The Fellowship gathered at dawn (OK, 9 am) near the first calculated coordinates. We headed up to the cache and found it without difficulty. We were initially shocked at the new challenge presented to us, but the Fellowship was brave and tackled it with fervor. We figured out the answers after much collaboration and headed to the next calcuated waypoint. When we arrived, we realized were with in the wrong place.
Nostrada made a call to wise old Gandalf who it turns out made the same mistake. We rechecked our calculations and headed to the Mines, thankfully only a mile away from our incorrect coordinates.
This was another quick hike into a nice park we hadn't been to before. Others in the park were looking at us strangely, probably because we were this large and varied group of people wandering around in the hills. We found this cache without too much trouble, then began to figure out the next set of puzzles. I sure was appreciative that others knew the books much better than we did. It was also helpful to have copies of the book on hand to look up answers. We were able to help recheck the answers and make some corrections to calculate a final location that looked very promising. After replenishing ourselves with some foodstuffs, we headed out to what we guessed was the last challenge.
At the final waypoint, we realized that we need to cross the river, but we were unsure of which way to go. North looked shorter, but it wasn't clear if there was a passage we could use. We knew there was a bridge to the South, but it was definitely further. We debated for a while until I just emptied my pockets, handed off my backpack and ran North to see if that was feasible. It turns out it was, and I signaled from the other side for the rest of the Fellowship to follow. I looked for the cache while the rest caught up, but without a GPSr, I wasn't sure where it was supposed to be. Once someone with a GPSr arrived, we found it quickly.
It would have taken just the two of us a long time to do all of this cache on our own. With the group, we did it in about 5 hours including bagging scout orchard as well and stopping in the wrong spot for Moria Mines.
Thanks to Nostrada for getting the Fellowship together and mbrill for a great cache. We had a great time associating the faces behind the names I've seen in the logs so many times. Many of them were actually quite different than I had imagined!
We're looking forward to reuniting with the Fellowship to conquer The Two Towers! Thanks.
Posted by jeff at November 2, 2003 01:41 PM