Best Western Adventures

Series 2

THE GREAT A.P.E. EXPERIENCE
somewhere near Snoqualmie Pass, WA
July 23, 1:40 pm

There are two ways to approach the Project APE geocache, otherwise known as Mission 9: Tunnel of Light. Most people take the Hyak tunnel to the cache, which involves walking 2.3 miles one way through a spooky dark old tunnel and then about a half mile further up an old gravel road from there. I decided not to approach it from that direction because even though it sounded cool, we had two young children with us who could not walk that far. Maybe if we had a stroller with us for the littlest one -- but my husband vetoed that idea and said we could just stick with my alternate plan, which was to take the Annette Lake trail.

One of the recent loggers of the cache had stated in his log that the cache was only 0.9 miles from his parking spot at the Lake Annette trailhead. Sure enough, when we parked at the Asahel Curtis parking lot, the GPSr read "0.9 mi" from Mission 9. The oldest child had already begun whining because he wanted to get to his grandparents, and we were kind of stressing because we had been unsuccessful in our attempts to buy a Northwest Forest parking permit.

"Oh come one, it's only 0.9 miles, it's not that far, let's just hurry on up there."

So, our journey up the Lake Annette trail begins. We are barely into the trail when I first ask my husband if we should still do this, or if he wants to wait with the youngest one, whom he is helping up the rocky trail. Already I can see the trail is more than we had anticipated, with an uphill climb along a rocky trail with numerous switchbacks. We aren't really prepared for this kind of journey, but he urges me ahead.

"Come on, it's only 0.9 miles, we are already here, let's do it!"

He tells me to go on ahead with the oldest, and he will take it slow in the rear, helping the youngest over the rocks and carrying him when needed. We cross over a bridge in front of a waterfall. The forest changes slightly, and then we cross through a greenbelt area, and then the forest changes again. I wish I knew more about trees so I could describe the difference. I would say one was an old growth forest and another was new growth. Each switchback would take us far out to another side, and then back, and none of our movements up were making any difference in the distance (remember, GPSr's only read "as the crow flies" to each waypoint). My husband would call my cell phone, "How far now, babe?" and my disappointed reply was always "We're still 0.9 miles!" I would call him to see if he thought we should back out - we didn't have enough water with us, I was worried about the children, worried it would become too much for him to carry the little one so far - but each time he urged me to "press on, we're fine, we're doing it, keep going". We had to stop for breathers because already the older son was complaining that his legs were tired, or his lungs were hurting, he needed breaks. Still my husband had not caught up to us on the trail, until the last bit.

Halfway up the trail, reception was out on my GPSr, so I had no idea how far we were, which was probably for the best. I had gotten tired of seeing the needle not changing. However, once we got to the break on the trail, which let us out on a gravel road, my husband wanted to know if he needed to start looking for the cache. I had no idea, but I thought we needed to travel east along the road now. So we began walking and I was looking for clear spots in the trees, a spot of sunshine, so I could get reception back on the receiver.

Finally I got it back, and the compass showed another 0.65 miles to go! My husband took the receiver from me and began running down the road, doing recon. He was worried we might lose reception again at a critical point, and our progess was being hampered by the kids at this point. The youngest child loves wildflowers, and he had to stop and touch (and taste) every flower he saw. The other one was tired already.

So my husband went ahead and made the find, but then he left the cache in its hiding spot so that we could all make the find on our own. He came back out into the road and waved at us so we knew how far to go. It looked like it was way down the road, but al least knowing there was an endpoint was reassuring. I started a race with the children - "let's all run to Daddy!" and even the little one was running and laughing.

We finally got there, and I saw what looked like a normal ammo can lying under the "cacher's tell", an unusual pile of rocks and wood. I began to pull it out and that is when I realized this was no ordinary cache. It was, in fact, the largest ammo can I have ever seen!

The kids and my husband immediately started going through the bugs and trackables while I took pictures of my travel bugs, my Project APE coin with the one that lives in the cache, and the original logbook from 2001, open to the first entry. I wanted to discover all the trackables in the cache, but the kids were throwing them around here and there so I just started trying to put them back in the baggie and put things back in the can. I dropped a travel bug and geocoin I was carrying, plus one of my own, and took two coins and a travel bug from the cache. Then we made sure every item was back inside the can and then slid it back in the hiding place, which was just right there off the road, and put the rocks and wood back in place, making sure every part was concealed so that the cache would be safe from muggles (muggles: geospeak for people who are not geocachers and may steal or damage the geocache if they accidentally find it).

It was now 3:45 pm, and we began our trek back to the car. The little one was very sleepy now, so my husband picked him up and carried him the entire way down the gravel road, back to the trailhead, and all the way down the mountain trail back to the car. In flip-flops, no less. He deserves some kind of medal for that one, and I made sure to make his vacation as stress-free as possible after that. We got a laugh as we went down and he would ask "how much farther?" and I would casually answer "oh, only about 0.9 miles!" It was the punchline that never ended on this journey.

We were passed along the trail by more uber-hikers, carrying trekking poles and wearing expensive breathable, lightweight clothing, and carrying nice hiking packs. We were woefully inadequately prepared for our journey, but it turned out to be okay. It only took us 45 minutes to get down the mountain and back to our car. At 4:30 pm, we reach our car, with no ticket on the windshield or any other issues from not having the correct parking permit. We began driving out of the area, passing the most scenic waterfall coming off the mountain ahead as we drove along. We were only one hour out of Seattle now and needed to make up some time on the road in order to reach Oregon, and Bend, by the nightfall. I had bookmarked about 30-40 caches for this part of my journey, but I let us pass most of them by, only getting two more along the road when it was handy to stop.
On our journey through Washington State, I was reminded of something my father had said to me when he helped me move from Texas to Colorado.

"If it doesn't work out here, you can always remember this as some kind of grand vacation."

At the time, the comment made me angry, because my parents had been very concerned I would not be able to make it on my own so far away from them. I thought it expressed doubt in my ability to take care of myself. Sometimes, though, when I describe my time in Colorado, it does sound like some kind of grand vacation that didn't work out, although maybe not for the reasons they were worried about.

This, however, this moment, I felt that line and understood it. I didn't know what the result of my interview in Everett was going to be, but if it didn't work out, I would always remember this as some kind of grand vacation. Driving down I-90 in the mountainous area, I felt such bliss. I was absolutely happy listening to Bob Marley on the radio and surrounded by such natural beauty. Getting the APE cache....well, that was just the icing on the cake, a very fancy icing that you know will cost you something (in this case, time, and more caching), but a memory to look back on and savor. Finding this cache....it was rich, and it set the tone for our grand vacation.