Wander logo

Everything that Glitters is not Gold

A Geocaching Adventure

By Elana LewisPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
Like

“Noooo!” Danielle groaned into her pillow as sister ruthlessly tried to pry it off her head.

“Let’s go, lazyhead” Karyn mummified Danielle into her sheet and tossed her over the edge of the bed into an unnatural heap on the floor.

Every Saturday for the past six weeks this bizarre battle scene had been reenacted. Karyn, you see, had a new obsession. Geocaching. Seems like a perfectly good teenage girl habit in the middle of Utah. No one was going to impede the Magellan adventurer in her.

Karen emerged triumphantly and it wasn’t long before the two sisters found themselves with requisite iPhone, GPS and the geocaching directory list and their tiny Toyota began wandering around the “exotic” terrain of Memorial Square intersection in urban Spanish Fork. Only Magellan would be so lucky to explore concrete bricks in the middle of town, looking for a tiny crevice of treasure.

“This one is called The Macgyver, N 40° 06.753 W 111° 39.273 , I think I see it!” Danielle grabbed a dark zippered envelope from a crack and the two sat on the adjacent bench to examine its contents.

There weren’t many and they were common everyday items. An old copper coin, a plastic cat figurine, a business card, and the paper register to document they had been there. As Karyn dumped the contents back in the envelope a tiny black book fell out of a side enclosure in the bag. Odd. A tiny black book. She opened it up to find a single page in it.

“Sisters two, treasure new N 40° 07.171 W 111° 39.243” and on the back “please destroy upon reading.”

Danielle raised her eyebrows suspiciously. Sisters two? How exactly did this book find its way into this geocache? Because it felt deliberate and targeted.

“I don’t want to go to these coordinates, what if this is a serial killer trying to get us? Is someone tracking us? Have you been paying attention?” Danielle wasn’t so much into geocaching as she was serial killer podcasts. And this didn’t feel right.

“Oh come on. This is made just for us! Besides, serial killers don’t dabble in geocaches, silly.” Magellan’s dumb confidence pushed through the objections and, after writing down the coordinates they ripped the little book into pieces and then they were book on the road.

Curiouser, this site was less elegant than the last, in a parking lot in a remote industrial area. Maybe Karyn was onto something with the serial killer theory. Why were they being led here? They approached carefully, checking to see if anyone was following, anyone was watching. There was one lone car parked in the corner slot and guessing by the vacancy dates marked on the windows it was a long-time abandoned resident. The buildings were rundown and unoccupied, an oddity given it was the middle of a Saturday.

With careful step they used the compass to pinpoint the exact coordinates. Tucked just under the curb of the parking barrier they found the geocache. In plain sight. This one was a larger container with historical debris from its previous visitors. Little heart stickers, a leather braid, several scraps of “I was here.”

Karyn flipped the large envelope back and forth and back again, looking. It took several tries before she identified a slotted second pouch. There it was, the black book winking at them from its hidden crevice. Carefully they slide it out.

“Dos hermanas, ¡te estás calentando! Tres veces un Encanto. N 39° 56.014 W 111° 38.616”

The language change was barely an inconvenience. Power in the palm of the hand. This was a geocaching journey customized just for these two sisters. Even Danielle’s distrust was running behind the thrill of the chase. They popped the new coordinates into their GPS, put everything back in its place and then headed onto the next leg.

N 39° 56.014 W 111° 38.616

Karyn drove, Danielle navigated. They were pros by now. GPS led them carefully through and to the outskirts of Payson, a small bedroom-ish community. Round and round they went up into the mountain area. The mountain announced it was Payson Lakes.

They were alone. Not a single vehicle in the parking lot, not a fisher, not a hiker, no one walking their dog. A strange reality as the midday sun shone down.

Autumn had swept its glorious paintbrush into the aspens and trees the color of fire winked between the green pines. Even in the middle of the day the crisp tickled their hair as they got out of the car and took appraisal of their surroundings. Karyn tugged the cap from her hoodie and headed into the wind as they circled rocks around the perimeter of the Big East reservoir. The geocache site had said this geocache had been created and placed her by a boy scout troop. Where would boy scouts leave a secret cache in this great outdoors? Probably under a rock in the lake. Boys will be boys after all.

But the compass led them near a tree, a grownup tree with many branches. Its leaves were headed for departure, taking its last gasps in the wind before floating into the air. Danielle checked the gang of rocks gathered at the bottom. But it was Karyn who found it. The envelope was in camp camo, thrust high into the center crevice in the tree. It hadn’t been easy, the open crevice was mostly covered by a floor of fallen leaves and the hole had sucked in nearly ¾ of her arm before she felt it. It was an act of courage for her to put her hand in a sight-unseen hole. There could have been a squirrel or a mouse or a rat or, heaven forbid, a giant spider waiting to bite her dead. She was rather proud of herself and hadn't even thought about a serial killer for a whole half of an hour.

She tugged the envelope free, it was covered with damp decay and remnants of mud. No one had been to this cache in a while and it was exciting, almost as if it was a real treasure left there by an old pioneer.

Together the girls opened it up. A metal clasp, a silver zipper.

Ah yes. Boy scouts. A rusted pocketknife. A fish lure without a hook. An seagull feather. Four marbles. A miniature wood-carved wagon.

And there it was again. A hidden envelope on the exterior of the camo. If one didn’t know to look for it they would never find it.

Inside, another black book. Again, just a single page inside the black lining. But another message:

Dear sisters-- look down to the rocks. For I am a rock, I am an island. And I was made for you.

“Crap. I really am going to have to go into that cold water” Danielle groaned as she looked from the message down towards the lake.

But Karyn was ahead of her and had looked straight down to the rocks at their feet, covered in leaves. She rolled the biggest rock away and then dug and dug, uncaring of the dirt gathering under her nails.

And then she hit it. Something metallic. She squealed. This was no ordinary geocache find. Together they removed the dirt around a metal box, about 8X8 inches and about two inches deep. They tried to lift it with their hands but it was heavy, too heavy for them. Danielle grabbed a nearby broken branch and hoisted it underneath, pushing and prodding until the box was dislodged. Karyn grabbed another branch and between the two they leveraged it to the point they could lift it out of the ground.

The clasp was solid on the bottom, no lock.

“You get the honors, Karyn” Danielle caught her breath as they stared at their find.

With both hands Danielle grabbed each side of the clasp and lifted the lid fully up.

Shiny!! Karyn squealed as they both stared in wonderment at a neatly organized pile of gold bars. Each one had a stamp of 1 oz on it. They could count ten of them without having to touch with their grubby hands. They did not know how much a troy ounce of gold was worth but Karyn’s gut told her it was a lot.

They closed the box and Danielle took off her jacket so they could wrap the box in it. Danielle, the stronger of the two, carried it back to the trunk of their car.

When they got back into internet coverage they checked and then calculated and then checked again. They had just retrieved $20,000 worth of gold from underneath a rock near a lake.

“I have to say, Karyn” Danielle quipped with excitement in her voice “that I am clearing up my schedule every Saturday morning for the next year!”

In their excitement to take their gold back they had left the geocache envelope out in the open air. On the back of the one, single paged note was left to the open air. the message.

We are a rock. A golden rock of strength. Power on.

(Postnote: the author has deposited bullion in the geocache at this location)

activities
Like

About the Creator

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.