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The Request Five Sided Bolts The Cache List

The Request

 

    At the request of Recon Team R-54, the Mountain Walkers gathered information about possible Morrow Project caches, boltholes and bunkers in the spring of 2140. Locations mentioned were all in Washington and Oregon. The list was briefly stolen by a pair of Mountain Walkers, but recovered by team R-54 in late June.

     The question was, "We are looking for concrete underground structures, each with a circular steel manhole leading down into it. The manholes are about 4 feet in diameter -- big enough for a truck tire. A yard or so below the manhole will be the concrete structure, at least ten feet on a side. The most recognizable feature of the manhole is the use of six five-sided nuts to keep it closed. Please don't open them. Any mysterious bunkers in the mountains should also be reported." Unfortunately, Project cache covers mostly have different graphics and logos.

     The diameter of the manhole provides about two inches of clearance around a 14.5x20 tire, and at least two inches over the "lip" of the opening.. Oooh, the tire has a rock video! Alas, it is missing Tawny Kitaen and some macho lyrics.

     In the list below, we'll use the abbreviation MW for "Mountain Walker". 

 

Five Sided Bolts

 

     Penta-head bolts are used on water meter covers, electric utility vaults, and (most often) fire hydrants ... they are opened with pentagon keys, or penta-sockets. A lot of water meter covers use five sided bolts, but usually with only one bolt, either 1" across or 13/16" (penta-socket).

 

The Cache List

 

Question marks are the locations high along the Skagit River.

i, ii, and iii are empty caches. a, b, c, d, and e are possible caches.

Location f is off the map, near the California-Oregon border.

Devil's Mountain is a possible bolthole or depot.

 

     There are about sixty locations given on Luke Robbins' list. Of those:

 

• Thirty are probably not Project caches or secret bunkers (well, one or two may be old fallout shelters). This includes bolted-down manholes where the MW didn't note the bolt description. These all have location information sufficient to find them.
  

• Ten might be caches (bolt descriptions unclear), but are located where a V-150 couldn't get to them. As far as the Project teams know, the Morrow Project didn't put caches were nobody could get to them in a Project vehicle.

• The most cache-y were two along the Skagit River, between Newhalem and Diablo, Washington. The hatches are the right size, with five-sided bolts, but hard to get to -- you'd have to use pack horses.
  

• Twelve are vaguely described, without sufficient information to locate them. "It was east of Seattle."
  

• Three are probably Project caches that were empty (the five-sided nuts weren't usually present, but they had about the correct configuration and dimensions). These were at:

 

1. north of McCredie Springs, Oregon, a bit west of the Willamette Pass

2. at Tombstone Summit in Oregon, on US 20

3. near Packwood, Washington, along US 12

 

• Five have descriptions that match caches, with closed covers, locations that make sense for the Project (not in cities, not near military targets, accessible for Morrow Project vehicles), and the locations are sufficiently described to find (I'm not providing all the fiddly location info provided by the Mountain Walkers). They're listed here from north to south:

 

1. between Lyman and Hamilton, in Skagit county, WA, on state route 20, within a few hundred meters of the Skagit River.

2. at Stevens Pass, Washington, near Scenic, WA, on US 2.

1. ... within sight of a Purity Corp fort

3. at the base of Rattlesnake Mountain, a couple of kilometers south of North Bend, in King county, WA, near Interstate 90.  

4. 10 km southeast of Enumclaw, WA, off state route 410. 

5. near Three Lynx, in Clackamas county, OR on the Clackamas River near state route 224 ... not too far from Oregon City  
   

6. near Keno, southwest of Klamath Falls, OR, on state route 66.

 

• One is on Devil's Mountain, just off of Quail Drive, southeast of the town of Mount Vernon, in Skagit county, Washington (48° 22' 01.2" N, 122° 17' 02.7" W), a possible bolthole or depot. It's in a mine tunnel about 305 meters above sea level, heavily reinforced with steel and concrete, ending at a steel "garage" door about 40 meters into the tunnel. The tunnel and door are 3 meters wide and 3 meters high. The dirt road leading uphill to the mine from Mount Vernon was easily passable to 20th Century automobiles; several trees would have to be cut down for access in the 22nd Century. This location is about 10 kilometers from the shore of Skagit Bay ... a maritime approach might be preferable to driving through the Purity Corp and back. As the crow flies, it's 25 kilometers further inland to the cache location between Lyman and Hamilton (see above).

• If you were crows, it's only 2 kilometers from the flat terrain at the bottom of Devil's Mountain to the base/depot/bunker. So:  8 kilometers of pretty flat terrain, and 2 kilometers uphill on the old 20th Century logging truck roads, Devil's Mountain is 526 meters above (20th Century) sea level; the flat land at its western edge is 55 meters above sea level. If the mountain roads are a 15% grade, that's about 3 kilometers of logging truck road.

• Note that Devil's Mountain is not actually within Purity Corp territory; the locals' attitude is ... unknown!