An Accidental Encounter – A Muggle Meets A Cache

It was a sunny afternoon and I thought I would go for a nice walk. I had heard of this trail in Riverview known as the Dobson Trail but had never had the chance to walk on it before. Since it was such a nice day, I decided to be adventurous and try out this trail.

I found myself at the main parking lot where I grabbed a bottle of water and headed in. I was impressed by the metal guide wires which apparently are used to help the blind when they go hiking. The trail was quite easy to walk and not at all as rough as I had thought. I came to a spot referred to as “the loop” and opted to skip it and just keep walking. Eventually I came by some campers who were tending a fire at what appeared to be a fire pit off the trail. Spoke to them for a few minutes then continued on my way.

Shortly thereafter I popped out of the woods into a big open area and took a deep breath. I wasn’t tired but I didn’t want to go much further. I decided I would walk another 15 minutes then turn around and come back.

As I re-entered the woods, I bent over to tie my shoelaces. I stood up I looked off into the woods and wondered what kind of wildlife was in there. I turned my head slightly and noticed something hanging in one of the trees. It was hard to see from the trail but it definitely looked out of place. I looked around and saw that no one was near so I opted to go through the trees and see what this was.

Getting closer, I could definitely see that this was not a natural part of the tree. I thought it might be some sort of trash that had somehow got stuck up there but as I got closer, it was clear that this container was meant to be there. I stood beside the tree and examined the container. It was wrapped in a camouflage type of duct tape with a metal wire hanging out the back. It actually looked kind of like a coat hanger but taped to this container.

A piece of the tape was peeled off and I could clearly see the word Kraft on the side. Between the mix of the words on the container, and the green lid, I was sure this was an old peanut butter container. It was hanging about four and a half feet off the ground and it was definitely not put there by accident. I looked on the ground to see if I could see anything that would give me a clue to what it was. I spotted what looked to be part of a pencil and a toy car that was sitting at the base of the tree the container was hanging on.

I took the container off the broken tree limb it was sitting on and opened it up. There was definitely a musty smell to the contents but upon inspection there appeared to be a series of trinket toys and a small notepad. When I looked at the notepad it had a small sticker on the inside which read, “This is an official geocaching game piece. Please do not remove.”. The rest of the notepad appeared to have a series of names on it. Most of them seemed to be nicknames of sorts as they were names I would never have heard anywhere else.

Along with the names, there were dates. It seemed that people had been signing this notepad for at least four years. That meant that this container had been sitting in this tree for four years. Why was this there? Flipping through the notepad I found the odd comment saying “Thanks for the find”, or “TFTC” and wondered what it was all about. I put the notepad back in the container, and put the pencil and car I had found on the ground in the container as I assumed that’s where they were supposed to be. I re-hung the container on the tree but on a branch a little less visible from the trail. I headed back to the trail and made my way back to the trailhead. I couldn’t help but look back several times and wonder what that was all about.

On my way back, I kept thinking about that container. Why would someone hang that in the middle of the woods? What is geocaching? I promised myself when I got home I’d look it up on the internet. Who knows, maybe it’s something I could do in my spare time.

– Signed, A Muggle