This cache was placed when both the Rampart Reservoir area was closed, and the gate to the southern part of Rampart Range Road was closed, so it is accessible, even during winter.
The geocache is NOT AT THE ABOVE COORDINATES, and you will not need a boat to get to it. You WILL, however, have to solve the challenging puzzle below.
Update December 19: My puzzle didn't work at first so I had to check sum of my work; if you tried the checker previously, try it again -- it is now fixed, and working properly.
Mrs. Claus called the other day. She said that Santa and all of those elves working 24/7 were driving her crazy and she needed a break just before Christmas. If I could figure out something to do with Santa and the elves, she could rest at home with the reindeer. No problem, I said, I'll teach Santa a little about geocaching, and we can visit some historic geocaching spots !
My motto used to be "I Always Travel Alone" but with this tasker and the need for assisting Mrs. Claus if I could, I made an exception this time.
Before I knew it, I had Santa and so many elves in my little log cabin in Woodland Park, I couldn't count them all !
We decided on six geocaches to investigate, whether or not they still existed because as always, getting there is half the fun. With all of those elves, we decided to charter a REALLY big jumbo jet to get us around after making sure everyone had their North Pole passports. We agreed that while the US was the birthplace of geocaching, that we wouldn't limit ourselves to just the US, so we agreed to work on three caches in the US, and three in other countries.
The cache is at N 38 57.??? W 104 59.???
For our first geocache, Santa said not to make it too easy, so we decided to go for the oldest multi-cache in the world that still exists. Good times were had by all, but keeping all of those elves together while searching for a multi-cache in the woods? Herding cats is EASY compared to that ! "Hey, look at all this great wood that we could use to make toys!" Yeah. Come on elves -- FOCUS ! We are GEOCACHING !
Then we flew to the the site of the first geocache ever, placed by Dave Ulmer. The cache isn't there anymore, but we had a great time talking about early geocaching, anyway.
Next we flew to where the cache with the most Favorite Points awarded is. Santa and the elves LOVED this location, as it is something they work with ALL the time ! Even though this geocache has been archived, it still has the most Favorite Points, even more than any active geocache.
Then we flew to see the area where the first cache outside the US was. Unfortunately that one doesn't exist anymore, but the elves had a great time reminiscing about how many of their cousins had a connection to the country (if you don't get it, send me a note asking).
I told Santa that after our adventure was over, I would create a new geocache to let others know of our geo-quest. Since I was going to create a mystery/puzzle cache, he said that we should look for a cache of that type. So, we flew to find the first Mystery Cache (with the ? icon) ever, which still exists ! Don't cross the bridge. (If you have ever gone for this one, you will know what that means). And, don't cross the bridge.
Since we had to get another cache outside the US, we decided to fly to where we could go to one of the most prized caches for those statistic junkies, like myself: the elusive Quad Jasmer. To meet the Jasmer Challenge, a cacher must find one geocache placed in each month since geocaching began in May of 2000. Double Jasmer -- two per month. Triple Jasmer can be completed in the US but for Quad Jasmer, that is an international flight.
That finished off our adventures, Santa and the elves made it back to the North Pole in plenty of time before Christmas, and Mrs. Claus was very glad that she got a much-deserved break.
Good luck !
CONGRATULATIONS to hartsdale for FTF honors !!!