Aaron and I headed out to hide a geocache in one of Dakota County Parks’ least known tracts of land, Miesville Ravine Park Reserve. About 22 miles from my house (as the crow flies) and only a few miles outside of Cannon Falls, this undeveloped wilderness is apparently one of the South Metro’s hidden trout treasures which boasts 1,700 acres of land and 2.7 miles of hiking all through the ravine that the Cannon River has cut through.

After pulling into the parking lot and changing into a pair of permethrin treated jeans, Aaron and I attempted to locate the only other geocache in this park — one located a mere 300 feet from the parking lot. We were very disappointed that, with all that open land, someone chose to throw a cache right next to the parking area. We were determined to change that :)

We never did locate that cache (see here) because it’s likely missing. We did find the likely spot (a knot hole in the middle of a log spanning the creek) but based on some previous logs it’s likely that the cache was stolen.

After finding my first wood tick of the season (seemingly paralyzed from the permethrin and easily removed) we were off to the depths of the park to find the best spot for our cache. Aaron had packed along a nice ammo box chock full of crap and some snacks — mmm. With the temperature in the upper 70s, we were a bit exhausted by the time we reached the top end of the trail system. We crossed the creek and stood at the bottom of the bluffs. I was determined to place the cache at the top of the bluff and that’s exactly what I set out to do.

After quite a bit of huffing and puffing we reached the top, took some photos of the nice view, and made room for our cache. After tucking it away and hiding it behind some rocks we were done. A cache that I’m very proud of and one I can say that drat19 would be thrilled to find ;) Check out the cache page here.

I’ll be back soon to check out the rest of the trail system and hide a multi that will take advantage of even more of the trails and terrain. Look for that to be coming soon :)

See all the pictures from today here (mobile) and here (camera). Also be sure to check out Aaron’s photos of the day here.

Related posts:

1. Geocaching with Moe the Sleaze at Crosby Park: St. Paul, MN
2. Spring Lake Park Reserve: Caching with sui generis
3. Sunset over the Mississippi River: Spring Lake Park Reserve; Rosemount, MN
4. Camping at Dakota County’s Lake Byllesby: Cannon Falls, MN
5. Minnehaha Falls Park: Minneapolis, MN