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Arachne's Daughter, Aragénie Traditional Cache

This cache has been archived.

GSFirefly: Gone! It had a good run, though.

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Hidden : 1/4/2012
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size:   micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

An addition to the Schweitzer cache collection. Winter-friendly and family/kid friendly, but not handicachable. I averaged coords for a while, but trees may play havoc with signal. Use your geosenses. When you get close you'll see that there are not many options.



Arachne was a girl who lived in Greece a long time ago. She was a very good weaver and spinner. She wove all sorts of beautiful pictures into her cloth, and people came from all around to see her beautiful cloth. But Arachne was arrogant.

She began telling people she was better at spinning and weaving than the goddess Athena was. Athena was also known as a good spinner and weaver.

Athena was mad that Arachne would say that, and she challenged Arachne to a weaving contest. The two of them set up their looms in the same room, and they wove from early in the morning until it got too dark to see. They compared what they had done.

Athena had woven a beautiful cloth showing the gods and goddesses sitting together on Mt. Olympus and doing good deeds for people. But Arachne thought she was so smart, she wove a cloth making fun of the gods and goddesses, showing them getting drunk and falling down and making a mess of things. Still it was clearly better weaving than Athena had done. When Athena saw it she was even more angry than she had been before.

Even though Arachne's weaving was better, Athena didn't care. She pointed her finger at Arachne and suddenly Arachne's nose and ears shrank up, her hair all fell out, her arms and legs got long and skinny, and her whole body shrank until she was just a little tiny spider (Arachne means spider in Greek). "You want to spin," cried Athena, go ahead and spin!"

Arachne's descendants are spinning to this very day.

Her daughter Aragénie is from the French branch of the family. She lived in a lovely château in the French Alps until, alas, a reversal of fortune forced her to relocate to the States, near her wealthy identical twin sister Aradonna, who lives, appropriately, on Upper GOLD Creek Road. But she missed her mountains, so she moved to Schweitzer Mountain Resort.

Like most of her relatives, she prefers a secluded life. However, she likes to hang out where she can watch the skiers. In summer hikers sometimes pass by. She cannot see the Village, but she can hear the happy shouts of children as they frolic in the pool. In winter the ski school bell is her alarm clock.

The terrain difficulty will vary with the seasons. I placed this while skiing, but I confess that I had to remove one ski. Had I been taller, or had the snow been deeper at GZ, I might have been able to keep both skis on.

Cache is near the run. Most muggles will not pay attention to you, but use stealth as necessary.

Attached to Aragénie is a bison. In the bison is a clear tube containing the log sheet. You should be able to remove only the clear tube, leaving everything else in place. You'll need a pen, and tweezers.

This is a nice blue run, so I hope that just about everyone should be able to make the acquaintance of Aragénie. The youngest cachers, and some height-challenged adults, will need help for the reach. I am not quite 5'4", and I had to stretch. At the time of placement there was an available natural step on which to stand. Deeper snow pack should put you closer.

Be safe. And have fun. I did. So did RLDrosophila, who accompanied me and offered his always sage advice.

Congratulations to NorthWestWells and Zipperlee on the FTF on a cold, powder-rich, day!

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

V ercrng: Fur yvxrf gb unat bhg.

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)