Geocaching

The posted coordinates are incorrect, but you will need to use them to help find the real WP1.

On November 24, 1971, Dan Cooper boarded a Northwest Orient Airlines flight from Portland to Seattle, demanded and received a $200,000 ransom, and on the return flight he parachuted into the forest and has never been seen again. The disappearance of Dan "D.B." Cooper is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the 20th century.

It was a typically busy Thanksgiving Eve at the Portland International Airport (PIA) when the man calling himself Dan Cooper walked up to the Northwest Airlines ticket counter and purchased a one-way ticket on flight 305 to the Seattle-Tacoma (Sea-Tac) airport with a $20 bill. He would soon be swimming - perhaps even literally - in $20 bills.

Though skyjackings were very common in those days, no one would have suspected this smartly dressed middle aged man with no discernable accent. Most of the skyjackings of the previous years, and there were nearly 150 of them between 1967 and 1972, had been political in nature and many of the hijackers had demanded to be flown to the Middle East or Cuba. In an era of anti-establishment riots, hippies, war protests, and movies like Easy Rider, Cooper simply did it for the money.

At a little past four in the afternoon, Cooper passed most of the other 36 passengers and sat in the back of Capt. William Scott's Boeing 727. He had row 18 to himself as the plane was only a quarter full.

Shortly before the 4:35 takeoff, he passed a note to stewardess Flo Schaffner asking for four parachutes, $200,000 in unmarked bills, and "no funny stuff." The note also mentioned that Cooper had a bomb. The exact wording of the note is yet another mystery as Mr. Cooper took it with him.

The stewardess first thought he was passing her a note asking for her phone number, giving her his number, or otherwise expressing an interest in her and she simply pocketed it. If she thought there was nothing worse than getting a picked up by a middle-aged passenger, she was soon to learn otherwise. She didn't actually read it until they left the ground and turned off the seatbelt signs.

When a startled Ms. Schaffner finally read the note, she made the flight crew aware of the situation and they immediately contacted airline and airport officials.

Schaffner was sent back to row 18 to talk to Cooper and see if she could tell if he really had a bomb. Cooper briefly opened the briefcase and the stewardess later recalled she saw some red cylinders and wires. Everyone took the threat seriously from then on and all future communications with Cooper were conducted either through notes or orally but always passed through one of the stewardesses.

Law enforcement officials were concerned that the request for four parachutes might mean either that he had accomplices or that he intended to take hostages with him. In retrospect, he probably wanted them to be unsure whether or not an innocent person would be wearing one and thus, to ensure that none of the parachutes would intentionally fail.

The plane circled above the Seattle airport until a call from the FBI at 5:24 p.m. indicated they were able to come up with the parachutes and money. Though the bills were indeed unmarked, the FBI had used the circling time to use a high-speed copy machine to commit images of all 10,000 $20 bills to microfilm to aid in creating a list of the serial numbers later.

The plane landed at Sea-Tac at 5:40 and though the plane was now 65 minutes into its 45 minute flight due to the circling, the passengers were still unaware that they had been hijacked. Cooper allowed them to go and all but the flight crew and one of the flight attendants left. The pilot later recalled that the crew could have left as they were all out of the line of site of Cooper for a time but he was unable to get the attention of the flight attendant in the first class section without the risk of Cooper hearing him.

The money and parachutes were delivered to the plane and Cooper then demanded to be flown to Mexico.

What in the world does any of this have to do with the cache?

From 1961 to 1987 the Issaquah Skyport was operated on the current site of Costco and the Pickering Place retail center.

Originally the airport field was built as a training facility during World War II. Eventually, Linn Emrich leased the facility and it became the Issaquah Skyport. Mr. Emrich founded the Seattle Sky Sports Club and offered training in parachuting, gliding and ballooning from the skyport. It also hosted air shows.

Enter D.B. Cooper.

Linn Emrich tells of receiving a call from the Washington State Patrol asking him to deliver the four parachutes Cooper requested, which he did. After his demands were met, Cooper ordered the plane to take off and then jumped into a freezing rainstorm at 10,000 feet. His body was never found and his whereabouts are unknown.

Sadly, nothing remains of the old Issaquah Skyport beyond the memories and photos of skydivers and others who enjoyed the airshows and other activities. The roar of aircraft engines has been silenced and the thrill of aviation has been replaced with the rattle of shopping carts and waiting in line at Costco to buy a Kirkland brand 36 roll pack of toilet paper. This cache commemorates the great history of Issaquah and laments how development swallowed up one of it's unique features and a local link to one of the greatest unsolved criminal mysteries of the late 20th century.

Before you begin your quest you'll need to do a bit of paperwork. Browse through the trivia you find at the website, you'll need it plus a bit of specific product information regarding Kirkland brand TP sheet size for to calculate WP1. Make sure you use information household TP and not the smaller rolls made for RV's.

To find WP1 you will need to calculate how many sheets of toilet tissue D.B. Cooper would have used from the day he disappeared until the day the cache was placed (be careful). This number will be:

Using this information go:

At WP2 you will find a stool (sorry I mean a tool ) to calculate the location of the final.

To learn more about an intriguing connection between the case of D.B. Cooper and a local geocacher make sure you read Jester's log.

D.B.Cooper text with permission from Super70's.com.

Issaquah Skyport text with permission from the Issaquah Historical Society