Mt Simon- Down By The River 2.0

Any able bodied finders of this cache who didn't make it a priority to climb to the top of Mt Simon may have missed the entire point of our sport! The heck with caching! This is one fantastic park! We came the day before the storm that dropped 16 inches of snow just a few miles southeast of here in Osseo. Today was in the high 60's, the sun shone brightly, and we had the place to ourselves. We parked at the end of a trail and took the high road direct to the peak. Thick mats of fallen leaves crunched under our hiking boots. It was strenuous but great exercise and the million dollar view from the top was well worth the journey! With no leaves left on the trees, we had a 360 degree panoramic of the valley. Was that the Altoona water-tower to the east? Look, there's the footbridge over the Chippewa at Phoenix Park where we found that tricky cache! Resting on the summit and enjoying the late afternoon sun was super, but there is a cache waiting. Down, down, down the leaf-slippery "trail" we walk/slip/slide/fall 'til we "arrive at our destination." We search 10... 20... 30 minutes in spots deeply covered in leaves. No luck. After the Crazy4 team leader fruitlessly searches the more dangerous hiding places, we decide that no sane person would try to hide a cache "there", so our search strategy shifts to a less "lofty" location. Shazzam! We find cache quickly, sign log, replace in empty container (a somewhat disappointing lack of contents) and depart the area, following the "low road" back to our vehicle. Much thanks zuma, for keeping this cache active. We would rather do one cache like this one than get credit for 20 "urban" caches, proving again that quality of location is worth far more to Team Crazy4 than quantity of finds. TFTC!