Having grown up tromping thorugh the mossy woods of Ravenna Raveen and playing pooh-sticks with my father from the little wooden bridges over Ravenna Creek, creating this cache was one of my favorite geocaching projects. It is based on a surprising discovery I never knew existed until I simply stumbled across it one day whlie out exploring. While several local cachers solved the stages and found the final, the original cache went missing a few times as the area underwent changes to the buildings and landscape. A new container is nestled nearby the original hide, but hopefully in a more secure spot less likely to wander away. The original was archived, so this is the Recovery of the Discovery.
Most geocachers in the Seattle area are familiar with Ravenna Creek as it runs through Ravenna Park, but where it goes from there has been a mystery to many, or at least a matter of little concern... until now. If done correctly, this multi only requires you to walk about a half-mile start to finish (so just under a mile round trip), but to complete this cache you might also have to brush up on your botany or find a friend in the floral business.
Ravenna Creek once flowed all the way from Green Lake to Lake Washington's Union Bay, but much of that creek bed disappeared over a hundred years ago due to Seattle's growth and urban development. The creek was cut off in 1911 when Green Lake was lowered 7 feet and separated from Lake Washington in the 1950s and 1960s when it was piped into the county sewage system to accommodate development. Only 3,500 feet of the original creek remains, confined to Ravenna and Cowen parks.
While the creek can still easily be explored in the ravine connecting Cowen and Ravenna Parks, its path from there has been harder to follow. This multi-cache will reveal the rest of the story.
The creek in its natural form disappears underground through a large funnel grate at the edge of Ravenna Park (see additional reference point below) designed by a San Francisco artist, Mark Breast van Kempen. Whereas it once emptied straight into a sewer line and the city's waste-water system, a day-lighting project (completed in 2006) reconnected Ravenna Creek with Lake Washington via an underground culvert that empties into the University Slough, the way nature originally intended. To claim this multi- you will have to follow the creek and identify a few things along the way. When you arrive at the starting coords, it should be clear which direction to go.
As you wander, keep your wits about you; you may even catch a glimpse of the creek itself once or twice. Along your way you will come across a number of native plants in a particular order... To complete this multi-cache you must fill in the accompanying worksheet (image shown above), matching each plant to its picture, then assigning it the correct number to complete the final formula and sign the log. The first plant you come across heading downstream will be #1, the next #2 and so forth. There are many plants in the area, but it should be obvious when you've truly encountered Ravenna's Seedy Underground.
I suggest taking the worksheet with you and figuring out names and numbers as you go. If you have any trouble along the way, there's a nearby establishment particularly suited to helping you fill in the blanks.
Here's the text-based adventure version of the worksheet formula.
Assign a number to the plants shown in photos A-O according to the order in which you find them while heading downstream.
In the following calculations, if result is negative, simply make it positive.
If a result has two digits, keep only the rightmost digit.
Q = (A-K), R = (J+O), S = (E+I), T = (G-L), U = (D-B)
V = (F+N), W = (C-D), X = (H-M), Y = (L-J), Z = (B+F)
The final for this multi-cache can be found at:
N47° QR.STU, W122° VW.XYZ
Start looking for plants after you've walked RAVENNA CREEK once, but before you begin RAVENNA CREEK a second time. You need only walk RAVENNA CREEK twice to complete the worksheet. This will make more sense once you are in the field. The final hide from the original disappeared with some landscaping changes, but a new much smaller container is concealed about 10 feet to the east. If you're anywhere near the right spot, it shouldn't be too hard to locate.