To find this cache you must delve into the early days of geocaching in Westchester County, back when caches were "stashes", when lucien and clunelaw planted the first caches (and set the standard all cache hiders should aspire to), when caches could be stashed on bridges, next to dams and by railroad tracks and geocaching.com used these antiquated cache icons:
In those days of yore, not a micro was to be seen! The game has changed (or evolved) but the fun continues. There's just more of it, as the maps below demonstrate:
| October 1, 2003 |
January 4, 2012 |
Blame this on BriGuy - he put the bee in my bonnet to place this cache as I am one of the older area geo-fossils still standing. The standard for this type of cache however has already been set by addisonbr's excellent Original Colonists (GC1N4JB) cache which involves the early history of Manhattan geocaching. That cache page also provides a thorough description of the early development of geocaching giving you an idea of the wild and wooly days of geocaching in its infancy. This Westchester version of Original Colonists has more datum, thanks largely to lucien and clunelaw, as the final coordinates for this cache must be derived from the active and archived caches placed in Westchester from 2000 through 2001.
First, find all the Westchester caches that were placed in 2000 and 2001. My Ancient and Venerable Caches of Westchester Bookmark will give you a jumping off point. You should end up with 34 total caches. Two are particularly tricky. If you end up with more than 34, let me know - I have been known to be wrong before. Once you have all the caches then calculate the centroid (or midpoint) from the header coordinates of all of the caches. There are a couple of websites on the internet that will calculate a geographic centroid for you. Once you have the centroid (which should put you in someone's frontyard in Thornwood), then subtract .237 from the North coordinate and add 1.843 to the West coordinate to arrive at the cache's location somewhere in Graham Hills Park. Check your solution on the geochecker provided before jumping in your car. When doing your research, use the current coordinates on the cache pages, whether active or archived, and not the coordinates for the final of a multi or puzzle cache or the coords of a prior iteration of a cache (hint hint).
As this cache honors the early days of geocaching, the coordinates for the final are a little "soft" although the hiding spot is obvious - just look for the biggest crotch around. The cache is not far off of one of the many trails that meander through Graham Hills. Here's a trail map for Graham Hills for your reference. I left a FTF prize of a gift certificate to Jacobs Burns Arts Center - you and your geo-buddy/wingman/significant other can go see Splinterheads if it ever plays there. addisonbr was also generously provided a platoon of cache ninjas as swag for this cache - one to a customer please.
You can check your answers for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.
Please note that by nabbing all of the caches on the Ancient and Venerable Bookmark list, you will get a good head start on the Jasmer Challenge since you can notch 7 out of the 20 months from May, 2000 through December, 2001. The CO is happy to give nudges, hints, winks and shoves if your research efforts leave you in the middle of Kensico Reservoir.
Congratulations to Team Mumu on FTF. And thanks to Team MSG for working out the bugs in this cache puzzle!
geo-historians have parsed this page
Free counters provided by Vendio.