Camden State Park

Camden State Park

—Lynd, MN—

The highlight of the morning was reaching Camden State Park.  This is the location of the LAST avian geocache in the Prairie Boime AND the location of the Prairie Biome Geocache, as well.  Camden State Park is located right off of Highway 23, which interestingly runs diagonally across the entire state from the very southwest corner all the way up to Duluth.  That's a road trip through different biomes!

Camden State Park is in the Redwood River Valley, so-called because of the dogwoods lining the river which have red-colored bark.  This is how the Minnesota DNR describes the geology: "Camden lies in an area of southwestern Minnesota called Coteau des Prairies, which means highland of the prairie. It is a high plateau that rises 900 feet, at its summit. During the last Ice Age, glaciers covered the shale and sandstone bedrock of this area with layers of mixed rock, gravel, sand clay, which together are known as till. Where the glaciers ended their advance or held steady, the till piled up into long, high ridges called moraines. Camden lies atop the Altamont moraine, the second highest and most eastern moraine in the Coteau. Not all of the topography in this park is a direct result of glacial activity. The Redwood River Valley was formed after the glaciers had receded to the north. Water draining and flowing off the land cut into the till and carved out the Redwood River Valley."

When we drove into Camden it just felt like we drove into a river valley.  It is right off of a busy road, and you just turn directly into the entrance, so it really sneaks up on a person when driving there.

During the drive over from Lake Shetek, Marcus fell asleep, so this means that one of us would not get a chance to experience this geocache and would be sitting with Marcus while he napped.  When we got to the main office, Luke got out of the car, grabbed a map, and went into the ranger office.  From the outside, I thought it was pretty cute.

We left the ranger station and drove through the park.  Since the park follows a river valley, it is long and not very wide.  There are many little streams, and it even has a railroad track running through it.  It was about two miles to the first location.  One of the interesting things is that the starting point for the Avian Geocache was the same as the coordinates for the biome.  Once we found the parking lot (and the sign where it was listed the biome puzzle clues), Luke took a picture of the biome questions – this gave me something to do while he ran off to geocache.

Closer view of the building by the swimming pond.

Luke entered the coordinates for the next stop and headed out.  I sat in the car and worked on the biome geocache puzzle.  From the car I had a really nice view of the park – you can see the building right next to the swimming area.

Vonnie and Marcus in the car.

                                                                                    The next set of coordinates brought Luke to a small bridge overlooking the Redwood River.  It was really quaint and cute.  I think it was the one of the prettiest little bridges we have seen.  It reminded me of something described in a book I have read like Anne of Green Gables, something like the perfect little swimming hole.  Luke searched around for the geocache.  The coordinates brought him right near the base of the bridge, but it also brought him near our old "friend" Poison Ivy.  In fact, a long vine of it was covering the open end of a bridge beam where the pill container, holding the next GPS coordinates, was hidden.  He used some sticks to push the vine out of the way and remove the container to get a good look at the coordinates.  A very dicey move there!

The view of the lake from the bridge.  It looks very tranquil and picturesque.

Here is the other side of the lake.

Like I said, the second set of coordinates was tucked away in the beam under the bridge.

Using the stick to move the vine.

Poison ivy blocking the way.

Can you see the coordinates inside the pill bottle?

With this poison ivy sighting Luke decided to turn around and come back to exchange places with me.  So he stayed in the car, and I ran off to find the next location.

I crossed over the bridge, found an empty shelter, and searched for it.  The coordinates brought me right to a corner on the southwest side of the shelter.

I looked up, I looked down, I looked inside... and I couldn't find anything.  I probably spent 10 minutes walking around in circles like a crazy person.  There were some guys cooking out on the other side of the shelter, and they occasionally looked at me wondering what was going on.

The coordinates brought me right here...

The shelter wall.

On the positive, I noticed that there was a road right next to the shelter as well that went around the footbridge to the parking lot where the car was parked with Luke and Marcus.  So this meant I could run back and get help by following the road and not the bridge route.  So I hightailed it back to the car for reinforcements... well... Marcus was still sleeping, but Luke could definitely help.  We drove over to the site and started to search.  
                     At that point we also started visiting with the guys at the shelter, and they were pretty interesting.  They were up from Missouri and driving around the Midwest doing crop dusting using GPS coordinates to do their job.  Also funny, Luke found out that they were at NordicFest in Decorah, Iowa, the prior weekend (just like we were), but they left right before the concert started on Saturday night that we were at.  They were a lot of fun to visit with, and they really got into helping us search for the next location (they had never heard of geocaching before).  Eventually, I found the next geocache.  Probably about 50 feet from where it was supposed to be, but at least we got it.  These coordinates were also tucked inside of a pill container.

Location #3

I entered the next coordinates and ran off to find the trail while Luke stayed with Marcus.  Just looking in the direction of my GPS heading made it hard to tell which side of the Redwood River I needed to be on, so I started down one way until I discovered I had to turn around and follow the bridge so I could be on the other side.  Right on the far side of the river, I found a small trail leading towards my destination.

The trail was pretty and ran along the river.  I enjoyed this hike a lot.

Eventually, I found a small trail that was right near the final location. 

The cache was tucked in this old tree.  It did not photograph really well.  It was actually quite pretty.

I wish I had better pictures of the hills behind the river.

The log book.

I quickly made it back to the shelter where I had left the car and my guys.  We now had all 16 of the prairie biome cards, and we could complete one more biome challange (making this biome #2 we would have completed – it would have been three biomes completed without the recent Nerstrand miss... "NERSTRAND!").  The great news was that the biome challenge finishes right at Camden, so we did not have far to go (we planned our southwest Minnesota trip this weekend this way)!