Why this madness?
I have a number of friends who are convinced that there simply aren't enough multicaches in the area. Multicaches can be fun when well executed and I hope you'll find this series of multicaches offers a pleasant trip into a number of parks and trails in the southern Snohomish county area. Not a single cache is hidden under a lamp post in a parking lot with a million people watching you make the grab.
All the caches are simple multicaches where you'll get information from a sign or two and then calculating where the final hide is. At each of the ten caches in this series, you'll find that either the log or the container (sometimes both) have been marked with a letter from A through J along with a corresponding number. Take note of these numbers as you'll need them to find the final cache in the series Multicache Madness - FINAL.
Interurban Trail
The Interurban Trail runs along the abandoned electric Interurban Railway line. The most famous stop for most geocachers would have been the one just outside of Geocaching HQ, immortalized by the statue "Waiting for the Interurban" in Fremont.
The railway ran from Seattle to Everett starting in 1910 (later extended up to Bellingham) and ran as the main connection between the two cities until 1939. At that point, highway 99 also connected the two cities and competition with the automobile was a losing proposition financially in that era. It seems ironic that we're now spending billions of dollars to run light rail between those same two spots when we had a functional light rail system that was abandoned 80 years ago.
Calculating the final coordinates
For this multicache in the series, we'll use waypoint projection to calculate the final coordinates. Nearly every GPS unit has a waypoint projection module built into it, as does the popular IOS geocaching app Cachely. As this was written, the official Geocaching app from HQ does not include this capability. Even if that is the app you use, you are not out of luck - the Geocaching Toolbox can do this via the web on your browser of choice, so you can use that method as well.
There used to be a very nice sign at this location. Unfortunately the sign (which had great information) was torn down as part of the housing development that is going in next to the Interurban Trail Access. No worries, there are other things to look at here, even if they are less interesting than the sign would have been. At the posted coordinates, you'll see some PVC pipe that decends into the ground next to the telephone pole. On that PVC pipe is a big bright yellow sticker and you can use that sticker to calculate the coordinates for the multicache.
- There is a 3-digit number towards the bottom of the sticker (ignore anything in fine print). That number will be abc.
The final cache is a projection from the posted coordinates:
- Angle of abc-524 degrees (true)
- Distance of abc-357 feet