Green Lake National Fish Hatchery Mystery Cache
Green Lake National Fish Hatchery
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I wanted to make this cache fun, interesting and educational. At the same time, most geocachers will find this an easy mystery cache. However, you must first go to a sign at the hatchery to find the coordinates of the cache. Coordinates listed above are for the front gate where you enter the hatchery.
Green Lake National Fish Hatchery, open year round, is a wonderful spot to bring the entire family. Located on Route 180 just north of Ellsworth, Maine (N44.37.455 – W068.26.108 listed above is the front gate), this hatchery raises Atlantic salmon and is the only hatchery that provides the smolts that are stocked in Maine’s rivers. The Green Lake hatchery receives salmon eggs from the Craig Brook hatchery, incubates and regulates those eggs to hatch, and then raises the salmon to an age and size that can be placed into Maine’s river system. Between spring and fall releases, Green Lake National Fish Hatchery releases 1 million Atlantic salmon each year! The hatchery also supplies schools with the Atlantic salmon eggs that classes raise as a school project, watch them grow, and then release them into the appropriate rivers. The hatchery is open to the public and in the public viewing area you can see salmon at different stages swimming in pools, growing and waiting to be released. The front gate and viewing area are open from 7:30am to 4:00pm each day and admission is free. In addition, the main office building is open Monday-Friday and if you visit on those days you can observe pictures showing the 100+ year history of the hatchery and it’s here that they keep some large “breeder” fish. The main office building is also where they keep the eggs waiting to hatch (depending on the time of year you visit) and staff there are happy to give you a quick lesson on how this all works. During your visit feel free to ask questions of any of the staff you see. They are happy to share the wealth of information they have acquired over the decades. Also of interest is the nearby California Redwood feeding pipe that brings water from Green Lake down to a privately owned electrical power plant beside the hatchery. Finally, you can follow that redwood feeding pipe up to the Green Lake dam.
Please remember:
- The facility is open from 7:30am to 4:00pm daily.
- Please park in the visitor’s parking area.
- Then walk to the “Visitor’s Viewing Area.”
- After determining the coordinates of the cache,
simply walk to the final location of the cache just
up the road.
- Cache is an ammo can, winter-friendly.
To get the cache coordinates you must:
- Go to the “Visitor’s Viewing Area”, once inside
look to your right, you will see the large sign
there that says “Year In Review”. All of the
required answers are on that sign.
- In any question referring to a month, use the
numbers of the months to fill in the blanks.
For instance: January=1, February=2, March=3,
April=4, May=5, etc.
Questions:
A. In this month, fry are split to reduce over-
crowding of nursery area. Fry are moved to outside
pools. A = ___
B. How many outside fish pools are there? 1__2
C. In this month, eggs hatch and are moved to the fry
nursery room. Fish are now called ”sac fry.”
C = ___
D. In this month, fry are in the nursery area and
outside pools are in use at full capacity. These
fish are now smolts and stocking begins. D = ___
E. Look at the picture on the left side of the sign.
How many stages are there between egg and smolt
(not counting egg or smolt)? E = ___
F. Up to 2_0,000 salmon parr will be tagged
annually. F = ___
Final coordinates for the cache are:
N 44.37.A B C
W 068.26.D E F
Have a great time!
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