Geocache: Pandora's Box of Troubles
"You may have some trouble with this cache," said the description. I wasn't worried. How much trouble could it be? I squeezed the car into an apparent parking spot some distance from the cache, grabbed my bag and binoculars, and started down the trail.
It was a decent day and I enjoyed the gentle stroll. Birds hinted at the approach of spring. Sparrows sang, a junco gathered dry grass for building a nest, kinglets and chickadees flitted past in boisterous flocks.
Gradually, the bluff began rising higher to my right. To my left, the precipice grew ever steeper. The path ahead narrowed. Still, as I approached my decoded coordinates I thought: This is no 4/4. Little did I realize.
When, as expected, I had to leave the trail to reach ground zero, I found my surroundings suddenly less favorable. The heights towered over me. The river churned uncomfortably close. A nearby robin scolded, sharp and piercing. A group of crows settled into the branches above and started their incessant cawing. In the moment, I thought of them simply as additions to my bird list. I turned my focus to searching for Pandora's Box of Troubles.
Gingerly, gripping branches to steady myself, I took small steps, peeking here, lifting there, recalling hints from previous logs. Slow and steady, I reminded myself. One false move could spell disaster.
It surely took less than an hour to uncover the cache, with it and me both wedged into just the right positions. Victory! I put down my binoculars and unlodged the box. But what a struggle it was to open!
All at once, the cover became unstuck, its contents burst free, a flicker cackled across the canyon, and a thrush hum-whistled an ominous tone. My attention drawn in three directions, I whirled a pirouette on that perilous slope, slipped on a mud patch, stumbled on a stick hidden by loose leaves, and started tumbling. Somehow I grabbed my binoculars and released the cache container before I started crashing through gnarled branches toward the rocky, rushing river edge.
My right arm jerked. The binocular strap had hooked a branch, pivoting me and pausing the freefall. As I gathered my wits and regained my bearings, an inquisitive water ouzel flew up from the river, hopped onto my boot, curtsied, pooped, and flew away. Immediately, a wren flitted to my ear, twittered an indecipherable message both potent and pointed, and disappeared under the ferns.
I let out an astonished giggle, shook my head in disbelief, and started to my feet. As I assessed my next move, I was struck hard on the back of my head. The blow blurred my vision, but I managed to catch a glimpse of a fleeing goshawk staring back at me under a hard-wrinkled brow.
Woozy and knocked from my perch, I fell loosely into the raging river. The cold water did me some good, snapping me into clarity just in time to see a flotilla of mergansers swimming toward me. The benevolent sawbills herded me downstream, bobbing in formation, escorting me through the whitewater and safely to shore.
But it was the opposite shore, which was even less hospitable than the one I had just left. Still, rather than risk the current I climbed. It was twilight by the time I wended and wove my way through the prickery tangle to the nearest road and plodded toward the closest bridge.
Untold hours later, with only starshine to guide me, I returned to the scene of chaos. I relocated and resealed the box; perhaps hope was still contained within. I recovered the binoculars without further mishap and trudged upslope until I collapsed on the edge of the trail.
I drifted into a dream where owls were hooting over my crumpled body, scratching and beating me with their talons and wings, howling "Who looks for you, who looks for you!" I was struggling to wave them away as I regained consciousness, then realized I was being shaken awake. I stopped flailing to pry one eye open and squint into the rising sun. Could it be? It was. Pandora herself was at my side. "Look, you. Look, you. It says 4/4 for a reason!"
Notes
- About the image: Pandora (1896) by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). "A faithful photographic reproduction" of a 2-dimensional public domain work of art downloaded from Wikimedia Commons.
- Geocache log date March 5, 2025. This cache is rated difficulty 4, terrain 4 on a 5-point scale.
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SOTA: Black Hills HP, March 23, 2026