☆ A WINDOW TO THE WORLD VIRTUAL☆ Virtual Cache
☆ A WINDOW TO THE WORLD VIRTUAL☆
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(virtual)
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This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between August 24, 2017 and August 24, 2018. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards on the Geocaching Blog. Welcome once again to another Sk8erfamily cache. Our 27th. Cache is @ the posted coordinates! The Rules change when darkness falls as the geocachers come running come one, come all... It was a late March night. The Sun had long since set below the western horizon and the moonless night allowed a sea of stars to sparkle brightly across the dark cobalt sky. There was a cool bite in the crisp air, a reminder that summmer was know where near. Your limited edition virtual cache will bring you to a place I frequent quite often, but could never place a cache here! The listed coordinates will bring you too the West tunnel entrance. In order to receive your😁 you must first count the # of caribeners on the West side of the tunnel. Then walk through to the East side and count the # of caribeners INSIDE & JUST OUTSIDE the tunnel. They might change do to new boulder routes added. If your off by a couple I'll look the other way... Just email me and log it anyways. I'll only delete your log if your way off. Bonus points if you can actually find my hidden UV cache hidden somewhere inside the 528' tunnel walls. FTF my signsure item an old buffalo nickel coin from the 1920's. It's not required to log but enjoy the challenge everyone... Sk8erfamily. Now a little history about your next cache: The Duluth, Mesabi & Iron Range Railroad delivered iron ore to the West Duluth ore docks through its yards in Proctor—essentially, over the hill. This left the Duluth, Winnipeg & Pacific (DWP) considering the second option when it arrived in Duluth in 1910. Because Duluth is surrounded by glacial cliffs formed out of basalt and granite, it would be no easy task for the DWP to link its iron ore yards in Virginia, Minn., with its planned yards in West Duluth. While engineers cut many trenches as the grade arose, one section of rock had to be bored through completely. For this tunnel, the DWP contracted Wick O’Connell & Company of Houghton, Mich., to cut and blast a two-track-wide hole through solid granite roughly 10 miles from downtown Duluth. About 60 men worked from both sides of what any Minnesotan would call a mountain, near a rail stop known as Short Line Park and Nopeming Sanatorium. The tunnel would have to be about 550 feet long to match the grade on both sides and 18 feet wide to accommodate two sets of track. To make things more complicated, the tunnel would have to include a seven-degree curve through it to match the swing of the ridge line the track had to follow. Work began in August 1910 with a mix of drills, hammers, rock bars, and dynamite. A News Tribune writer described what he saw as crews worked to shatter one layer of the granite at a time: “There is a cry of warning, the men scurry to cover, and with a roar that shakes the ground for a mile, a section of the hillside is rent in fragments and scattered far and wide.” Progress was an incredibly tedious 10 feet per day as autumn turned to winter. Waste rock removed from the tunnel was used to help smooth the bed for the rails that would lead to the city. As the work around the tunnel was coming to an end in the spring of 1911, its completion became a priority. In the final months, the number of men on site doubled. Duluth, Winnipeg & Pacific was aiming for an August 15th opening date, but that marker came and went as fast as a lit stick of dynamite. Finally, in late September, the tunnel was properly conditioned for track to be laid. As the size of the tunnel would not allow the track laying equipment to operate inside of it, the tracks were laid by hand. The tunnel saw heavy use through the 1980s until, thanks to a merger with Canadian National RR (CN), it fell into disuse. When CN took management over all DWP assets in 1996, the tunnel was abandoned. Now It's home to curious geocachers enjoy your journey and discover something new about our past. A WINDOW TO THE WORLD Sk8erfamily🤗 REFERENCES » Severson, J. (2008). Delivered with pride, a pictorial history of the duluth, winnipeg & pacific railroad. Superior: Savage Press. Duluth News Tribune, 1910-1911.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Pnenovaref ner nyy nobir lbh.
HI yvtug sbe obahf pnpur
Abg erdhverq ohg tbbq yhpx
Pbhyq or naljurer jvguva gur jnyyf bs gur 528' QJC ghaary...