My girlfriend and I rescued a "lost" cache during our Leavenworth trip

[+nedyken]

Thanks again to everyone who gave us some great hiking/geocaching suggestions around Leavenworth. My girlfriend (Kitty) and I just spent the past week over there and managed to do a little caching in between stuffing our faces with bratwurst and schnitzel. We didn't manage to hike all the suggested trails and visit all the suggested caches, but did get a chance to find a few. Actually, we ending up finding one that had been "lost" for close to three years.

 

I thought it was kinda fun so I figured I'd share the story. On Tuesday, we were finding some of the caches along the river when we eventually made our way to the "Dragon Tomb" cache: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=8ac1c4b8-c467-4f99-8bb8-523ee9bec467 . It was a pretty cool cache just outside of a creepy cave/tunnel. My GPS was bouncing all over the place, so I checked the logs for some additional hints. I eventually found the cache, but something in the logs stuck with me. It was a comment by EUJANTU:

 

. If you just enter the tunnel and turn around, look to the right, you will see another cache that is too far down a hole in the rocks to reach. Tried to poke it out with a long stick but no luck. Could be the old cache that was here before? It was called "When midnight falls on the castle"???

 

We found this interesting... so we decided to see if we could find what EUJANTU was referring to. We followed EUJANTU's instructions and using a flashlight we quickly spotted the same thing. It looked like a cache was stuck just out of reach in a "hole" between two rocks. It was wedged deep in the hole out of reach and seemingly unmovable... but we decided to make it our personal mission to set it free. Many minutes, broken sticks, scratched arms, and one lost flashlight later... and we managed to free the lost cache from the pit of doom. OH yeah... and there was a chipmunk up above us on the hillside who kept kicking pebbles at us, but that's another story.

 

Anyhow... it was indeed the now archived "When Midnight Falls Upon The Castle": http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=05540081-72b1-4f47-a895-87c8dca37ce9 . It was originally placed in 2002, but hadn't been logged since October 2009. We even managed to find a "missing" trackable inside. Pretty fun. I wrote a little more and included some pics on the archived cache page. Not sure if the owner is still active or if reactivating is a possibility (it might conflict with the "Dragon Tomb" cache), but it was fun to rescue it nonetheless.

Edited August 25, 2012 by nedyken

[+The Blorenges]

Good story - Glad you managed to get the stuck trackable back into circulation too.

 

MrsB

[+Sol seaker]

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

 

The cache owner of that archived cache has recently logged into this website even though he hasn't logged any found caches for the last two years.

He still has two active caches that he seems to be keeping up.

You might email him and tell him about your find.

What a fun story!

[+Ambrosia]

Cool! I found that cache many years ago, and was sad when it was archived. I was glad that another one was placed.

 

I've received several of your logs in my inbox today from your going to my caches up there. I forgot about the penstock trail when discussing trails, which is silly, since I maintain a cache along the trail.

[+Meandering WA]

rescue of a TB is the iceing on the cake

 

won't that owner be surprised.

 

release in eastern WA so it stands a chance

 

If the original owner does not want it back perhaps you could place it as a "new " cache called "Stay Away From Rocks"

[+WRASTRO]

rescue of a TB is the iceing on the cake

 

won't that owner be surprised.

 

release in eastern WA so it stands a chance

 

If the original owner does not want it back perhaps you could place it as a "new " cache called "Stay Away From Rocks"

That travel bug owner (me) was surprised and very happy to get the note from nedyken that they had retrieved the cache and our Cross State Rivals travel bug!

 

Now I am waiting for it to be released back into the wild.