Good morning everyone. We head into the final leg of our journey as we go North for the oldest and most favorite. Today's stop is in Nunavut Territory. The first geocache placed was 'DNTO5' GC681. Placed on April 4, 2001, it was never found before being archived two years later. The oldest active geocache is 'As North As It Gets!' GC5803. Placed in May, 2002, it has been found 38 times with no favorite points. There is a tie for the cache with the most favorite points. 'Emily's Arctic Cache' GC1HEGW was hidden October 20, 2008. It has been found 30 times with 7 favorite points. Also with 7 favorite points is 'Where Am I? I'm a little rusty....' GC5D48D. Hidden on September 16, 2014, it has been found 11 times.
Geocaching has seen an uptick in new people playing the game because of the pandemic. Some will stick around for a while and continue to play. Like most new players (I was a noob once myself), they may not understand how the mystery geocache works. Hopefully I can point them in the right direction with today's blog and again in two weeks.
When I started geocaching, I didn't fully understand how these mystery puzzle types worked other than the actual geocache wasn't at the posted coordinates. I was slowly catching on to puzzle solving, but the two people that really helped was my geocaching partner Auntie Mo and another geocacher, dani_carriere. Auntie Mo loves puzzles and soon we were trying to solve puzzles together, then going out to find them. Later that summer (maybe early Fall), there was a puzzle solving event hosted by dani_carriere. Dani is very knowledgeable when it comes to solving puzzles. I have attended a few more puzzle solving events since, and it's always a good refresher because there's so much information.
When I decided to create a blog about solving puzzles, it was only natural that I turned to Dani for assistance. There is some stuff I forgot about and some things I do when solving that I don't realize that it's actually a very useful tool. Let's get started with solving puzzles.
The first thing you might want to do is look at the difficulty level. I solved some random puzzles for this blog and I stuck to puzzles that were lower than a three difficulty. The higher the difficulty, the harder or more twisted the puzzle can become. I use the term "twisted" to describe a puzzle that isn't a straight forward solve. You might have to solve multiple layers of the puzzle to arrive at the solution. One of my favorites that was a layered puzzle was 'staIrs of Cirith Ungal' GC3EHEY. It's been archived since but looking at the found log, it was six years ago this past week that Auntie Mo and myself finally cracked that puzzle and found the final. July 20, 2015 to be exact. Getting back to solving, it's good to start with lower difficulty puzzles to get a feel for the different ways a puzzle can be created and solved. It helps to build confidence and know where your strengths and weaknesses are. I generally stay away from puzzles that involve calculus or any other university level math. Math was never my good subject in school.
Not all mystery caches are puzzles that you can solve at home. There are 'Challenge Caches' and 'Field Puzzles'. Challenge caches are at the posted coordinates, but you have to complete a task before you can claim it. The title may indicate that it's a challenge cache, but most definitely in the description it will say what your task is. '100 caches in 5 states challenge' GC8BMCB clearly states that this is a challenge cache. The requirement is to have found 100 geocaches each in any five states. I have 100+ finds in North Dakota and 100 in Minnesota. That's it. I don't qualify for this one. As you can see, you'll probably need to have found many, many geocaches to even qualify for any challenge cache. It's best to leave those until you have found hundreds of geocaches.
The other one I mentioned is the Field Puzzle. This is another puzzle type that you don't solve at home. You are required to go to the posted coordinates and find answers to questions that will help you get the final coordinates. Sometimes it could be the container itself that's the puzzle, also known as a gadget cache. This is usually indicated in the attribute section and in the description. 'Bouncy House' GC5Q4CB is a field puzzle.
(Field Puzzle attribute)
It's always good to read the entire puzzle first, including the title and hint. Sometimes the hint is a nudge in the right direction towards solving. Sometimes the hint is in the title. When I looked at ' O' Christmas Tree Geo-art 18' GC93F17, this is what the hint tells me:
And at the bottom of the description:
I'm going to toss in a very useful tip here that I do with all puzzles. I write down the posted coordinates. For this one, the posted coordinates are N41 33.134 W093 44.286 Looking at that bottom line, D is the fourth letter of the alphabet, A is the first, C is the third, and so on. That line of jibberish at the bottom are the actual coordinates. I'll talk more about posted coordinates and how that can help you solve puzzles in two weeks.
Google is your best friend. You can find so much information when you Google something. 'S.G.T. #4 Redo No Pit Stop Here' GC3MJ07. This is a Nascar based puzzle. I'm fairly knowledgeable on Nascar, but I still needed to Google the starting lineup for the 2012 Nascar Sprint Cup series to make sure I have the correct information. Most puzzles have a solution checker to make sure you have the correct answer. Older puzzles may not, and this particular puzzle doesn't have one. So, fingers crossed and a hope and a prayer that I have this one correctly solved.
Another useful tool is attending puzzle solving events if you have one in your area. Around here, as mentioned above, we have dani_carriere that hosts this type of event. What she does is she makes sure newer cachers are sitting with more experienced geocachers. This helps the newer people learn from the more experienced people. These events, and any other event really, are a good way to establish contacts. If you're stuck on a puzzle and you see that someone you have as a contact has found it already, you can turn to them for a nudge or a hint to send you down the correct path.
With that said, there's also puzzle solving groups on social media. Facebook is a good spot to find these types of groups. The people in these groups love solving puzzles. They won't give you the answer, but they will point you in the right direction.
That's all for this week. I will continue with more ways of solving puzzles in two weeks. Why in two weeks? Next week I announce the winner of the July photo contest. This is your final reminder to get your entries in if you want to win. You can send your entries to thegeocachingguild@gmail.com or direct message me on Twitter at @thegeocachingg1.
Until next week, be happy, stay safe, wash your hands and wear a mask, get vaccinated, hug your pets, and most importantly, just have fun. Peace out ✌
There's always just one more picture. It's always an extra thrill when you find the geocache that the previous person couldn't.
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