Dead Horse Gully Traditional Cache

This cache has been archived.

Cache-tech: Greetings from Geocaching.com

I have had no contact with the cache owner since my last note and there has been no notes posted to the cache page in that time. While I feel that Geocaching.com should hold the location for you and block other cachers from entering the area around this cache for a reasonable amount of time I don’t think we can do so any longer. Therefore, I have archived this cache.
When repairs to this cache are completed and it is time to have it reposted, it will be no problem. Just drop me a note and let me know the GC waypoint number of the cache or better yet, the URL of the cache page. You will still be able to access your cache page just as before by going to your “My Cache Page” and clicking the link (Mine) across the top and then click on this cache.

I will be more than happy to take a look at your cache again to see if it is still is within the guidelines of the Geocaching.com website for cache placement and posting.

I want to thank you for the time that you have taken to contribute to geocaching in the past and am looking forward to seeing your cache up and running in the future. If you do not plan on replacing/repairing your cache, please CITO any remains returning the site to the original state before you placed your cache.

Thanks for your understanding,
Cache-tech
Geocaching.com Volunteer Cache Reviewer

NOTE: do not select reply in your e-mail program if you wish to respond to this message from the geocaching.com mail bot. Go to this cache page and e-mail cache-tech from my profile linked from the log, referencing the cache URL's, or GC code.

More
Hidden : 4/23/2007
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2.5 out of 5

Size: Size: regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

Parking is available at N45°35.013', W062°40.326'. The cache is located in the wooded area know as Dead Horse Gully. Access to the main path on which the cache is located is at the bottom of Birchwood Drive, a short distance west from the parking area. Follow path into the woods until you come across a trail running perpendicular to the one you are on. Turn right on this path and follow it until you reach the gully.

This area of woods got its spooky name from an old ghost story I was told as a child. Though I never camped out to see if it is true, it still gives me the heeby-jeebies today.

The tale is set in a simpler time when horse and buggy were the main mode of transportation and Munroe Ave. Ext. was still only a cart path with only a few log houses. It starts on a dark and rainy eighth of October evening, with a nameless man finishing his fourth or fifth drink too many at the seediest tavern in town, located in the wooded area that would soon be changed forever. The townspeople were tired of seeing the man drown his sorrows and decided that he would be better off in the rain and darkness that engulfed the forest outside the quiet watering hole. As a few burly lumber workers were dragging the man to the door, his slurred bantering could scarcely be heard over the scrapping of his heels over the creaking floorboards, but at least a few of the patrons received his message – that he would get his revenge on the town for the years of hardship he endured at their expense.

Where the details of the next part of the tale come from is unclear, but this is what I heard happened to the man shortly after his untimely exit from the local tavern. He mounted is straggly, malnourished steed, and headed down a lesser used trail parallel to the main cart path. He was nearing the dangerous gully, which was crossed by a handful of rotting logs that didn’t even warrant the term ‘bridge’, which was the reason the trail was so scarcely used in the first place. Ignoring his horse’s apprehension, he urged him onto the center of the logs, a deadly fall’s distance from the rocks piled below. His mount stopped on the midway point and flicked his ears to the side, the only warning the man received before the horse reared and sent both him and the man down into the rocked filled gully below. Both man and horse were never seen alive again, and the only evidence of their deaths was the scraps of clothing and saddle left by the scavenging coyotes that had been the cause of the perilous fall.

From this point on, it becomes a ghost story, but not one of haunting and revenge as the townspeople had feared at the time. During the few seconds before the man perished in the fall, or perhaps in the minutes before the coyotes finished the job, he forgave the people that had rejected him throughout his troubled life, and made a new vow not to let this tragic ending come to anyone else. For even now, on the eighth of October, if you walk down the forsaken trail, you will hear the uneven thumping of horses hooves, the eerie howl of coyotes, and a mans voice warning you to beware of Dead Horse Gully.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Va gur thyyl, ybbx evtug.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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