Tributary | Pickled Tinker Mystery Cache
Tributary | Pickled Tinker
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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A seasonal Night Cache - during the Holidays, you really should visit this one at night. During other times of the year, a night visit is encouraged, but not as important. No matter how you hunt - Diurnal, Nocturnal or Crepuscular - you will probably hear this cache before you see it.
A slight variation on the CHRISTMAS PICKLE tradition. You will find the Christmas Pickle hanging in a tree and that will grant you your WISH of finding the final present under the tree. Do not attempt to remove the Pickle, but find the pill bottle hanging below it. Inside you will find a description of the hide. You will probably hear Tinkerbell - she loves this area and often visits. If you do hear her your wishes will come true.
Initial coordinates will take you to a starting point where there were once campus maps. These days, everything can be found on-line
The puzzle is quite simple. For North, add the difference of the number of the room where students will go after graduation to find work in the real world and the number of the room where studious students spend many hours researching the stacks - to the given North. For West, add the square of the number of Evacuation Chairs and the square of the number of AED locations throughout the building to the number of the room where students like myself go to recover misplaced items - to the given West.
If you are not familiar with the tradition, here is how we do it at our house. Every year after Christmas dinner, the previous finder of the pickle hides it anew in the Christmas Tree while the rest of us look away. When it is properly hidden, we are given the green light to go look for it. The person who finds the pickle gets the prize which, in our family, is a HANDMADE gift from last years pickle finder. It is the first gift we open on Christmas Day.
So, for this cache, you should come anticipating a HANDMADE gift from the previous finder and also be prepared to leave a HANDMADE gift for the next finder. This is not a requirement, but is strongly encouraged to give this cache meaning. It can be a ton of fun to discover what someone has left behind as a personal creation for the next person. Many of you already do this for your cache finds and those who don't will now have an excuse to do so.
The final is now an ammo can and can house larger handmade items. Also, there is a button that you may press to record your own holiday greeting for the next finder. This element will probably not work during the coldest part of the year.
UPDATE:12.10.10 Layout changes to institution necessitated clue changes for North and South. Final sized down to small and clue adjusted
UPDATE:4.24.12 New construction forced the issue. Fortunately, the Tannenbaum upon which WP1 is ornamented, was relocated to a great new (old) location, intact. Clues changed again to solve for new locatoin.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
JC1: Guvax Qe Fhrff.
JC2: Wvatyr nyy gur jnl.
Nyy:Vg'f Puevfgznf, jurer ryfr ner lbh tbaan svaq beanzragf ohg urer?