MnGCA

[towlebooth]

It's time to vote! In this post you will find the caches which have been nominated to be the MnGCA June Cache of the Month.

Voting ends on May 31st. Rules for nominations here. Thanks to those who submitted nominations and to all voters!

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Nomination articles: (in the order they were nominated)
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1) Dark Passage (GC20AA) by IBcrashen (nominated by Silent Bob)

Moe the Sleaze and I had been planning a trip to Duluth since returning from the geocaching invitational in Missouri. I had contacted him about the possible trip early in the week and he suggested we head up to Duluth that Saturday.

Saturday came and I arrived at his house shortly before 5am. We then began the drive towards Duluth and cached the entire way. We hit many incredible caches during the trip including nine by the infamous “IBcrashen”. Moe had many other names for him including “IBspoiled” and “IBtired”.

One of my most favorite caches ever came during this trip. It was IBcrashen’s Dark Passage.

We arrived at a likely parking area for the rails to trails pathway. We began the long walk along the path which, thankfully, was level and paved. Ignoring our stored/loaded cache pages for the hunts until we absolutely needed them we had no idea what treat that IBcrashen had in store for us. We made our way through a beautiful rock cut as Moe told stories of his bike riding through this area in years passed.

We arrived at the cache location after a short scramble up a small, rocky, hill. We sat and rested for a bit enjoying the view of the St. Louis River and the vertical rock face behind us. Reading in the logs that there was a nearby tunnel we were slightly disappointed we had missed it. It seemed that the tunnel was close by so we made a slight detour to visit it.

As we approached it we could immediately feel the cool breeze running through the tunnel. It was roughly blasted and certainly not as large as I would have expected. The story of the tunnel in the cache’s log book now made more sense (you will have to visit the cache to get the full history as told by IBcrashen). The tunnel curved in the middle so it became nearly impossible to see in the middle without a flashlight. Moe was wishing he had brought his headlamp.

The walk back to the car was enjoyable and the memories of both the cache location and the tunnel have lingered with me since. If you are planning to make a trip to Duluth either for the caching or for another reason I seriously suggest you make a stop at IBcrashen’s Dark Passage. It’s well worth the trip.

Thanks IBcrashen. You made me fall in love with caching all over again. All I can say is IBimpressed.
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2) The Center of Nature (GCJ399) by RJ (nomintated by 15Tango)

The Center of Nature, GCJ399, by R.J., is an excellent micro/multi in a
great lakeside park, and these two micros are an apt replacement for one
of the largest caches I've ever found, Reader Rabbit Cache (GCAF3D) by
Big Red One and Mudbug, which was archived when the owners moved to
Florida. There are many trails worthy of further exploration in this
park/nature area, and finding both parts of R.J.'s cache take you along
some of the best of them. Because of all the trails in the area, one
would be advised to waypoint where you park, as it is easy to take the
wrong trail at an intersection and end up going a ways out of the way.
For having great trails and being a great park, I've practically had it
all to myself each time I've visited--I came to this cache on a
beautiful Saturday morning, and passed only one other person on the
trails. It is also a great place to take a break from Highways 100 and
62, which intersect near the park, but from the park, you'd hardly know
that both of these major arteries are a stone's throw away. During my
visit, I saw plenty of birds, including robins, red-winged blackbirds,
ducks, and geese, and heard a mourning dove or two, and there was
some deer sign as well. I'm sure someone might also see turtles and
aquatic mammals in the water that you pass, as well. Alas,
no not-so-elusive black squirrels at this cache, though, but there are plenty of the grey variety.

[Marsha and Silent Bob]

Here's a picture of Moe the Sleaze entering the Dark Passage on our recent trip there:


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Sad state of affairs.