Current at 11/6/2011 (Online waypoint URL) You have already found this cache! Master Index    Nearest Caches The Haunted Tree by crackerjackie (1.5/2) N50° 05.942  W97° 14.476 (WGS84) UTM  14U   E 625781  N 5551123 Use waypoint: GC2GK8B Size: Small    Hidden on 10/11/2010 In Manitoba, Canada Difficulty:     Terrain:           BoooOOOOooooOOOooooOOOoooo!!! Scary cache in a spooky spooky tree! Just in time for Halloween, my favorite time of the year!!!! Small cammo'ed container with room for only a few small items. Please bring your own pen and please replace the natural cammo when you return the cache to its hiding spot. Wear your rubbers or your feet might get wet! Happy Halloween!!!!

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7/5/2011 by Kabuthunk
WOW but that's a damn creepy tree. It definitely wouldn't be a stretch to call it 'haunted', but the first thing that came to my mind was 'creepy'.

I love it !

I managed to go after this cache as I was returning from a camping trip. I had been gone since last Wednesday evening, camping up at Norris Lake a good while to the North, just southeast of Inwood. So after much camping and sun-burning, I was returning home, and decided to snag a cache on the way. I had set up a pocket query for caches on the route... but only two came up, and one was a puzzle that I couldn't view on my palm pilot (cachemate doesn't do images)... so this one it was! I set my GPS for it, and kept checking it as the distanced ticked down. Finally, about 600 meters away or so, I spotted what absolutely HAD to be the cache hiding spot. At first I thought it would involve a large patch of (live) trees, but as my eyes scanned the edge of the road a little bit further, there was no doubt in my mind where the cache must be located.

DAMN but that's a creepy tree! It's almost like it's waving you over, saying 'Come over here, nothing untoward will happen to you, I promise!'. It's other arm, broken and dangling limply to the side, does not help to inspire confidence in the offer to approach.

But approach I did! It appears that this cache has a three-prong defense system going on. After pulling over and parking, I discovered that, had it not been blisteringly hot and dry the past few days, I would have to have walked through basically a bog of a ditch (I was wearing sandals and shorts, so that wouldn't have bothered me). After that, I had to find a way through the dense forest of willows (or whatever those are... I think they're willows), followed by tromping through it's final barbed-wire type defense of a mass of thistles (this in shorts and sandals was less pleasant). In the end, I managed to escape the Dead Marshes, navigate through Fanghorn Forest, pass through Dagorlad and climb Ephel Dúath to the cache (which thankfully lacked Shelob that day).

Judging by the plastic band wrapped around the tree however, I get the feeling that this poor fella is slated to be lopped off and dragged away . But at least I got to go after the cache and get some pics before it met an end.

In either case, I circled the tree and soon found the cache. I lacked regular sized chainmail balls, so dropped in a micro, and as well snagged the geocoin to move along. After signing the logbook, I put it back in place and re-worked my way back to the car. At this point, I kinda worked my way back and forth a bit to get some pictures of the tree at different angles. I really wish I would have noticed it sooner so I could have stopped like... half a kilometer away and gotten some pics of it from back there, because it definitely drew attention to itself the second you noticed it. Once the pictures were taken, I hopped back onto Shadowfax into my car and headed back home again. Nothing like ending a camping trip with a little bit of geocaching thrown in as well . Wish I could have found more, but I've already found any caches near the road between here and Peguis .

Thanks for placing a cache here. I love how creepy this thing looks. If I had a house, I'd totally keep it in my front yard .

Took: Tell Me a Haunted Story Geocoin
Left: Logbook entry and micromail ball