Seattle Blackout Challenge: Traditionals! Mystery Cache

This cache has been archived.

fishiam: Archived.

This entry was edited by fishiam on Saturday, 01 October 2011 at 15:38:15 UTC.

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Hidden : 6/10/2009
Difficulty:
4.5 out of 5
Terrain:
5 out of 5

Size: Size: small (small)

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Geocache Description:


Welcome to the Seattle Blackout Challenge: Traditionals!
The city of Seattle, home to Geocaching.com, has a rich and varied set of geocaches within the city limits. How rich and varied you wonder? Well, by completing this, and a companion challenge cache, you can learn first hand!

A couple of years ago, my main goal in geocaching was to keep Seattle "swept clean" (now nicely termed "blackout") of all active caches. This was back before the development of the many challenge caches in which one may now engage. Others have now taken up the challenge of achieving total Seattle cache blackout, and a challenge cache may encourage others to attempt to do so.

Early in 2009, a Bellevue Blackout challenge cache was developed and at least a couple of cachers have successfully completed the requirements for that challenge. With at least twice as many placed caches as Bellevue, it seemed more sporting to split the Seattle Blackout challenge into two parts, one for traditionals and one for all other caches ("non-traditionals").

So, without further ado .... here are the details:


The Challenge
To complete this challenge, you must have logged (or be the owner of) - at a singular point in time - every active traditional geocache within the official city limits. Of course, caches are constantly being published, archived and disabled. But if you can prove that you have logged (or own) all active caches as of the day PRIOR to when you make your claim, then you are considered to have achieved blackout and may log this cache. As of June 2009, there were over 400 traditional active caches, as illustrated in the map above.

The biggest challenge to satisfactorily completing this challenge - besides all the mileage and time involved in locating and signing 400+ caches within a 140 square mile area - is determining which caches are actually within the city limits. While this is actually considerably easier for the Seattle Blackout Challenge: Traditionals! than it is for the companion Seattle Blackout Challenge: Non-traditionals!, it can still be problematic. But my goal here is to help make it as easy as possible to identify all caches you need to find and log so you may complete this challenge cache.

Seattle City Limits
The northern, eastern and western city limits (for Traditionals) are relatively straightforward. The southern city limits are, well, convoluted. Note that the city limits include waters of both Puget Sound and Lake Washington. This is not (currently) an issue with Traditional caches, but it is very relevant to Puzzle and Multi-caches.


Identifying the Caches
There are other ways to do things than spelled out below but this set of instructions is straightforward and guarantees you will get the same list of required caches that I get in determining your success at completing the challenge!
  1. Become a Geocaching.com Premium member. You need this not only so you can access the cache pages, but also so that you can run the pocket queries described below.
  2. Download and install GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife).
  3. Run a North Seattle pocket query. The choices you want ot select in this query are: Traditional caches, From Origin (By Coordinates): N 47 40.890, W 122 20.730, Within a radius of 7.5 km (that's kilometers, not miles!). You may also choose to select only the Active caches but you risk those becoming active before you complete the challenge. Better to filter those in GSAK.
  4. Run a South Seattle pocket query. The choices you want to select in this query are: Traditional caches, From Origin (By Coordinates): N 47 33.420, W 122 19.800, Within a radius of 9.5 km (that's kilometers, not miles!). You may also choose to select only the Active caches but you risk those becoming active before you complete the challenge. Better to filter those in GSAK.
  5. These two queries collect all Seattle caches and a hundred or so from the east side of Lake Washington, and north and south of the city limits - those will get filtered out in GSAK.
  6. Open the two pocket queries into GSAK.
  7. Download Moun10bike's GSAK filter for Seattle.
  8. Set the GSAK filter: Ctrl-F (or from Menu ... Search -> Filter). On the General pane, select Available. On the Other Pane, select Traditionals. On the Arc/Poly pane, paste the waypoints from Moun10bike's Seattle.txt filter and select Polygon Filter Type.
  9. Select Go.
Moun10bike's Seattle filter is (almost*) the final word on whether a cache is considered to be within the Seattle city limits.
*Documented challenges will be considered

Northend caches that are close but OUTSIDE city limits:

  • GC18TE7 (Für Meine Freundin grossi!)
  • GC198BE (Hey! It Looks Like a Sandwich)
  • GCN2TG (power cache)
Southend caches that are close but OUTSIDE city limits:
  • GC11JZ3 (Verily Verily Verily Verily Life is But a Dream)
  • GCZK4M (One of the Worst Bridges in Washington State)
  • GCVW73(Electro Belt)
Northend cache that is close, but INSIDE city limits:
Southend caches that are close, but INSIDE city limits:
  • GCYTDV (Almost the Eastern most spot in Seattle). FunnyNose protested exclusion of this cache and perusal of official city documents appear to place this one ... by a few feet ... within city limits.
  • GCRCCZ (Arbutus Menziesii Grove II)
  • GC11AZ4 (Marra Farms)
  • GCTDW3 (Almost the Southern Most Spot in Seattle)
Cache Trivia
As of May 10, 2010, the identification procedure outlined above resulted in 494 active Traditional caches within the city limits (there were 413 at time of cache publication) with the following characteristics:

Difficulty and Terrain ratings Cache container sizes

Satisfying the Logging Requirements
This challenge cache pretty much operates on the honor system (though cache owner may apply the "trust but verify" principle). When you've completed the requirements, send me an email with the asked for info below and then head on out to locate and sign the cache log (which is NOT at the posted coordinates as those are for the Space Needle). The final cache is located in the Arboretum and is a straightforward find, difficulty 2.0, terrain 2.0, coordinates are listed below.
List of Intended and Successful Blackouteers
At the outset, there are a few cachers who will be able to almost "armchair" complete this cache - and congrats to them for all their already expended effort in clearing out Seattle's traditional caches. For the list below, let us know your intent to complete this cache and how many traditional caches remained to be found at the time of stated intent. Just for fun, I'll award a second FTF to the first cacher who began this challenge with over 100 still unfound traditionals.
Name Number left @ start of challenge Total Seattle traditional caches found Date Completed
Fish Soup 0 (!) 667 06/11/09
rodgowdy 4 535 06/11/09
FunnyNose 8 637 06/17/09
alciato 8 591 06/19/09
Kiersolvd 8 591 06/19/09
aviatrix22 55 ~500 07/10/09
Rey del Roble 52 644 08/24/09
FrodoB ?? 100s 08/27/09
Joe & the JAE Family 173 # ??/??/09
You # # ??/??/??


Congratulations to FishSoup for his FTF and rodgowdy for a very close STF, both accomplished the day after the cache was published!

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Onfr bs gerr svir srrg gb rnfg bs genvy

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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