External Interference
This cache is part of the M.T. Promises series. Be sure to make a note of the clue contained on the log.
During my 10 years of geocaching, I have been repeatedly amazed by seemingly incredible coincidences. These have often involved, ahem, erroneous solutions to puzzle caches that fit all the criteria of being great spots for a cache. I think I could write a book about these coincidences, but will try to keep it short!
The most incredible example began with lesdubois' Puzzle Parade cache of 2011. My solution to the puzzle just happened to produce an alternate, and unforeseen, set of coordinates quite some distance from the actual cache. The puzzle has since been modified to prevent that solution. You can read the lengthy account of the experience in my log, but briefly, the solution led me to pretty much the middle of the incredible and very rugged rock formations on the north side of the mouth of Parley's Canyon. The amazing part was, amidst all that no man's land of cliffs and boulders, a fairly nice trail leads almost right to the spot in question. In tribute to this, I placed a cache near this incorrect location: End Of An Error.
Fast forward to 2013-2014 and another lesdubois puzzle final, Meta Mystery. As the title indicates, this is the grand finale to a series of series of puzzles and therefore one of the most monumental cache finds in Utah. I wanted the FTF bad. But, I was short an as-yet-unavailable clue. As my log indicates, this led to a good chunk of the summer of 2014 spent attempting to simulate the correct solution to the puzzle. A reasonable undertaking, other than the fact that there were a great many possible solutions. No matter. I would track them all down until I found the right one!
As I worked through the approximately 450 possible solutions, I kept a list of those that seemed the most likely and ended up hiking to several of them. I believe it was five of those sites in particular that fell well into the "amazing" category of coincidence. Spread out over a wide area of Wasatch, these five each were "obviously" the spot where the cache was hidden, fitting all the criteria:
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There was no other cache within 528 feet (fairly amazing by itself in our cache-saturated area).
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Each was within a few feet of a popular hiking trail.
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Three of the five were precisely at the location of large trees which were about the only trees anywhere nearby. Very significant and interesting trees as well. This fit the "No tree climbing" attribute of the puzzle.
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Each site felt like a lesdubois puzzle final location, of which I can claim some experience!
I spent many hours at these various locations, turning over every rock, looking in every crevice, under every bush and in every tree. No cache to be found, although I enjoyed some great hiking and found some potential sites for future caches. All of this under the pressure of time, lest another cacher beat me to the find.
I continued through the list of possible solutions. And found the "right" one which I was about 99% certain of. In addition to all the above criteria, the site was exactly 528 feet from my End Of An Error cache. Once again, in that almost entirely impassable mass of cliffs, a long, sloping shelf, clearly visible in Google Earth, leads directly to the site. I was out the door and on the trail to that spot, pen in hand. I had marked the "entrance" to the shelf as a waypoint and located it easily and began the hike down the last 400 feet or so to the solution. It is quite an incredible place. The shelf, or chute, really does provide relatively easy access through the cliffs, and getting to ground zero was not too hard. And once again, at zero feet, I was obviously at the spot lesdubois had selected for this most important cache. The shelf pretty much ends there at a very nice bowl in the cliffs. Bringing up End Of An Error on my GPS receiver at that point indeed gave me a reading that bounced back and forth between .10 and 528 feet.
In addition to all of that, it would be classic lesdubois to pick this site for the final, the perfect last chapter to the whole Error saga. I had never been more sure of a puzzle solution site. Nor have I ever spent so much time looking for a single cache. I must have picked up every rock in the area multiple times, spending a few hours there. Once again, no cache to be found. I finally gave up in disbelief, positive that the cache had gone missing somehow.
However, an email to the owner revealed that once again I was in the wrong place. Skipping ahead, I eventually did hit the right solution and got the FTF, and a most satisfying find it was.
I kept thinking about my hike to the erroneous site, though, and decided it was worthy of a cache. My intention was to place it exactly at the site of the incorrect solution, but this time, descending the shelf/chute seemed a bit more daunting and technical. I must have been in a state of FTF fever the first time and didn't realize it. I decided to place the cache at the top instead (amazingly, still exactly 528 feet to Error). As you stand at the new site, the chute is just to the northwest and the site I visited about 400 feet along the descent of it. Check it out if you are so inclined. The exact solution was: N 40 42.907 W 111 47.400.
In keeping with the M.T. Promises theme, the cache is NOT a match tube, and if it were, it would be purely coincidental.
I think you will find the hike to this cache more enjoyable than the one to End Of An Error. It is much higher and farther from the Interstate and does not require hiking through loose rock. The final is quite a nice location as well. As you hike, ponder the role coincidences play in our lives and feel free to share your own geocaching-related examples in your log. Is it just coincidence? Or is it a sign of external interference?
Unstable condition
A symptom of life
In mental and environmental change
Atmospheric disturbance
The feverish flux
Of human interface and interchange
The impulse is pure
Sometimes our circuits get shorted
By external interference...
Rush: Vital Signs