This year there are some interesting new twists on the Treasure Hunt.

For starters, the Pioneer Press is giving away the medallion used in the past 5 treasure hunts as a contest prize. We all have a chance to own a real piece of treasure hunt history.

Second, we all know about the move to Gabe's for the official release of the nightly newspaper. The newspaper will be released at 11:30 each night at Gabe's by the Park at Lexington and Energy Park Drive near Como Park. The clues will be available online at 11:30pm, with a special "scrambled" version available online one hour earlier each night.

Finally, 1000 miniature medallions will be hidden in Parks in Ramsey County. each of these medallions is good for free admission to the "Real Pirates" exhibit at the Science Museum, which opens on February 18.

Details can be found at the Pioneer Press.

From the "Didn't See That One Coming" Deparment, we just learned that Mr. Goodhue has decided that instead of releasing the clues at the Pioneer Press building, they will be released at Gabe's By The Park this year. It was announced on an update to a recycled story/video from the 2010 hunt. We don't know yet what this will mean for nightly pre- and post-clue gatherings or whether this is going to be a permanent change or just temporary as the Central Corridor construction is in progress. We'll see and keep you posted here.

It's official, Ma Press announced the 60th (62nd really, if you count the years with two Winter Carnival hunts) Annual Treasure Hunt starting on January 22nd. With that announcement, Joe Medallion figured he'd put out some treasure hunting advice for all you hunters out there (even though his own finding experience is excactly nil).

First of all, you're not going to find the medallion sitting on your computer. It doesn't matter if you're on the Cooler Crew boards, the Pioneer Press boards, or any other discussion board. No one who ever found the medallion did it from their basement. They found it by getting out and moving snow. Lots and lots of snow. So maybe there were a few years where there wasn't a lot of snow to move, and years where there was snow at the start but an unseasonably warm spell melted it mid-hunt (Marry-um I'm looking at you), but the people that found it ultimately found it becasue they were actually out there looking for it.

Speaking of discussion boards, Joe understands that you may not be able to actually get out there and dig all the time. Things like work get in the way at times. Unless your name is Jake and you've cleared the two weeks of the hunt plus the weeks before and after just for good measure. You're not alone, and at those times the best way to feed your addiction is to be chatting with your fellow addicts on discussion boards. You can certainly use the Pioneer Press' boards, and Ma Press encourages this during the hunt although neither the link to the old PP boards nor the link to the current ones seem to get anywhere at the time of this writing.

As a result, Joe recommends the official Cooler Crew boards (the links are at the left and right sides of this page). Yes, you have to pay the operators of the site $10 per year to use the boards, and no, the Cooler Crew gets none of that money because hosting busy web sites costs money. Although there is the registration fee, we keep things down to a single discussion thread or two about the current hunt instead of the hundreds or thousands of individual threads on the Pioneer Press boards. When you come back the next day, the first post you see will be the last one that you saw the night before.

Some words of advice about using the discussion boards. One complaint we frequently hear is from people who come into the discussion board for the first time, say hi, and don't get a response. Don't let this discourage you. One of two things is likely the case. If you posted during the day when the boards are slower, people may miss your post as they come back and slog through the posts from the last time they were on. If on the other hand you introduced yourself at 11:05 at night, right after the clue got posted, your post probably got lost in the shuffle of the discussion of the new clue. Most of us tend to stay out hunting until around 2am, and jump back online when we get up the next morning. Its the same situation at the end of the work day. A lot of people simply can't get online during the work day so they jump back online to catch up around dinner time. These are actually your best times to get noticed especially if you're not the talkative type. If you are, of course, then getting noticed will be a lot easier.

Going back to the first tidbit of information, if you have an idea for a clue, jump on it. If you need any reasons why, have a look at our wall of shame. You'll find stories of plenty of people in this group who woulda, coulda, and shoulda followed their guts. It might turn out to be nothing, but at least you know you won't end up on the wall of shame for it because you went out and looked. The follow up to this rule is be prepared. At some point you're going to have a light bulb moment at your desk at work and then drive out to a park and go look. It's inevitible. Keep your hunting tools and gear in your car. You don't want to catch frostbite on your toes because you trudged through a foot of snow in your now-soaked tennis shoes.

Socialize. Meeting people is half the fun of this hunt. With the exception of a small handful of people (and by that I mean that guy we mentioned earlier named Jake), none of us ever really expects to find the puck. What we have found, however, is a far greater treasure: that of lifelong friendships. When I've described the Cooler Crew to people, its like this. We're a bunch of friends. Yes we've got our occasional problems like any group of friends does. But the bottom line is that this group of friends will be there for each other for the 353 days of the year that we're not out hunting. We celebrate the ups and the downs together. We've been to each others' weddings. We've supported each other through divorces. We've welcomed new Coolerheads into the world, and we've put our snow (or dirt depending on the season) on their graves when they've left it. 

So how do you socialize? Like I said earlier, most people go out digging after the clue comes out instead of before. So what do we do before hand? Typically there's a pre-clue hangout somewhere convenient to downtown. Most Coolerheads have said this year that they'll be at Yarusso's before the clue. That can change though, and to find out where the crew will be you're going to have to be on our discussion boards or Facebook group. Even if you're not up for spending a few hours at a local eatery, come down to the Pioneer Press and get the clue. Except for clues 11 and 12, most of us are in line every single night.

Most importantly, have fun. This is supposed to be a fun, family-friendly event.

Once again, congratulations are in order from the Cooler Crew to the finders of the 2011 Winter Carnival Treasure Hunt. Veteran medallion hunting mother/daughter pair, Mary and Molly Hermes, along with Molly's boyfriend Dan Murphy uncovered the puck in the area of the old ski jump at Battle Creek Park at about 2:30 this morning after a mere seven clues. In a hunt that had many of the masses in Como Park until the release of clue 7, with its Battle Creek anagram, this years finders managed to line everything up correctly to come up with the full $10,000 prize!

In telling their tale, the finders created a sad story for another hunter somewhere. After searching within a cavern-like root structure from an under-eroded tree, a tree which had already had its snow removed by a previous hunter, Molly stated it was literally sitting on top of the snow as she sat down next to it.  Presumably that root system was where the puck was planted, and in an effort to hurriedly clear the snow, some other hunter inadvertently discarded the puck, and the prize. Incidentally, that person's story is in our Wall of Shame.

Let this be a lesson to all of us for next year. Don't ever give up. Don't look at a potential hiding spot and discard it without checking. And finally, don't just toss the snow anywhere because you may just be tossing out the baby with the bath water as they say.

As I write this, without the benefit of having the official explanations, or the last five clues, I'm also editorializing the clues for this site. For some of them, I'll have to wait until the official list comes out from the paper. But for others, man, for the first time in a long time the clue writer gave us a really good set of clues, just the way we like 'em. I just hope the explanations don't go and ruin the look.

Congratulations to Mary, Molly, and Dan!

There was something distinctly unsatisfying with this hunt in the end. Consequently we're going to do something a bit different with the Mock Hunt this year. Instead of doing it a month later, we're going to kick it off at the Rehash Bash next Sunday the 6th. The first clue will come out at the event. After that the clues will come out at 7pm. There will be one per day. They will be posted on the Allison Wonderland Yahoo group (it shows up in the lower left side of this site), on the Cooler Crew board at ableminds.com, and on the Pioneer Press' board. It will be in a park in St. Paul. There are two ways to participate. One, you can be a registered hunter for $10. If you win, you get all the money collected or $200, whichever is more. Two, you can be an unregistered hunter for free. If you are unregistered and you win, you get a flat $100 and the rest of the money will go towards another contest.

If you're not planning to be at the Rehash Bash, you can still register by sending me the money via Paypal to this email address or send me an email and I'll give you an address to send the check to.

I expect we'll get a big turnout this year so there should be some good competition.

Follow the mock hunt clues here

"Read the daily clues to search for the Pioneer Press medallion hidden on public land in Ramsey County." Its been apart of the treasure hunt rules in one way shape or form for as long as I can remember. Granted I've only been paying attention to the hunt since about 1990 or so, and has really been active in it since Conway in 1999. But in all those years, the puck has been on public land in Ramsey County. In 1979, in fact, the medallion made its one and only venture out of the county, placed in Marthaler Park in West Saint Paul. One can only assume that Ramsey County was not a part of the rules in those days, since the throngs of irate hunters descending on the Pioneer Press building would have made the Vulcan's overthrow of Boreas look like a flick of a Bic. Sure, every year some clown posits that its in Powderhorn or Theo Wirth Parks. We can only assume that these posts are in jest, with those two being in Minneapolis, a distinctly un-Ramsey County location.

Then there's the Fairgrounds. In recent years they've been off limits, at least in name, but that wasn't always the case, with Ma Press even hiding the puck there in both 1953 for the second hunt of the year and again in 1967. Trying to dig there today though will get you a stern talking to by the State Fair Police, followed by an escort off the grounds. But yet they're the "State" Fairgrounds. Aren't they public land in Ramsey County? According to legend the grounds are currently private property. This discussion came up this evening in the Cooler Crew Discussion Boards, and prompted me to do some digging around.

The first place I looked was Ramsey County's online GIS system for property records. According to the County, in whose boundaries the Fairgrounds lie, the grounds themselves are owned by the Minnesota State Agricultural Society. That doesn't really sound like the sort of private enterprise that would make the grounds private property, so I did some to'ing and fro'ing to find out exactly what the State Ag. Society was. My best friend for this sort of task, Google, referred me to Chapter 37 of the Minnesota State Statutes. In section 13, subdivision 1, We find that "The state owns all money and other property of the society in the name of the society and there may be no division of its assets among society members." Presumably this property would include the society's real estate, i.e., the Farigrounds. Arguably, according to state law anyway, the Fairgrounds are public land.

Let's go back and read section 1: "The State Agricultural Society is a public corporation." Yes, this lends more credence to the grounds being public land. Later on in that section we find this sentence: "Any part of the State Fairgrounds which is within the boundaries of a city or other political subdivision of the state is detached from the city or political subdivision". The fairgrounds are most definitely within the boundaries of Ramsey County, the city of Falcon Heights, and potentially, depending on how you look at the boundaries, the city of Saint Paul. However, the legal impact of that sentence within the statute has the effect of creating a political subdivision, containing the State Fairgrounds, on the same level as a County, but one that is completely surrounded by Ramsey County, an enclave. It is very similar to how Vatican City is a separate "nation" completely surrounded by the city of Rome.

By that one small sentence, which was put in place in 1982 and amended to its current state in 1985, the state Legislature placed the Fairgrounds off-limits to the hunt. Why is that? Because although they are public land (remember, the state owns the land, through the quasi-agency known as the Minnesota State Agricultural Society), that land is surrounded by Ramsey County, but not within Ramsey County.

So, as they say on Mythbusters, the myth that the Fairgrounds are off limits to hunters because they are private land is busted. They're off limits becasue they're not in Ramsey County. Which of course explains why you can see police officers from various municipalities within the Twin Cities roaming around the fairgrounds, and not just those of Police Departments within Ramsey County.

Thanks to *MOM* and Terry for putting together this year's commemorative button. It will be available at the Pre-Dig at Yarusso's, and from Coolerheads during the hunt.

As the holidays arrive and 2010 comes to a close, some of us are reminded that the 2011 Treasure Hunt is just around the corner. Planning for the 2011 Pre-Dig Gig is already in the works. Stay tuned here for information about that and other Cooler Crew gatherings during and after the hunt. Rumor has it that the pre-dig is going to become an official Winter Carnival event this year.

In addition to joining us on our discussion boards, you may also want to join us on our Facebook group.

Also, you may have noticed that the non-holiday logo has been changed:

Thanks go to to Big G for designing it a few years back. We think its a more modern look on a classic theme, and hope you do too.