Snake River Snipe Hunt Mystery Cache
Ice and Wind: The cache owner has not responded, or corrected the problems with the cache, so I must regretfully archive this listing.
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Located near Celebration Park in Southern Canyon County. At the end of Sinker Road. - NIGHT TIME CACHE - It is preferred that you do this cache when it is dark, but it could be done in the daytime with patience and good eyes.
I came out to the south county area at dusk to do some maintenance on some of my cache hides. Darkness fell as I was heading towards the last cache. I pulled out my flashlight and worked my way around through the rocks.
As I was walking towards my power rock cache, I saw the eyeshine of someone or something out in the rocks ahead of me to the west. I was worried about what was out there in the dark until I realized what it was. I had a memory from my childhood come back to haunt me.
As a 12 yr old boy scout, I had camped near this area at Swan Falls dam. During that trip I was told by the scout leaders of a nocturnal bird that was called a snipe. They said that the bird only came out at night when it was really dark. The bird was wary of loud noises. And that we could only locate this bird by shining our flashlights around about until we saw their eyeshine, or reflection of their eyes out in the darkness. The leaders told us to go out into the desert that night with a flashlight & sack and try and catch one of these birds. Well the long story short is that we ended up not seeing or catching any of those elusive birds that night.
Back to the present. There to the west of me, I could see the white eyeshine of a snipe. I know these birds are rare, so I quickly marked the location of where I first saw it on my gps. It is the location that is listed above for this cache. From there, I ran west towards the white eyed snipe until I found where it was sitting on a rock. I then shined my light around until I saw another one to my south. This time it was a yellow or red eyed snipe. I ran to it. I looked about and found another. And so on until I found that about a dozen of the little critters that were living out there in the rocks. That night I saw yellow, blue, red, and white eyed snipes in the rocks. I had to look hard for the blue ones, as they were really hard to see. I found that if I could find one snipe, and stand close to it, I could shine my flash light around and find the eyeshine of another snipe nearby.
The last snipes that I saw were a white eyed, red eyed and blue eyed snipe that were sitting on top of a big rock under or near the power lines.
In hopes that you can also see these elusive and rare birds. I have hidden a cache in a one liter black thermos in the rocks, below the large rock where I saw those last three snipes.
These snipes usually can only be seen after dark. This is a night time preferred cache, so bring a strong flashlight to be able to see their eyeshine in the dark. Then go to the listed coordinates above and look to the west and see if you can see the first white eyed snipe.
If you can't make it after dark, the snipes can sometimes be seen in the day if you have really good eyes and the time to search for them.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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