We're sorry, but the ghosts were too tired to wake up this year. We will be back next year.
HALLOWEEN CACHE 2018
Woo Hoo & BOO! Come try the easy puzzle cache!
We're BACK! This is a pretty easy puzzle cache. Always wanted to try one? This is it. Bring a pencil for an old fashioned paper puzzle at the cache.
JOIN US AT MUMMYWALE—WE ARE JUST DYING TO MEET YOU
Geocaching certainly brings a bit of fun into the world, and takes you places at home and abroad just about everywhere on this earthly plane of ours…but has it ever taken you to…the other side? Mummy and Deady at Mummywale feel it is time for an otherworldy cache and invite you to come geocaching with the ghosts, goblins, and ghouls that roam our fine street when the shroud between this world and the next is most thin…All Hallow’s Eve!
People have come from all around the Bay Area for over 17 years to trick or treat on this street. We get over 1,000 trick or treaters.
Can’t make it by Halloween? That’s okay, the spirits rearrange the dimensional portal so that a little of Mummywale leaks through at the cache for the rest of the year.
A SHADE OF HALLOWEEN HISTORY
This is a very special time of year, with four special nights and days back to back, all generated by association with Halloween:
Mischief Night
October 30
Mischief night is an obscure tradition that has roots that reach farther than you think. It is a time when fairies curdled the milk, ghosts “ride” horses to exhaustion, and things generally go bump in the night! Originally it overlapped with Halloween on October 31 but moved to a day earlier. On this night, spirits that have slipped the veil into this world (or jokesters blaming said spirits!) play such pranks as TP-ing trees, ding dong ditch, and soaping car windshields. Perhaps the most famous Mischief Night prank was the Orson Wells 1938 radio broadcast adaptation of War of the Worlds, which caused widespread panic!
Halloween
October 31
Once upon a time, Halloween was a harvest festival of the Celts called Samhain. The day marked the beginning of winter. It also it also was the beginning of the new year, and more importantly the end of the old one. Peoples then believed that when the year changed, the veil between our world of the living and that of the dead grew tremulously thin. Thus, spirits escaped their realm to visit ours. Many Halloween traditions like wearing costumes and trick or treating have their roots in the ancient traditions formed in this early time.
All Saints Day
November 1
All Saints day is the day after Halloween when saints who have no other day dedicated to them are worshiped. Samhain became All Hallows Eve around 600 A.D. when Pope Gregory the first declared that missionaries should consecrate to Christ the trappings of pagan worship that kept bleeding through into their efforts to bring Christianity to Britain. So a sacred tree would be consecrated instead of chopped down (thus we get Christmas trees) or the festival of Samhain gets associated with All Saints Day and becomes the evening before a hallowed day.
All Souls Day
November 2
Plopping All Saints Day down on Halloween didn’t have the mitigating effect that the was hoped for. The association with a day of the dead was apparently too strong to mitigate thusly, so in the ninth century, another day was added to the calendar of holidays generated by Halloween: All Souls Day. This was a Christian feast day devoted to praying for the souls of the dead, which not only tied into the spirit traditions preceding it, but reinforced those traditions going forward.
GETTING DOWN TO BARE BONES: THE CACHE
Year round/not October setup -- open
Aww…you missed all the spirits at Halloween. Never fear, a little spirit is left inside the cache just waiting for you. You will go directly to the cache site…but wait, it’s still not that easy. You will have to pass the challenge the spirits left for you. Bring a pen or pencil for your duel with the gatekeeper. If you need a little help, pay attention to the second hint (the first one is only for Halloween).
Halloween/October Setup -- closed
You will start at one location and then visit another to get at the treat…and a trick along the way! It's not tremendously hard (the hard rating is mostly because of time). Bring pencil and if you come at night, a flashlight will be helpful Finding this cache is a little thorny—literally, so you may also want a pair of gloves and to watch the little ones.
From the initial waypoint you will visit two other sites, both of which are less than 5 minutes walk from each other.
Site 1: the Mummywale Mayhem: a Hag’s Tale gets you from the waypoint to the first site and gives a little hint of what you are looking for. You need to look for a new clue, which is hidden in plain sight (no looking or touching under or around things is necessary). Some people find a flashlight helpful here.
Site 2: Here you have to find something hidden, decode a puzzle, which gives access to the treats.
So, are you dying to get started? Follow this clue…if you dare!
Mummywale Mayhem: A Hag’s Tale
Listen trick or treaters and you shall here
A tale of woe and horror and fear
A geocacher went out one Halloween night
A disbeliever unaware of his plight,
For as that day fades away in Sunnyvale
Night casts its shadow over Mummywale.
The safe little berg full of hustle and bustle
Gives way to ghouls and shadows that rustle.
This is where our cacher went,
Focused on treasure one hundred percent.
He found a Way called Heatherstone
And a creepy old leathery crone
When his footfall took him past her
South onto South Knickerbocker
She let out a flesh-curdling scream
That almost turned his brain to melted ice cream.
Stunned, he turned to eye this horrific hag.
She stood in her billowing cloak of shadow and rag
With screechy black bats caught in spider-web hair
And a golf-ball sized eye with horrific stare.
Her gnarled old finger she pointed at him
“Away ye cacher or face a fate grim!
Tonight is for goblins, and ghosts, and ghouls
Not for the likes of you and clueless fools!
I’ve a skeleton friend in need of a bone or two
Over the centuries, he’s lost quite a few,
I think you’ll agree, new found friend of mine
It’s hard to geocache without a spine!”
That bony old hand grabbed his neck
And gave it a shake as he cried “What the Heck?!”
The last words of our cacher ’fore he went to his grave
Here in Mummywale’s cemetery to be enslaved
Now ’neath gravestones, in earth he does wallow
Pointing the way for geocacher’s to follow.
Good luck, and may the spirits move you…and protect you. Goodness knows you’ll need that here in Mummywale…
Muahhhaaahhhaaa!