This topic contains 8 replies, has 5 voices, and was last updated by 
gotta run 17 years, 1 month ago.
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MamaKat has recently placed 9 great caches in the Bjornson school forest. The area is wooded, hilly, and very scenic. It will take ya awhile to find all 9 of the caches, but you will enjoy every minute of it.
This link should take ya to one of them, the one that I left a jeep in.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=f229a382-7ddf-44e4-a8fa-30cf0a862f6a
zuma
This is now up to 22 caches in the Bjornson forest. I couldn’t possibly recommend these strongly enough. This place is great! I have been here for two visits now and still have seven caches to find (I need to get an earlier start to the day). They won’t all be an easy hike but each one I’ve found has been worth the effort. It is so great to park the car and geocache for hours without driving anywhere. Plot them on a topo map and you’ll see that you won’t be idly strolling from one to the next. Mama Kat will keep you in shape and thinking. She throws in a geobeacon or two to keep you from getting too frustrated. Even my bored-with-geocaching daughter had a great time out there with me today (four hours worth!) There’s even a geo-muggling bear to keep things interesting.
Bump, rather than a new thread…
Anyway, planning the annual trek to MN State Fair to eat things on a stick and did a caches along a route PQ, when I see this big grid of density-optimized caches come up.
Not knowing the terrain, not being familiar with the area, not likely to be able to attempt more than a handful, and probably not dressed for serious bushwhacking, any recommendations are appreciated.
On the Left Side of the Road...This is a great series with solid-to-stiff terrain depending on your tendencies. The gate probably won’t be open, which means about a .2 walk to get to the beginning area. It’s a school forest, so there are trails everywhere but some open woods bushwacking. Lots o’ contour lines. Recommended. I think the Bjornson event is still on our Highlights bookmark.
Sorry, I can’t help with recommendations because mama cat typically archives the “older” caches and places new ones. I would bet that all the caches I found out there two years ago are archived and I haven’t had a chance to be back. I do know that you *won’t* want to do “Just Plain Evil” on this trip.
If you don’t get any recommendations, I would suggest you plot the caches on a topo map and choose the ones that are closest to where you will park – which is usually at the end of the road leading into the park, since there is a gate on the road. You will notice, from the topo map of the area, that there are some pretty steep hills. The entrance area is in the valley of them all. There used to be a couple that were located nearer this lower area so maybe she has continued that with the new ones.
Also, the caches do appear to be fairly close to I-94, but you have to drive north on Q and east on 700th Ave to get back to the entrance. It is worth the effort to get back there, even if you only go for the easier ones. It is a beautiful forest (complete with bears!)
Glad this topic made it to the top again. I added the caches to my agenda for a trip to Prescott in Sept. Looking forward to cachin’ in a great place. It would be a bonus if I see a Bear.
Thanks for the responses so far. Looking at the D/T ratings, and the 3′ tall solid underbrush in some of the pictures, this one may make more sense for a me-and-the-missus trip. This definitely doesn’t look like a “trail” park find. Heck, I think we’d lose the kids in some of that.
Plus, if son goes through any more nettle, he swears he will never go caching again. Well, you gotta look for it, I tell him…
On the Left Side of the Road...I asked mama cat for suggestions and she sent me a very detailed account of how to do 14 easy caches. At least five are in either on the walk in or in the area around the classroom.
I would be very happy to email the details to anyone interested – PM me. It really is a great forest to wander around in and her description makes it easy to do without climbing the big hills. The general summary is as follows:
“All of these caches [mentioned in the email] are close to trails. I think you can do caches 1-11 in about 2 hours hiking at an easy pace. I think you could probably do all the caches mentioned in this email in about 3 hours without a lot of effort. None of these will take you hiking up the great hills of Knapp!”
I hope this helps more people enjoy Bjornson!
Ruth
I cannot say enough good things about these caches. We went there with our two kids (9 and 6) with the intention of doing an hour or 2 and seeing what we could find. We spent 2 1/2 hours and found 10, and were surprised we were out there that long because the time just flew by.
These caches are an inspiration–every one we found was a great, appropriately sized container. About 1/2 were ammo cans. All, and I mean all, were well stocked. Caching is not about the stuff in the caches, and our kids are used to not taking anything from caches. Nevertheless, we headed out w/ a backpack with trade items, and used them all. The evidence of recent and frequent owner maintenance is clear.
We were also worried that, with the density of caches, how good could these be? Were they just stuck somewhere just to have a cache? No–each one we found had a purpose for a different area. And the one by the spring was great–we enjoyed the cool drink at the end of the hike.
Some day, the missus and I will have to come back for the other 17, but there’s no way we were going to climb those hills with the family in tow.
Anyway, thanks mamakat for putting these out and to everyone for their advice and to bnb for passing the FANTASTIC tip sheet (from mamakat) along. It was a great “road map” for the adventure.
On the Left Side of the Road...
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