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Tree Beard Traditional Cache

This cache has been archived.

nonaeroterraqueous: It feels clever to have a cache so well disguised that people can hike right past it all day and not see it, even though it's in plain sight. However, it's a little unnerving when that cache is high maintenance, and one never knows when a big chunk of camouflage might fall off and leave it obvious and obtrusive to any number of hikers before it happens to get repaired. I'll sleep better with this one gone.

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Hidden : 6/26/2013
Difficulty:
1 out of 5
Terrain:
3 out of 5

Size: Size:   regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

Near Long Lake in Plumas National Forest.  Located in plain sight, right next to the trail.


Well, there's an old axiom that if something seems amazing that no one has ever tried it, then there's probably a good reason why no one has ever tried it.  It's an old axiom.  I just made it up myself.  We always wondered why no one ever placed a cache on any of Long Lake's islands, so we put ourselves through the herculean effort to haul a boat up there, and then I went back and hauled an enormous weight in geocaches up to the boat.  We were on our merry way, just a few yards from shore, when we were met with the Long Lake winds.  We almost capsized, and with the extreme density of the caches, they would have been lost forever, and so might we.  It was several minutes of panic, but we finally got back.  I tossed most of them in a bush for future retrieval, and placed one a short distance away, to be published there.  As my wife and I were hauling the boat back down the trail, we passed a group of girls who were pointing right at the cache and laughing.  I figured I'd been found out.  The cache is, after all, in plain sight.  But they didn't see the cache, though they were looking right at it.  The cammouflage worked.  They were laughing at what they perceived to be a face on the tree, and they were calling it Tree Beard, after the Ent of Lord of the Rings.  So that's where the name of this cache comes from.  Can you see a face in the tree?  Maybe it's just me.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

unatvat

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)