Acton Arboretum Treasure Hunt Mystery Cache
Acton Arboretum Treasure Hunt
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(large)
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The listed coordinates are for the parking. The Acton Arboretum is a 65-acre, town-owned, conservation land in the center of Acton. Finding the cache requires a 1.5 mile loop hike around the Arboretum with 6 stops along the route. At each stop is a numbered post in the ground. Write down the numbers from all 6 stops and add them together. You will use the sum to find the final coordinates of the cleverly concealed cache.
The Acton Arboretum features several “formal” gardens among the manicured upper grounds. Much of the upper grounds are handicap accessible with stone dust walkways. There is also a blazed trail system through the woods. This cache takes you into the wooded trails, sometimes muddy, rocky and with roots. After you find the cache, use the parking lot coordinates to return to your car on the yellow blazed trail. Here is a link to a map you can print: https://trails.actonma.gov/map/?zoom=15.40&lng=-71.433151&lat=42.480013&m=[] For more info please visit www.actonarboretum.org or the parking lot kiosk. Start at the Taylor Road parking lot. Coordinates: N 42 28.912 W 071 26.255 Go to each stop below. Write down the number you see on the post at each stop. 1. N 42 28.949 W 071 26.255 This is the Hosta Garden, maintained by the Acton Garden Club. It has more than 150 assorted species, many commercially available and easily grown in your own yard. 2. N 42 28.951 W 071 26.216 This is the Herb Garden, maintained by the Acton Garden Club. It is a replica of a typical 1700’s herb garden with medicinal and culinary herbs nestled in an old, field stone foundation of an 18th century house. In spring lilacs and quince bloom abundantly. 3. N 42 28.914 W 071 26.150 Between the path and the stone wall is the lilac collection in many shades of purple and white. 4. N 42 28.798 W 071 26.013 This is the site of a farm quarry, a major industry in the 1880’s. Rock was cut using a technique known as “feather and wedging” that slowly cracks a rock, splitting it into pieces by applying massive stress to a small area. Holes were cut using a metal hand drill or a hammer and chisel. Two pieces of curved metal were inserted into each hole and a metal or wooden wedge was placed between them. Each wedge was hammered a few times before moving on to another wedge, thus applying an even force to split the rock. 5. N 42 28.628 W 071 26.044 This 2.5 acre bog is a classic, glacially-created wetland that has been colonized with bog plants, such as the carnivorous pitcher plant. The bog was once open water 15,000 years ago and has been filling in with sediment and sphagnum moss over the decades. Now it is a bog in transition to a meadow; slowly, as the peat grows one inch every 100 years! The sphagnum moss bed is 16’ deep in some places. No stream flows into this bog, nor is there any supply of oxygen. These factors slow the rate of biologic decomposition of the organic matter and keep the environment very acidic, often with a pH less than 4.0. 6. N 42 28.656 W 071 26.060 You are standing atop an esker, a raised gravel stream bed in the form of a long, winding ridge left by a melting and receding glacier. The esker is a mini-continental divide for this lower part of the Arboretum, the great swamp on the west side and the bog on the east side. Eskers are frequently several miles in length and their shape resembles railroad embankments. The sediment consists of coarse sand and gravel with occasional boulders. Pine and oak trees are able to grow here on the esker. Now that you have collected all the post numbers, here is how to figure out the final coordinates for the final hide. For the North Add the post numbers together, then add 643. The sum is the last three digits below: N 42 28.___ ____ ___ For the West Add the post numbers together, then subtract 30. The answer is the last two digits below. W 071 26.0 ___ ___
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Bcra gur gernfher purfg.