Howard County Pirate Trail December 2020

I found out about HoCo Pirate Treasure Hunts through Facebook in December. Each month, the organizers set up a treasure hunt with a map, secret messages, and a treasure chest full of goodies. We printed our map and went to the starting point in the Jeffers Hill neighborhood. We parked in the elementary school parking lot and headed off in search of pirate treasures.

Starting on the trail

Checking the map

The trails are part of the extensive network of Columbia-sponsored pathways. The map does a great job showing where to go and find the clues for the code to open the treasure chest. We had some sort of printer problem, which is why there is a big, black box on our map.

X marks the start

The first clue was a bit of a walk, near a small lake that had geese around it. The path went nowhere near the geese but that did not stop my son from trying to interact with them. My wife and I tried to convince him not to mess with them because we've experienced the lack of friendliness that geese have. 

Maybe it's just a pond

A disaster waiting to happen?

On the far side of the lake, we spotted the first clue. A tree was marked with pirate ribbon. Another tree further back had a QR code that reveals the riddles that reveal the treasure chest's code letter by letter.

The sign of the pirate

Looking for the red ribbon and QR code

As we wandered, we also found some other interesting items. This painted rock was not part of the pirate adventure. It was just a fun discovery that someone left along the trail.

A cool rock

The trail led us to a small creek that had an even smaller hidey hole. The opening looks like the home of something fun and dangerous.

What's that over there?

If only I was small enough to go in

Further down, we discovered a tree riddled with signs of affection. The clue was nearby.

The love tree?

The whole trail was about a mile and a half and led back to the elementary school. The treasure chest was hidden under one of the temporary classrooms out back of the school. We collected all the clues, decrypted the password, and opened up the chest.

The locked chest

Inside the chest

The trail was fun. We will definitely do more of the these when they start up again in the spring.

The kids took advantage of the school playground and did a riff on the popular Christmas tune.

We Three Swings of Orient Are

In sync