Allison Wonderland Mock Hunt

Allison Wonderland started the mock hunt in 2000, as a way to pass time between the Winter Carnival Medallion Hunt, and Fitger's Bock Hunt. He squeezed the two words together, and came up with Mock. In 2000, it was a virtual hunt, in which participants needed only their Treasure Hunter's Guides, with a $10,000 Monopoly Money prize. In 2001, it became an actual hunt, with a cash prize, and has been that way ever since. The "AW Hunt" is typically regarded as the hunt that kicks off the Mock Hunt season each year, with the finder of his hunt writing the next one, and so on.

When planning the Mock Hunt, he does usually look at what happened during the Pioneer Press hunt from that year and try to counter balance it in some way. So in a year like Crosby, when everyone was in the same park most of the hunt, he's made it more of a "figure out the right park" sort of hunt. In years when people were all over the place in the Pioneer Press hunt, he may try to get people to the park earlier so they can hang out together. If the Pioneer Press used a large park, he might pick a small park. Of course it's up to you to try and figure out what aspect of this year's hunt he's trying to counter balance.

If people ask when he thinks it will be found, the usual answer is clue 8 or 9 unless the hiding spot is especially devious. He thinks a good hunt should go at least 8 clues (though the possibility of it being found earlier definitely needs to be there). Once it gets past clue 9, he tends to think "I can't believe they haven't found it yet". While the tension and excitement ramps up on clues 10 and 11, he really doesn't want it to get to clue 12.

Finally, once it's all over and he posts the explanations, either people will have figured everything out, or they will look at something and say "I can't believe I missed that!" If they look at the explanation and go "What?", then that was a bad clue.