This cache is placed for MiGO Winter Social GCAV1E6. Y'all come join the fun!
The Oregon Trail was a key migration route that pioneers used to cross the western United States. The trail started in Independence, MO, and ended at the Columbia River valley in Oregon, stretching 2,170 miles. The route was originally travelled by fur traders in 1811 and was only passable by foot or horseback. By 1836, the route had been improved to allow wagons to travel as far as Idaho. Many offshoot trails joined and split from the main trail at both ends. An estimated 400,000 settlers, farmers, ranchers, business owners, and miners used the trail between 1846 and 1869 when the first Transcontinental Railroad was completed.
In the "Great Migration of 1843", 700 to 1,000 emigrants set out for Oregon with a huge wagon train. Upon reaching Fort Hall in Idaho, they were warned that the trail further was only passable with pack horses. The guide, Marcus Whitman, disagreed and the wagon train proceeded. They cut and imroved new trail as they moved through the mountains of eastern Oregon, finally reaching an impass at Mt. Hood and the Columbia River. They remove the wheels from the wagons, mounted the wagon boxes on locally constructed rafts and floated down the river to reach their destination in the Willamette Valley with remarkably little loss of life. A road was later built south of Mt. Hood to eliminate the river rafting portion of the route.
The greatest threats to the emigrants was due to disease and starvation or nutritional deficiencies. Large numbers of people followed the same routes and camped at the same locations with little to no sanitation. The water sources quickly became contaminated and cholera was common. Much of the food required for the months long journey needed to be brought along. The diet of dried goods could be supplemented with fishing and hunting, but there was little opportunity to obtain fresh produce. Scurvy was was a common outcome.
One of the most tragic chapters was that of the Donner party. They started out in Independence, but encounter a number of delays. They departed from the main trail in an effort to find a shorter route to California. The delays resulted in a later arrival to the mountains and they found the wagons bogged down and trapped in the Sierra Nevadas by an early snow storm. They were trapped there through the winter. Food supplies ran short and people began to die of starvation and disease. Those who survived were forced to cannibalize those who had died. By spring only 48 of the original 87 members lived to continue.
The cache is not at the posted coordinates, but it is a good place to start.
The cartridge was created by -Waldmeister- and is available to download >>> HERE <<<
Your task is to find the cache by periodically querying your Reverse Cache Box for the distance to the final location. Try to use your Reverse Cache Box as few times as possible. All instructions and necessary information needed to complete the cartridge is contained within it. The cartridge is multilingual. To begin, select 'Play' then type this code into your player:
904365
394721
821885
This is one cache in a series. Be sure to collect the info for the bonus cache GCB2470