The Melt: Cottage Grove Ravine Park

On Saturday, I took advantage of the surprising weather forecast and joined up with Chuck for a day of caching in Cottage Grove. A bunch of new caches had popped up in Cottage Grove Ravine Park and Chuck suggested that we head out to nab them, along with many others, while enjoying the day.

We started a bit later than we are accustomed to (8:30) and eventually made it to the park itself just after 9. There were about 15 caches in the park and many of those had been hidden quite recently. Most of them were regular sized and several were nicely hidden ammo cans — my favorite. We hiked the entire length of the park to get almost all of the caches and were quite surprised to find that only one other caching group was out at the same time we were. I took a couple of pictures of the lake to show the receding ice but didn’t get any showing the snow that was still on the trails and in some of the deeper wooded areas.

Even though the weather has been warmer very recently, I was quite surprised to hear that tick season had already begun here in the Twin Cities. I seriously believe that the little blood sucking fuckers are getting more resilient every year and show up earlier and earlier even with snow cover still sticking around. Chuck already had several ticks on his pants after the third cache in the park (and the second in the woods). I found about 20 total yesterday and while I don’t have the same enthusiastic reaction (previously known as the “tick dance”) that I used to, I was not pleased to find the little bastards making their way up my clothing.

The next caching adventure I will likely have, especially with the new job starting soon, will be with Chuck and Craig “Up North” on our annual first weekend of May trip. With the 10 to 12″ of snow up there, I hope that the ticks will be able to hold off from their first hatch at least until after that but after finding them nearly crawling out of the snow piles this weekend, I’m not so sure I will be that lucky.

See all the pictures from Saturday here (camera).

Related posts:

1. WeekNIGHT Caching and Applebee’s Neighborhood Bar and Grill: Cottage Grove, MN
2. Geocaching with Moe the Sleaze and s4xton: South-Metro, MN
3. Geocaching with Chuck in Minneapolis
4. Pre-MOGA Prep!
5. Wood Lake Nature Center: Richfield, MN