Idida-Puzzle Mystery Cache
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Iditarod Trail between the Girdwood School and Crow Creek Road.
This geocache was put together by a class of Girdwood Elementary students as part of a unit on navigation.
The puzzle questions will introduce you to a bit of Alaskana, the Iditarod Trail. You can start hiking this section of the Iditarod Trail either from the first Iditarod Trail parking lot on Crow Creek Road (1.4 miles up Crow Creek Rd from the Alyeska Hwy) or from the back of the softball field at the Girdwood School. There's no trail sign at the school. Just look for an offset gate in the fence behind the softball backstop, and you'll see the trail starting there. There is also a short trail called the Athabaskan Trail that was built by the Girdwood students. It takes off to your left from the Iditarod trail soon after you leave the field and circles through the woods behind the school.
If you start at the school and get to the sign that says "Diane's View", you've gone too far.
You can answer most of the puzzle questions from the Forest Service website www.fs.fed.us/r10/chugach/seward/rec/trails/iditarod_info.htm (the text is included below) or the Iditarod website www.iditarod.com/learn/history.html.
To find the latitude and longitude of the cache, you must answer the questions and substitute the answers into the letters shown:
A degrees B.C minutes N latitude
D degrees E.F minutes W longitutde
A. To find the degree latitude of the cache, find out the degrees north latitude of Seward, the starting point of the Iditarod Trail. The cache is at the same degree latitude.
B. To find the minutes of latitude of the cache, divide the Ididarod Trail mile number for the Iditarod Mining District by the number 8.5.
C. To find the decimal minutes of latitude, multiply the number of mushers who ran in the original serum relay to Nome by the number 26.5.
D. To find the degree longitude of the cache, find out the degrees west longitude of Seward, the starting point of the Iditarod Trail. The cache is at the same degree longitude.
E. To find the minutes of longitude of the cache, subtract the year the first Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was run (only from Knik to Big Lake) from the year the Iditarod Race was first run from Anchorage to Nome.
F. To find the decimal minutes of longitude, add 153 to the number of miles the mushers carried the serum in 1925.
Ididarod Trail History
From www.fs.fed.us/r10/chugach/seward/rec/trails/iditarod_info.htm
Once used by ancient hunters, then by early 20th century gold seekers, the Iditarod is actually a network of more than 2,300 miles of trails now know as the Iditarod National Historic Trail. The trail takes its name from the 19th century Athabascan Indian village on the Iditarod River near the site of a 1908 gold discovery. By 1910 a gold rush flourished for a time and was the center of the Iditarod Mining District. Trails used for trade and commerce by Ingalik and Tanaina Indians were improved by and for the miners.
The southern terminus of the trail begins at Seward (mile 0). White settlers entering the Territory at the port trekked through heavily forested lands, now part of the Chugach National Forest. The route eventually was surveyed by the railroad to connect Anchorage with Seward.
Gold seekers often bought provisions in Anchorage or the town of Knik as a prelude to sledding, hiking or snowshoeing across Rainy Pass enroute to the various mining districts following news of each new strike. Other adventurers actually started their travels in Nome. They may have worked the beaches panning for gold for a time before moving south. As the two end portions of the trail developed, they met in the interior at the Iditarod Mining District (mile 493).
The trail was officially surveyed by the U.S. Army's Alaska Road Commission in 1910 and dubbed the Seward to Nome Mail Trail. It was used as a major route until 1924 when the airplane came into use.
But, in 1925, the dog team and driver recaptured the attention of the nation in a dramatic episode of courage and stamina. A diphtheria epidemic threatened the town of Nome, which was low on serum to inoculate the community. Plans to send a plane were thwarted by weather. Instead, a relay of dog teams was dispatched from the town of Nenana down the Tanana and Yukon rivers to the Iditarod Trail. Twenty mushers carried the serum the 674 miles in 127 1/2 hours. The mushers became heroes. President Coolidge sent medals and Balto, the lead dog of the finishing team, was immortalized in statues across the country.
The Iditarod Trail was forgotten for more than forty years until the 1960s when interest in racing was renewed. In 1967 the first Iditarod race was staged between Knik and Big Lake and return on nine miles of the old Iditarod Trail. Another race was held there in 1969. Then in 1973 the race was run between Anchorage and Nome. The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which has come to be known internationally as "the last great race," is staged each March and includes competitors from around the world.
Since then other sporting events have sprung up to provide challenges of many kinds.
Only a small part of the trail can be hiked in the usual sense of the word for the Iditarod is what is known as a winter trail. Most use occurs when the tundra and rivers are frozen and easier to cross. During the summer months, the thick tundra vegetation makes hiking extremely difficult on many sections of the trail. Today, one can hike those portions of the trail which run through Chugach National Forest or the Chugach Sate Park near Anchorage, such as this section here in Girdwood.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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