Power Trail

I guess that a series of 50 caches along a 15 km stretch of road can be classed as a Power Trail. The road that the trail is on follows a beautiful stretch of Dalälven, one of Sweden’s larger rivers. I thought a few times about whether or not I would be interested in spending a few hours to grab the film canisters that were spread along the road. Did I want to wait until spring or summer when all the snow has gone or could it be a trail to do in the winter. Yes, was the answer to that question. It was winter friendly.

Dalälven Power Trail

I decided last week that I was more interested in ticking off a few more dates in the days of the year challenge that I had set myself rather than doing a trail of fifty caches where I would be in and out of the car every 200m or so. If there had been 50 caches on a 15km hike then I would definitely have enjoyed doing it. Perhaps that could be something for me to fix this year? I wonder if any of my local Swedish caching friends would be interested?

I had already blown quite a few dates in January and February due to the local winter conditions and was starting to get withdrawal symptoms from not having looked for a cache for a while. I don’t count the single cache I found in England last weekend even though it was luckily found on a date I needed. Anyway, on Thursday I thought that I would zoom off early from work and grab a couple of caches as a trial. Was it worth the hours drive from Sandviken where I work, to grab a handful of caches and could I resist the temptation to continue – just one more – just one more?  After five easily found caches I looked at my watch and decided that I would give up for the day and return again the day after for a few more.

Of course, when I decided on Thursday to return on Friday, I had no idea that I would be driving there and hunting for the caches in a snowstorm. However, I am kind of stubborn so I set off again after work and picked up another three caches before giving up. I only did it because I knew that they were easily accessible. However, getting in and out of the car in such weather was not that much fun. So in two days I drove 280km to grab a total of eight micros, all just a few steps from the car.

On Saturday I convinced my partner that our grandson would love to go out and find some “treasures” and that we could take some sandwiches and drinks with us. So off we set, this time from Gävle and in glorious sunshine. We drove straight to Husby and started off with our picnic in the strategically located bus shelter, which was perfect for the picnic as no busses run at the weekend. The first cache was duly extracted by Melvin (with a little prompting from me as to where he should look. When he realised that it wasn’t “real” treasure his interested faded, and he called them “pretend” treasures. When he heard that there were “real” treasures to be found but only after the snow had gone he was happy watching me grab a few more caches. After the sixth one be got tired and as it was already fairly late in the afternoon we called it a day and went home.

Melvin finding his first cache

So, this afternoon, I will drive out there again after work and grab a few more in order to fill in another date of the calendar. Time permitting I will drop into the flea market “loppis” in Långshyttan. The flea market is huge which is surprising considering how small Långshyttan is.