The Path to Finding "Pathfinder"
Kananaskis Summer Trip - 2025 - This article is part of a series.
As I mentioned in another post in this small series documenting my August-September 2025 Kananaskis trip, I’ve perennially gravitated to hiking and geocaching in the northern section of Kananaskis along Highway 68.
When map dreaming about future trips, I was sure to notice new hides in this particular area, and while doing just this years ago, I noticed a then-new puzzle cache called “Pathfinder”. “And oh, look!”, I think to myself, “it’s been featured on ‘Geocaching Puzzle of the Day’”! I’m not sure what “Geocaching Puzzle of the Day” is, but at least that’s some indication that it’s cool in some way. 😃
Eventually, I did clue into the structure of how one could extract numbers out of those words, but I just couldn’t figure out what to do to fill in the structure. If these sentences mean nothing to you, don’t worry. I’m trying to describe my experience and be vague at the same time: I want to preserve the integrity of the puzzle.
In the end, a geocaching buddy who had solved the puzzle pointed me in the right direction. After that, I knew how to extract numbers and saw how nicely constructed the text in the description is.
All of this explains why it was such a thrill to be able to make the hike to the puzzle today.
The cache description speaks often of a “lightly trodden path” and “paths less traveled by,” and sure enough I could tell the trail I chose to get to the cache was seldom travelled. Natural overgrowth was making for some face and ankle “bushwhacking” along the way.
And during the walk I was sure to holler “EHHH-OOOO” every so often to tell any bears that loud, obnoxious human was in the area and it would be best to scram now to avoid meeting him.
Once near the promised hiding spot, the cache find was quick and let me tell you there was a 10-minute period filled with satisfaction as I was finally able to find this cache, sign the logbook.
The return trip to the trailhead seemed to happen quickly, maybe because this path was now a little more travelled.
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Although frequent visitors to Kananaskis can figure out where I started my hike today, I’ve removed all location data from these images to make sure they don’t offer clues to where this puzzle cache is hidden.
