Houndsville Station Mystery Cache
lucymogus: Time to retire the hounds.
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(small)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Dedicated to critters everywhere. Look out for them. Take care of them. Treat them with love and respect. This is a 3-part multi-puzzle cache. The coordinates shown are not one of the waypoints but might be a good place to park for the first stage.
Ok, all you cache hounds. Welcome to the station. Use your good trail sense to sniff this one out.
As I was wandering around looking for likely cache sites, the Spokane Humane Society came into view. Wanted to put one there so you could go in and share some loves with the animals. But there’s already a cache languishing nearby. (You can still go share some loves!)
Meandered up another road for a bit but two border collies informed me that they wouldn’t approve of any caches in the vicinity.
Finally I hit upon a plan. Devise a puzzle so we can all learn some fascinating new animal factoids and spread the cache out over three waypoints. Here goes.
You will need to uncover the names applied to the following animal groups. The number of letters in the group’s name will be the number you use for the equations. For instance: if you came up with the group name gaggle for gaggle of geese, your answer would be 6 to use in the equations to find the waypoints. Below you will find an alphabetical list of choices for the animal group names. After you fill in the blanks with the correct name, do the adding and subtracting for the equations, if there are 10 or more letters in any solution, drop the 'tens' place digit and just use the number in the 'ones' spot. As in: gaggle of geese + pack of dogs = 6 + 4 = 10. So you would use the 0 as your answer. A through F are each three digit numbers. Do not multiply within the equations.
__________ of apes __________ of boars
__________ of emus __________of doves
___________of turtles __________ of turkeys
__________of caterpillars
___________of jellyfish __________of jackrabbits
__________ of toads ___________ of kangaroos
__________of squirrels __________ of parrots
___________ of hogs __________of foxes
__________of moles __________ of porpoises
__________ of ravens __________of sparrows
___________of cobras __________ of crocodiles
__________ of cats ___________ of magpies
__________ of owls __________ of storks
___________ of elk __________ of finches
__________ of cows __________ of trout
__________ of rattlesnakes __________of donkeys
__________ of eagles __________ of ferrets
__________ of greyhounds __________of nightingales
__________ of leopards _________ of rhinos
__________ of tigers __________ of turtledoves
__________ of zebras __________ of woodpeckers
__________of spiders __________ of prairie dogs
__________ of penguins __________of lapwings
Waypoint #1:
N 47 42. A
W 117 18. B
A = ( turkeys – leopards ), ( zebras ), ( woodpeckers )
B = ( apes – prairie dogs + finches ), (parrots – turtles), (greyhounds)
You can verify coordinates for waypoint 1 at: (visit link)
Waypoint #2: you will need to get answers C and D
C = ( ravens ), ( rhinos + crocodiles ), ( toads )
D = ( sparrows + cobras – hogs ), ( cats – porpoises ),
( owls )
You will need to take answers C and D with you to waypoint #1 to plug into the new coordinates there.
Once you have been to waypoint #1 you can verify coordinates for waypoint #2, if needed, at: (visit link)
Final: you will need to get answers E and F
E = ( eagles – foxes - jellyfish ), ( ferrets - kangaroos ), ( emus + penguins )
F = ( donkeys + lapwings – rattlesnakes ), ( tigers + spiders – cows ), ( storks – jackrabbits )
You will need to take answers E and F with you to waypoint #2 to plug into the new coordinates there.
Once you have been to waypoint #2 you can verify coordinates for the final waypoint, if needed, at: (visit link)
Original Houndsville final has been fenced in. Woof. New final is in place and waiting for you with a nice view. Next cacher to log in gets cash from the cache.
Happy hunting!
ANIMAL GROUP NAME CHOICES (each and every name will be used just once):
ambush, army, bale, business, charm, clowder, cluster, convocation, coterie, crash, deceit, descent, dray, drift, dule, float, gang, host, hover, husk, kine, knot, labor, leap, leash, mob, mustering, pace, pandemonium, parliament, pitying, pod, quiver, rafter, rhumba, rookery, shrewdness, skulk, smack, sounder, tiding, troop, unkindness, watch, zeal
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
#1 uvag: qba’g onex hc gur jebat gerr
#2 uvag: qbtf naq envyf qb guvf
Svany uvag: tebhc bs 3, frnepu fcrpxyr-rr
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures