Tributary | Cache for Old Silver Mystery Cache
Tributary | Cache for Old Silver
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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STEP 1: SOLVE THE ABOVE PUZZLE FOR: N44°16.ABC W88°1D.EFG. DO NOT GO TO THESE COORDINATES!! THEY WILL ONLY BE USED TO CRACK OPEN THE GEOCHECK, WHERE YOU WILL FIND INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO PROCEED. Those instructions are found below the scrolling banner............
THE LOCATION OF AN AMAZING FIELD-SOLVE WILL BE REVEALED BY CHECKING YOUR PUZZLE-SOLVE WITH THE GEOCHECK. ONCE YOU SUCCESSFULLY SATISFY THE GEOCHECK, IT WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH THE LOCATION AND QUESTIONS FOR THE FIELD-SOLVE.
STEP 2: GO TO THE LOCATION AND COMPLETE THE FIELD-SOLVE TO REVEAL THE LOCATION OF THE FINAL.
STEP 3: GO GET IT!
You've all see them, commercials to trade in your old used jewelry, watches and whatever else contains Precious Metals for cash. That's because in uncertain times, precious metal bullion, like the Canadian Mint silver bullion coins above, as a commodity increase in value because they are as close to a universal standard as you can get, while paper notes fluctuate by country, continent and present-day conflicts. Of course the Silver diggers and purveyors of precious metal jewelry are going to paint your old keepsakes as something with little value to you unless you pawn it for parchment. As if your old wedding ring or Grandfather's pocket watch has no more worth beyond it's purity and weight! Looking into the values of various precious metals, I was surprised to discover a number of ores I had never even heard of. You can send them your gold and silver, but how do these places acquire rare elements like Ruthenium or Palladium? I see you can acquire bullion of the latter, how would you even go about pulling Germanium out of used semi-conductors or Iriduim from high-temp crucibles? And what about, Beryllium an alloying agent used to stiffen other metals, quite dangerous to extract and therefor not economically attractive to recover. Now Platinum, on the other hand, can be recycled from many things like jewelry, catalytic converters and the rare Heavy Metal album template on many a rock band and record exec's wall.
So, what does all that have to do with caching? As many of the old-timers know, a practice took hold a few years ago of placing Silver Ammo Cans for tribute 1K finds. I myself have taken part by placing a few of my own for those special caching acquaintances who've proved their cache metal by hitting that high mark. It's a pretty special one and even those who've blown by many more "K" finds can recall the day they hit 1K.
Nearing my own Silver milestone I recalled a conversation I once had with a Good Man From Omro who was and still is very keen on seeing cachers get recognition of milestones, particularly the biggies like 1K, and was remiss when someone slipped through the cracks or flew under the radar and didn't get that special cache for that special day. He suggested placing a "catch-all" Tribute cache for anyone who didn't get the attention from a fellow cacher for any number of reasons.
THIS IS THAT CACHE, at least for this part of the state. It can and should be logged as an FTF by anyone who hits the 1K mark without a tribute cache of their own or has long since blown by 1K but would like to dig up an Old Silver FTF for the one they never got.
Moreover, I knew that a particular Old Silver and his wife were coming up on their own 1K and also sensed that they, like many others hitting that mark, didn't want attention called to themselves being the solitary and private cachers they are. But, because this relatively new caching team exemplifies what it means to give back to the sport by acknowledging the effort put into and the effort required to come out the other side of many challenging puzzles in the valley, I couldn't let them slip by unnoticed. They are the tributees here and should be given the opportunity to log the first FTF on this cache. Because they love a challenge, this one is set up as a nice multi-puzzle which incorporates many components from the tributee's favorites aspects of the sport. A little desk time, some great historical content, a spectacular discovery midway through and a nice little hike at the end.
There are a few ways to solve the first puzzle portion of this cache presented here, requiring light, medium and heavy puzzle-solving metal. When you solve it, use the puzzle-solve coordinates to open the Geocheck, which will reveal the coordinates of the Location and Questions of an easy Field-Solve puzzle.
Solve the Field-Solve puzzle and you will be given coordinates to the Final. It is located on what was once my Favorite trail in the valley, it was the Best. It changed a while ago, and while I like to Harp about changes of this magnitude, there's nothing to do for it but to value the spot for the Treasure that it once was. The FTF prize for the first 5 cachers who choose this as their 1K Milestone is significant (excluding the tributees who get their own precious reward), so give it some thought if you're coming up on the big one, k?
Additional Hints
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