[This blog post was originally posted on the Geocaching.com blog on April 19, 2015]
Any excuse to find a geocache in a ghost town, right? Geocaching HQ received notification that public access to the ghost town of Monte Cristo in the mountains outside of Seattle was about to be closed. Hazardous mining-related waste has to be removed. It’s the same location where Geocaching founder, Jeremy Irish and his wife Samsy placed one of the oldest caches in the state, on November 19, 2000. We decided to use the last weekend before the closing date of April 15th, 2015 to retrieve the historic geocache.
An unexpected snowfall upped the terrain rating of the caching trip but gave us a chance to explore a winter wonderland. The 10 mile hike (including side excursions to cache) led us across rivers, through woods, and to crumbling miners’ homes.
We look forward to repeating the hike and replacing the cache when the mining town opens up to visitors again. Now to fill in the next hole for the Jasmer Challenge!
Check out the pictures of the adventure below. Tell us your favorite geocaching adventure below, and we just may feature it in our next blog post!
Bri crossing the only “bridge” to Monte Cristo
The snowy trail to the geocache site
Ghost town building
Jeremy and Samsy recovering the geocache hidden in 2000
Jeremy Irish and Bryan Roth, Co-Founders of Geocaching
Betwixt & Between 