Treasure of the Wrath Traditional Geocache
TigerJon: I have decided to decommission this listing for now. I will likely put a new cache in this same location at some point in the future.
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Hunters should have good hiking shoes and a stout heart. The trailhead parking area is at N47 48.554, W121 34.428. Trail is 2.5 miles long (one way) with an elevation change of 800 feet.
In 1735, the pirate ship Wrath ran aground on the Washington Coast. making the crew among the first western visitors to the region. Unsure of their exact location (since they had just spent several days riding out a tremendous storm which eventually resulted in their grounding), the crew decided to split up and head inland in search of civilization. As far as is known, all the sailors eventually perished from the elements. Remains of several of them have been unearthed over the years. In 1938 a notebook was discovered belonging to one of the crew, an Englishman named John Casey, who had put the story down on paper. Up until recently, this had been the only evidence this event ever occurred. It caused a bit of a stir at the time because he also indicated that each crew member had taken with him a portion of the ship's treasure. Although many seekers have looked, no trace of it was ever found.
Until last week, that is. I was hiking one of my favorite spots and rooting around the area looking for interesting rocks (I'm a geologist) when I encountered a treasure chest! It is remarkably well preserved because it was wrapped in what looks like seal skin lined with fur, keeping it reasonably dry all these years. Although there is no direct evidence linking it to the Wrath, and I can't see what would have taken one of the crew out to this location, I'm at a loss to determine where else it could have come from. Contained in the chest is a ship's log, but unfortunately it's completely blank.
Because of the historical significance of the find, I didn't want to disturb the location too much so I took a single doubloon and left a short entry in the log book (I couldn't help it) to indicate I had been there, and otherwise left it as I found it. Although I will eventually report this to the Washington State Historical Society, I thought it would be nice to share the thrill of the find with a few fellow geocachers first.
The chest is a little smaller than a breadbox and made of oak and brass. It has a lock on it, but it's broken. It's wrapped in a seal skin cloth to keep out the water.
If you do manage to find it, I'd enourage you to also do the log and coin thing and put it back in as close to the same condition as possible. There are five other nice doubloons in the chest (wrapped in with the log book), as well as many coins of lesser value, some jewelry, precious gemstones, and exotic seashells. Remember the historical significance of the site and please don't get greedy!
Warning: because of the length and difficulty of the hike (and because this is first cache I ever placed) I wanted to make sure that no one went away open handed, so the final encrypted clue pretty much gives the location away. Only look at it if you're desperate!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
[Driving directions:] HF 2 gb Zbhag Vaqrk Ebnq gb Ynxr Frerar Genvyurnq. [Cache:] evtug bs gur jngresnyy, oruvaq perivpr va ebpx snpr.