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? Puzzle Caches


JPWAVE

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Hello Geocaching Community!! I see a lot of puzzle caches all over the place but when I take a look at the details, I just don't know where to begin?!? I'd really like to solve these puzzles such that I can go after these caches. Is there a beginner's guide for tips/tricks to solving common geocache puzzles??

 

Greatly Appreciated!!

-Mike "JPWAVE"

:)

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Look near the top of the cache page for the first set of coordinates, highlighted in light blue. Sometimes the cache owner will also repeat the coordinates in the description and tell you what that first set leads you to. They'll give you a simple (or sometimes not so simple) puzzle to solve in order to get the coordinates to the final cache (or next location if there are multiple). Oftentimes the puzzle is solved by using information found at the first set of coordinates, such as on a sign. Maybe replacing letters in the puzzle they give you with numbers, or doing some simple math. Once you solve the puzzle coordinates, enter them into your GPSr manually to guide you to that location.

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A while back, The Rat offered a puzzle-solving class as an event cache. His slides are available here:

http://thegba.net/resources/general_information.php

 

Among the tips he offered:

 

Identify the theme. Check the cache title, the hint, the HTML source, the graphics (including names/URLs), any links (including URLs), whatever is at the posted coordinates, etc. If you can figure out the theme, then you should look for numbering systems that are associated with that theme (zip codes, area codes, telephone keypads, episode numbers, etc.).

 

Around here, coordinates will have 15 digits, and will look like "N 37° xx.xxx W 122° xx.xxx". So when I'm solving a nearby puzzle, I look for a group of 15 things, and then I look for ways to get the digits 37xxxxx122xxxxx from them. In general, I look for ways to get the number 37 (or the digits 3 and 7) from something near the beginning of the puzzle, and the number 122 (or the digits 1, 2, and 2) from something near the middle of the puzzle. (Of course, you'll need to adjust this for the coordinates near you.)

 

Other useful resources include the Puzzle Solving 101 Series

http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.a...ef-901807ba9c98

this "Solving Puzzle Caches" article

http://bcaching.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/puzzles-part-1/

and this "How Do I Solve All These $@! Puzzle Caches?" cache

http://coord.info/GC25WQJ

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