate the cache:
Take the second digit and multiply it by .04 to get the distance (in miles) to the area of the cache - not far at all. The direction you must drive in is to your right as you face the back side of the sign, where the two digit label is seen.
Assuming your calculations got you in the ballpark, you should have found yourself very near a set of guardrails at the edges of the road not far from the light. Remember the two digits behind the sign? Multiply the first by the second. This new number is the direction in degrees you need to move in.
Stand at the north end of the guardrail that borders the west side of the road. Using a compass, walk in the direction of the number of degrees you arrived at (by multiplying the two digits) until you reach the trees. Look in the brush beneath what I believe is an ash tree. You do not enter the brush or woods to find the cache.
Happy hunting! I am open to friendly comments about my cache.
For the time being, I have disabled the links to my pages offering my crafts. At this time I do, however, disagree with objections to entrepreneurial commercial connections with the game of geocaching. It's a game. I enjoy it. And I work to pay my bills.
Go back to GeoOrienterring Games