This cache is dedicated (and a Christmas present) to our son, Kevin (k2d2), a National Park ranger currently stationed at Mt. Rainier National Park in Washington. Several years ago, we introduced him to Geocaching and being the intrepid outdoorsman that he is, he took to it like bears to honey. As I write this, he currently has over 1200 finds, and 24 hides. Of his own caches, a third of them are puzzles. He has 2 Earthcaches at Mt. Rainier and has hosted two CITO events in the park.
Periodically we manage to spend a day caching together. The highlight of our tandem caching was July 26 of this year. It was his 43rd birthday and we found all 43 of the “Peace Sign Series” (GC24NBA) in Seattle.
It’s been fun seeing his enthusiasm for the sport and his creativity with the hides he’s placed (check them out if you’re in the Eatonville, WA area). It’s also been great having someone as in tune to puzzles as he is. He’s been my lifeline many times on a puzzle I couldn’t figure out as well as a great tester of my own puzzles.
Now for the puzzle at hand. I ran across this code sometime ago when I was trying to solve someone else’s puzzle. It was after one of those very wet, rainy, muddy days that Kevin and I had spent caching together (it seems it’s always, wet, rainy and muddy when we cache together!!) and Judy was washing tons of our muddy “geo” clothes. It was different enough from a more familiar code I’ve seen used that I had to save it for a future cache.
The cache itself is not difficult to find. The rating is for the puzzle.
The puzzle answer coords are: N44 38.ABC W123 02.DEF
DO TO CONSTRUCTION AT THE SIGHT, THE CACHE HAD TO BE MOVED. ADD .024 TO THE NORTH COORDS AND SUBTRACT .073 FROM THE WEST COORDS TO GET THE LOCATION OF THE CACHE.