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Autumn's Treasure LbNA #6055 (ARCHIVED)

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:Oct 13, 2003
Location:
City:Nanaimo
County:British Columbia, CAN
State:British Columbia, Canada
Boxes:1
Found by: Team Rider
Last found:Jul 27, 2006
Status:aFa
Last edited:Oct 13, 2003
Name of letterbox: Autumn’s Treasure
Location: Bowen Park in downtown Nanaimo, B.C.
Length of walk: Short - under a kilometre
Degree of difficulty: Easy

Follow the old Island Highway north through downtown Nanaimo until you come to the Pearson Bridge. Just before the bridge, turn west (left) on Comox Road. Cross the railroad tracks. You will see the curling club in a hollow to your right. Turn north (right) onto Wall Street, as if you were going to the curling club - but instead, turn left at the bottom of the hill, into Bowen Park. Take the winding, paved road near the northern edge of the park. You should see a picnic area and stream to your right, and a white wooden building on your left. Drive past the building to the 10-space parking lot. Park there.

From the west end of the lot, take about 280-285 steps (.2 km) west along the road, past the rhododendron grove. When you come to a crosswalk marked by a boulder and two blue & yellow posts, turn right and go west to a blue bench beside a cairn. From there you should see a flight of ten stairs leading down to the Second Great Bridge. Cross the bridge and take the path to your left, counting your steps. Very soon you will pass a circular depression with rocks in the middle of it. At about 54 steps, watch out for a branch growing straight across your path at ankle level. Step over it and down toward two tall cedars, taking 20 steps to where a cedar branch on your right forms a graceful arch about a meter high at its centre. Step between the arch and the tall cedars and follow northwest along the path to where a meter-high stump rises up among ferns. Three logs in front of the stump form a sort of elongated Z.

Now head toward the stream to a hollowed-out log. Step over or around the log and continue on the path, past a small shell midden, to a Very Pulpy Stump on your right.

You will see that the path curves very sharply now. Follow it in a counter-clockwise direction until you can look back between two trees at that same Very Pulpy Stump. Between you and the two trees are a rotten log and two soccer ball-sized stones. Among the roots of the northernmost tree, where they join the nurse log, is an upside down V-shaped hollow, where Autumn’s treasure awaits you, nestled among leaves.