Cold Cache Sites in Chippewa County

ColdCache is an IATA program that interprets geologic features along the trail. It's a variation of geocaching, where participants search out hidden sites and find and interact with a small box located there. In the case of ColdCaching, there is no box or other visible marker. Instead, the participant finds and identifies the target glacial feature, and answers some questions on a website about it.

While the ColdCache program has been in operation for several years, now five sites have been identified in Chippewa County and included in the list of Cache locations on the ColdCache web site. You can find that site on the Ice Age Trail web site.

The five sites in Chippewa County are:

1. Chippewa Trifecta - the location, overlooking Dumke Lake, where the ice-walled lake plain ends and a deep glacial riverbed is clearly visible, cutting through the lake-bottom sediments, all perched hundreds of feet above the Dumke Lake surface below.

--Access from 180th St (Townline Rd) or Lot on 260th Ave (Rattlesnake Hill Rd).

2. From Kettle to Peat Bog - the location viewed from the Firth Lake boardwalk where the kettle lake on one side transitions to a peat bog on the other, both occupying the same kettle basin.

--Access from Firth Lake Parking area on 250th Ave.

3. Groovy Ridge - the location viewed from the trail west of Firth Lake where an extra-wide glacier crevasse was only partially filled with debris, leaving two perfectly parallel ridges side-by-side.

--Access from Firth Lake Parking area on 250th Ave.

4. Chippewa Ice-Walled-Lake-Plain - the location viewed from the Obey Interpretive Center at the Chippewa Moraine State Recreation Area of the large hill that was once the bottom of an ancient glacial lake.

--Access from Obey Interpretive Center on County Highway M.

5. Chippewa Erratic - the location viewed from the IANST just east of Deer Fly Trail of an enormous glacial erratic boulder.

--Access from trailside parking where IANST crosses Deer Fly Trail, a Chippewa County Forest logging and recreational access road.

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While there are countless examples of other glacial features in the county, sites which have been identified and marked in other locations along the Ice Age Trail are not identified and marked in every location they are found. These Chippewa County sites are either unique (the trifecta site) or just haven't been marked anywhere else along the trail yet (the kettle-bog transition).

You can view the complete information sheets for the some of the local sites under Hike the trail!/Cold Cache (this section) on this web site. Click on the name of each site to see the description on Geocaching.com. To see the location coordinates on that site you need to register (free) and log in.

A complete listing of all the sites, which also links to information about each specific site, is found at the geocaching.com web site.