Friday, February 13, 2009

Jubilee Deception

Well, it's been a year and a half ago when a group of us led by my pal madkaw, somehow decided it was a "great idea" to hunt this cache call Jubliee Deception. (GCQEFF).

Now somehow I got roped into this hunt. I needed some work done on the car and my very pricey auto mechanic had made a deal with me to fix a problem with the car if I would help in the hunt of this cache. I had no idea what I was getting into, but heck with a deal like that how could I say no way. Hunt a cache for the cost of fixing my car, great deal for me. Which thank you again madkaw, you've been such a great guy about helping me out when we are having car trouble's and we really appreciate it!!!

I didn't relize when the "deal" was made this was a 12 stage multi-cache. From where I live it's a 2 and a half hour drive one way to the park where this cache was. So that meant for a 5 hour's behind the wheel just to get there and back. But this is located in a very large state park in Illinois called Jubilee State Park. A very beautiful park too. Lot's and lot's of hiking trails/bike trails/horse trails, camping area's and I still have some to do in that park.

I won't reveal all the cacher's involved in this hunt cause, well I think we made some of it harder than it should have been, but there's a reason for that due to how this cache was set up. I think in all I made five trip's down to this one and frustration was about the only think I could think of when leaving the place.

The idea behind this was you get a starting point. Stage one. Since it is now archived I'll reveal some of the detail's about the hides to give a better idea of what it was like. At every stage there was up to two clue's to move on to the next stage. If you found a clue and went to find that you made find at those cord's a "dead end" container.

Stage one at first the hint was grab some water you'll need it. So getting to ground zero, we found a fake water spicket near the ranger's office. Pull it up and a stick came out attached by rope to that spicket. There was cord's on that stick. Following those took you to a split in the trail further in the park. At a sign we found a 35 film can that had a note in it that read "dead end". So following the instruction's on the cache page, if you found a "dead end" you where to return to the previous stage and look with in a 5 foot radius from the clue you found. when we returned we ended up finding under a large rock this little laminated paper that I swear we combed over that rock for hour's.

Those cord's took us across the park and down another little trail but not too far. You found a pile of brick's and in the pile I had found a stick with cord's on it. I went to those on a trail and found another "dead end". So I went back and couldn't find anything. This was the end of my second trip out.

Third trip I was back out in a group again, and we made some good progress on this one. The owner had given me a clue this time, and was nice enough to give me his phone number if I wanted to call for some help. On the pile of old brick's we found that there was some cords scracted in them. The best way to read them was to get the brick wet. Those took us over to another area. By now we had come up with a plan to once we had found a set of cord's to keep looking and see if there was a second set. This idea work some till further into the cache hunt. But off to the next stage we went and it took us yet to another part of the park and quite a long hike up to it. Now I was picking off some other caches as well along the way so this added to the distance we where hiking.

After taking a round about way to this stage due to I wanted to look for another one nearby, we headed down into this gully and found an old tire, There was a film can there. Now my first instinct when I saw the can oh great another dead end, but no there was cord's in it. We looked around the area, and if I remember right couldn't find anything else. So we moved on.

We set off down a trail in another area in the park and found another stage. Here we found a small magnet on a sign post, and a film can on the ground. We wrote down both set of cord's and headed off to the closest one. Which there we couldn't find anything and that day ended there.

My next trip I was flying solo and though I would take my bike down. I had just got it and thought this is a great area to break in a mountain bike. I went back to where we where and looked and looked and looked and couldn't find anything. Then I got this great idea to take the bike for a spin on the trails. Since this was summer time, I got a big thorn in my back tire, and wasn't really up to speed on what I need to keep on hand when biking. Lesson learned there. I took this trail back that took me to the main part of the park. Since I was park about three miles away, I figure the best route with a half flat tire was to stick to the road. To give you an idea on how tired I was, I road by a cache 350 feet away, and didn't bother to stop to look for it. I just want to get back to the car to get more water.

The next trip we teamed up on it again, and got back to the spot where we were stuck. I had contacted the owner, to see if he could check on it, and he did and said yup, you just need to search a little better. So this still took some time finding but there was another magnetic strip with cord's on it. This strip was hidden on the sign so well. This lead us to another near a spot near stage two. This time we looked for a bit and found a fake branch in a tree that you pulled out and there was a file can with more cord's in it. Now these lead clear to the other side of the park. From there we hiked in that trail, and found a file can. Took the trail to that one and found another dead end. So back we headed. Now this film can was in a small old cut log. When you lifted the log the film can dropped out. Since we couldn't find anything, we got to looking very close at the log. We found a very small pin. Pulled out that pin and another film can dropped out of the hole. Very cleaver. Those had another set of cord's. Followed those took me down another.

I'm missing a few stages some where in here. One of the one's we found was a electric box, that there was no way it could be real. If I remember right there was some obvious cords on it, and that lead to another dead end. After closer look, I don't fully remember but there was a trick and another set of cord's. That led us to the park sign and I had found a small piece of metal in a crack in one of the sign post's. This was a pain to get out, but we also found a key container there as well. Both of these had the same cords on it. We I talked to the owner he said that piece of metal was a original part but no one could get it out, so he put in the key holder.

I think that's covering a couple of stage's I skipped somewhere along the line's, during this post. So off we went and found this three feet piece of conduit and there was a stick in it and that stick said you're close the last needed cord's are about a foot away. Now there was something with another set of cord's that led to another dead end. So back to the conduit we went. Well, come to find out the other side of the conduit had a cap that unscrewed off and in there was the real set for the final.

Which hitting the final, was such a relief. Found a clear screw top container (that's a state requirement for a cache in an Illinois state park, a clear container). It was just sitting in the bottom of a three.

Now I'm sure I've got some of this messed up but this gives the general idea of how this cache worked. Like I said this has been a hunt we did about a year and a half ago. Looking back on it, I think this was one of the most frustrated cache's, I've done. But glad to have taken the time to do it. It's since been archived due to the lack of people attempting it and it too the owner a lot of time to do the upkeep of this. He did a great job with all the hides and you never knew just what to expect.

I don't want to think about how much I spent in gas to get to the park, but it's such a nice park, to visit and it's just huge. I was relieved it was over but on the same hand, kind of sad it was done. In all I think there was around 30 part's to this cache including the dead end's.

But this was a very well laid out cache, and trick's around every turn. I still have to say thank you Fuzzy B, for placing this tormenting cache. We all had a great time and found out that alto of the extra electronics don't do any good on a cache like this. I think on one trip we had 6 people, 2 laptop's, 9 GPSr's, a pocket pc or two and a palm pilot. At that time between us all we had well over 7000 find's, so you'd think we would have sailed right threw it, but nope. This was one of those that would put any cacher in their place, like being a noob all over again.

I was sad when it was archived, but I understand why, due to how long it would take to run a maintenance on it. But it was laid out so well.

Thanks Fuzzy B for such a neat cache and all the memories, I've got from working on it. Thanks madkaw, for getting me out there and starting on it and finally finishing it with you. And thanks to all the other cacher's that where there as well. Those where some great time's out there, and lot's of laughs and lot's of naughty word's were said. But we had so much fun looking back at it all, and saw some cool area's of the park. I don't think I will ever forget all our time out there and getting to know those that hunted this with us.

At the time, I didn't have a camera with me so don't have any picture's of this hunt. And I think looking back, if might have been cheaper, to just pay madkaw for his time to fix our car, but again so glad to have done this cache.

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