2010 Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt

An interesting start to an 11-clue hunt. Traditionally, the hunt has started off "in Boreas' realm". Looking back, this is the first time the clue writers have ever invoked the true king of the Winter Carnival, Vulcanus Rex, and his following. Apart from the largely irrelevant reference to Joe Soucheray, the den reference would have given observant hunters a very limited set of places to start their hunt, without explicitly limiting the hunt to Saint Paul. A well thought out first clue with a lot of potential for noodling.

The video that went along with this clue was very interesting. The original version, when released on Sunday night, didn't have the f-bomb quite censored out completely. Ma Press replaced the video Monday morning with one that had the language changed, and the f-bomb/bleepin' replaced with a poorly dubbed "quite", although the written clue remained the same.

An early clue which gave away the concealer of the hunt to astute noodlers who knew the history of the Pioneer Press' Pulitzer Prizes. For those who didn't, this clue had the potential to get hunters to the right area, with views of the twin smokestacks from the new Xcel Energy plant across the river from the treasure site, although Highland Park is home to the twin blue water towers in St. Paul.

Like the last clue, this one had the potential to lure hunters to a small set of parks within the city: anywhere near the High Bridge, or Highland Park. Highland is virtually eliminated, not having gravel roads, leaving parks with a significant amount of undeveloped land, i.e., Lilydale.

A classic red herring. "Code by Morse" did a great job of at least getting the masses thinking about going to Como Park. A silly red herring given that Como doesn't fit anything else, but that's ok, because as we've said in previous clues, silly is fun

The long dashes seem to be a rather obscure reference, but in retrospect they do make sense. By this point, most hunters wanted to park the video avatars in a car and submerge it in the river adjacent to the park.

We hoped that the clue writer/hider didn't make the same mistakes he made in 2007, not covering up his footsteps, which allowed the medallion to be found within 3 days. Fortunately, the footprints mentioned in this clue were a reference to the existing footprint in the snow into which the medallion was placed according to later published videos.

This clue gives us a lot of information limiting down the area of Lilydale Park to search in. Referencing the smokestack of the Island Station Power Plant (and farther downstream, the High Bridge Plant), gives us the idea that we need to stay upriver of the smokestacks. Despite being a little more obscure, the figures grand in scale made an interesting reference, but the best reference in this clue is the one that went undocumented: The Landmark Brewery across the river from the treasure site.

The Dales reference, combined with the unattributed (frog) hopping = lily pads reference, was a great way to subtly give away the park. Straddling both Dakota and Ramsey Counties, the Annapolis reference, while requiring multiple hops to process, provides caution to hunters to stay within Ramsey County, at least we hoped that the boundary wasn't crossed anyway.

The aerator reference seems rather obscure, and the Mississippi hardly can be compared to a stream. The last two lines of the clue give us our best references, the county line and the brick manufacturing that used to go on in Lilydale, for those who know their history.

The first part of this clue does very little to help us, considering that every park along the Mississippi in St. Paul is a regional park or part of a larger regional park (Harriet Island/Lilydale, Hidden Falls/Crosby Farm, and Indian Mounds/Battle Creek). The second verse gives us more insight into the location within Lilydale. In addition to the 15 visible silos across the river (13 large and 2 smaller ones, and the complex is actually 3 silos deep, but that can't be seen from the park), the Union Pacific Swing Bridge across the river was built as Omaha Railroad Bridge number 15, and as such has the number 15 cast into the concrete counterweight attached to it. In addition, according to the Wikipedia article on the bridge, it was built in 1915, and the original bridge on the site, built in 1869, was one of the original 15 bridges across the Mississippi River.

After a long hiatus, the mighty anagram returns to the clue. Yay, a real puzzle to solve, albeit a tiny one! For anyone looking in other parks, this one should have taken care of that problem, giving away the park using multiple methods.

Apart from the general location notes, which at this point are becoming ridiculous, this clue does narrow down the area of the park to search to that bounded by the railroad tracks, the lake, the river, and the county line.

Not much else here other than formal confirmation that it's in Lilydale and a further restriction on the area of the park to look. This is something of a nice touch, breaking away from the history of the last seven years where you couldn't even start to narrow down a portion of the park until this point.

Clue 12. What more can be said?