If you know us (Gary Man and Data Wrangler), you know that we enjoy caching at night, whether it is an official night cache or not. We thought we were fairly familiar with the Apalachicola National Forest, but on a recent trip found ourselves turned around a bit near Moore Lake. We were taking what we thought was a shortcut back to the car, but soon got lost in the woods. How do you get lost with four GPSr’s between us? Simple. You have four GPSr’s with no topo map and no detail of the roads in the forest.
While we were staggering around in the moonless dark hoping to find a trail or road leading back to the main road, we happened upon a simple camp. No one was there, but it showed evidence of recent occupancy. Just within the cone of his flashlight beam, Gary noticed something that looked like a book. It turned out to be a journal. Page 1 began by telling the story of a grand adventure involving the journal writer, his friend and his friend’s son. They were going to spend a month exploring the vast national forest. But as the days went on, the journal entries got more and more bizarre. There were mentions of strange noises, ritual chanting, and maniacal laughter after the sun went down. In the daytime, he wrote of seeing evidence of a lot of activity (footprints, stamped down grass) near their camp. The last entry, just two days previous, told of the writer being afraid something was coming after them. The rest of the journal was blank. And now we stand in a deserted camp.
As Gary and I were taking this in, all of a sudden, both our flashlights went out! The black woods around us erupted with tremendous rustling and loud grunts and snorts. We were so scared we just took off running, not knowing where we were going, just certain we didn’t want to stay there. Somehow we found the main road, got back to the car and put the pedal to the metal. When we made it back to town and calmed down somewhat, Gary realized he had dropped the journal back at the camp.
The next morning, under the reassuring presence of the sun, we had begun to wonder whether what we experienced had really happened. I pulled out my GPSr to check for waypoints and for the first time saw that a track had been recorded. Using that information, we decided to return to the “scene of the crime.” But, the strangest part of this whole thing is that when we got back to where the track indicated, the camp was gone and there was no evidence that anything had ever been there.
The question for you, then, is to find out what happened to these people. Did they vanish into thin air? Did indeed something “get them” in the forest? Were we just simply lost and not able to find the location of the abandoned camp? One thing I can tell you for sure: we’re not going past the Moore Lake parking lot.
Event Details
The event begins at 7:00 p.m. and lasts for an hour. Search party orientation begins at 7:30 p.m.
You are invited to attend even if you don’t plan on going out.
The search party is your chance for a little friendly competition where teams will collect clues and earn points as fast as they can, all by the light of a half moon. This will be a semi-competitive, stumbling in the dark, fun caching activity involving a hike, caches and loads of fun. Did we mention it would be in the dark . . . on Halloween?
Search Party Details:
The course should take two to two and a half hours—some groups will be slower, some will be faster.
Two- to four-person teams recommended. We can’t allow you to go out alone because it is too dangerous.
Items your team will need:
- Digital camera with flash
- Writing utensil
- A clipboard (might be useful)
- Flashlight
- An information sheet that will be available at the posted coordinates.
The first search party will depart at 8:00 p.m. Subsequent groups will leave in 20-minute intervals. Search party volunteers may leave at any time during the night but must be finished before dawn on Saturday.
The sharing of stories and awarding of prizes will follow on Saturday! See GC5EN08 Search Party Wrapup.