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