This is the tenth and final in the Boxborough-Centric geocache series. It is a mystery cache with two stages. The listed coordinates only mark the best place to park, next to the Community Gardens. Stage 1 is located very close to the geographic center, or centroid, of the Town of Boxborough. Both stages of the cache and the Town’s centroid are a short hike from the listed coordinates.
The Boxborough-Centric series is a collection of nine individual caches, each having a clue to the tenth. All are located in Boxborough, Mass. They will take you to some of the more interesting places in the town. Several of these caches will rely on information that can be found in a book called Boxborough: Portrait of a Town, published by a group of Town residents in 1983. A special copy of this book, reserved just for this cache series, can be found in Boxborough's Sargent Memorial Library. The librarians will show you where it is. Please do not mark it up. Bring a pen and paper with which to make notes because you cannot take this copy out. Or, for a cost, you may make copies of a few pages at a time in the library if you prefer. A waypoint is provided for the location of the library. The library’s hours can be found on its website here.
There are two ways to resolve this mystery cache. You can:
1) Mathematically determine the centroid of the town as defined by its borders laid out on the Mass State Grid. (This is not where Google Maps or MapQuest show the center of the town.) Or, you can…
2) Find the first nine caches in the Boxborough Centric numbered series. They can be done in any order, but you will need ALL the clues from those nine caches.
Resolving the clues in the first nine BC caches will produce the coordinates of the centroid of the Town. Stage 1 of BC#10 is located 24 ft. on a bearing of 142° true (not magnetic) from the centroid. Stage 1 is a camouflaged pill bottle with instructions for finding the Final. There is nothing special marking the centroid other than the ambiguous feature in which the nearby Stage 1 cache is hidden.
The Final cache is a large container holding a log and trading items. There is no need for digging, climbing, or pulling apart any stone walls. Since it will not be found very often, it won’t be a good place for trackable items, but quality durable trading items are encouraged. Please carefully restore the camouflage for this container when done; it is meant to be well hidden.
Both cache stages require some bushwhacking, so boots and long pants are advised. As always when geocaching in Boxborough, beware of the PI and prickers. The listed difficulty rating reflects the amount of work necessary to resolve this puzzle.
There was a prize package for the FTF in the Final. It included a copy of the book Boxborough: Portrait of a Town, a geocaching marble, an unregistered Groundspeak FTF geocoin, and a $2 bill. G-o-cashers got the First-To-Find (he did it the hard way, without waiting for the full series to be published). He is making the prize copy of Boxborough: Portrait of a Town available to anyone who wants to borrow it for this series by placing it in his The Other Boxborough Library (GC2GJ21) geocache.
Both stages may be hard to find in the winter.
Take the clues from the first nine geocaches in the BC series and enter them below:
BC#1 Boxborough Well Water (Wolf Swamp) GC2C8DC
A = take the date that is the answer to the question contained in that cache, and
calculate the following: mm/(dd/yyyy) rounded to the nearest whole number.
To verify your answer, the sum of the digits is 14.
BC#2 Schoolhouse No. 2 GC8NGWR
B = the number that is the answer to the first question contained in that cache
C = take the name that is the answer to the second question contained in that cache, then:
- Find the numeric equivalent of her first and last names
- Add those two numbers together
- Verify your answer: the sum of the digits of that number is 10
BC#3 Herb Garden (Old Meetinghouse) GC2DRQR
D = The three digit number that is the answer to the question found in that cache
- Verify your answer: the sum of the three digits is 12.
BC#4 Boxborough Quilt (Patch Hill) GC2DRQY
E = The two digit number that is the answer to the question contained in that cache
F = The four digit number that is the answer to the question contained in that cache
- Verify your answer: the sum of the digits of that number is 22
BC#5 Cynthia's Bequest (Fisk Wood) GC2DRR5
H = the four digit number that is the answer to the question contained in that cache
- Verify your answer: the sum of the digits of that number is 20
BC#6 The SE Corner (Flagg Hill) GC2DRRR
J = The three digit number that is the answer to the question found in that cache
BC#7 SIGINT (Hager Hill) GC2DRRG
G = The seven digit number that is the answer to the question contained in that cache
BC#8 Fifer's Day (Flerra Field) GC2DRRD
K = The two digit number found in that cache.
BC#9 Helen's Favorite (Half Moon Meadow) GC2DRRB
L = Take the date that is the answer to the question found in that cache, and calculate the following: mm/(dd/yyyy) rounded to the nearest whole number.
- Verify your answer: the sum of the digits of that number is 10.
Calculate the centroid as follows:
- You should carry at least four decimal digits through all your calculations.
- Round off the final results to three decimal digits.
- Remember to do the calculations progressively from inside out in the nested parenthesis.
N 42° Mn' where Mn = ((C + L) / K) / ((L - C - A) / E) + ((F - H) / K) + B - ((A / K) / 500)
W 71° Mw' where Mw = ((G * A) / (L * D * E)) - (A / C) + (J / 100)
Refer to the notes above for how to find Stage 1 from the centroid.
You can check your answers for the CENTROID on Geochecker.com.