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With the demise of GAG 8 – Circular Logic (GC10T3Z) due to the summer 2012 forest fire in Stony Swamp, and a request from the local caching community that its essence not be lost, I’m putting this cache out to maintain its spirit. You get essentially the same puzzle, the same long hike, roughly the same degree of bushwhacking, and the same chance of a soaker depending on your approach. But if you’d solved GC10T3Z, you’re well on your way to this one.
The cache is NOT at the posted coordinates. Please do not search for it there. It would be unproductive and dangerous (and if that’s not reason enough, you’d look pretty silly).
The starting point for your search is a large (10+ meters in diameter) horizontal, ground-level, circular object located less than 100 meters from the posted coordinates, but, of course, the cache isn’t there either, though the gallery contains a picture of its center so that you can be confident that you’ve correctly identified it.
Instead, a critical intermediate location/waypoint for finding the cache IS at the common center of three concentric circles, that location being, not coincidentally, the exact location of the former “GAG8 – Circular Logic” cache (GC10T3Z). But please note: this cache isn’t there, because that area was one of the hot spots in the July 2012 Stony Swamp fire that, as Xira has so eloquently described and well documented (see her comment for GC10T3Z), turned the former ammo-box cache container into unserviceable toast. The fire also made trees in the surrounding area a potential hazard by burning off some of their exposed roots, so that many of those trees are likely to fall down before too long. Thus, there’s no need to go there, no utility to going there, and it might prove hazardous to your health. (So there! Just don’t do it!)
Some special interrelationships among the three circles, detailed below, will provide you with a direction and a distance from the three circles’ common center to the center of the large circular object. This information will greatly assist you in narrowing your search radius from more than a kilometer (quite impractical) to just a relatively few meters (eminently feasible). Please be careful with your calculations because imprecision will increase your search area, potentially drastically so. Out of respect for you as a searcher for the cache, I have diligently set up the calculations to allow you to be as precise as you wish, and have indicated a desirable level of precision. Please be equally careful with your projections; I’ll respectfully suggest that restricting yourself to whole numbers of degrees will leave you with an undesirably large search radius, likely leaving you wandering around in circles of ever-increasing diameter. Experienced cachers will know the various work-arounds for projecting fractional degrees.
The relevant data then, are as follows (with all of the calculations in base 10): [A diagram will make the description easier to understand, but you’ll have to draw your own.]
(1) A tangent to the inner concentric circle at its southwestern-most point (with respect to true north) intersects the middle concentric circle in two places. The straight-line segment between those two intersection points is exactly 20 meters long. (Amazing how these things work out so precisely, isn’t it?)
(2) A tangent to the middle concentric circle at its northern-most point (with respect to magnetic north) intersects the outer concentric circle in two places. The straight-line segment between those two intersection points is exactly 2 meters long. (Once again, it’s astounding how these things just work out.)
(3) You can assemble the radius, in yards (not meters), of the middle circle as those digits (i.e., of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) NOT appearing in the security code for Horace Rumpole’s home alarm system (as contained in one of the stories in John Mortimer’s book, “Rumpole on Trial,” © 1992, available through the Ottawa Public Library), but with those unused digits arranged in strictly descending order, and with no fractional part.
(4) Let X be the number of square meters in the area between the inner and middle concentric circles. A rounded, but sufficiently precise, value for X takes the form ABC.DEFGHIJ (meters squared) using the usual rules for rounding.
(5) Let Y be the inverse of the area in square meters (i.e., 1/area) between the middle and outer concentric circles. A rounded, but sufficiently precise, value for Y takes the form K.LMNOPQRST (per meter squared) using the usual rules for rounding.
(6) From the common center of the three concentric circles at the cache’s intermediate waypoint [i.e., the location of the former GAG8 – Circular Logic cache (GC10T3Z), which you really DON’T want to go to in the course of finding this cache – trust me! (or, better yet, trust Xira!)] the center of the large, horizontal, circular object is LDGC meters in the direction OEG.CM degrees T.
(7) Finally, imagine yourself standing triumphantly at the location of this cache, Circular Logic Redux, having just logged it, and for some reason doing a projection to the location of the old GAG8 – Circular Logic cache (GC10T3Z), i.e. to precisely that place that you really don’t want to go to because it would be unproductive and might well be dangerous. You’d want to set up that projection as PGJI meters at GCH.F degrees T.
Depending on your approach to the cache’s GZ, and the time of year, rubber boots (or a canoe, or both) may be advisable. Do be careful; there are swampy areas in the vicinity – not surprising in an area with the name “Stony Swamp.” These can be potentially treacherous if you should attempt to cross them over thin or rotten ice; cachers looking for GAG8 – Circular Logic have gotten cold soakers trying it. With a longer walk, drier ground is available; I placed the cache in September without getting my feet wet.
I doubt that it will help, but (just in case, and for consistency with GC10T3Z’s cache set-up) I’ve included in the gallery a “spoiler” photo of the surrounding terrain taken at less than 30 meters from the cache location. I offer a warm thank you to The Burrow, who helped me to confirm Xira’s admirably documented diagnosis of the unsuitability of the previous GAG8 – Circular Logic location (Thanks again, Xira!), and to find a location for a new placement, generously forgoing a first-to-find opportunity.
If this cache gets you going around in circles, then my work here has been successful. (You have now been adequately warned.)
Notes (for those who enjoy such things): The previous cache (GC10T3Z) was named “GAG8 – Circular Logic” because I originally placed the container in the field in early 2006 in anticipation of the (then) upcoming GAG8 event. But, upon finding that it was too close to another cache’s waypoint, I never submitted it. In early February 2007, I retrieved the cache container, an ammo box that proved to be still in fine condition, and placed it in its GAG8 – Circular Logic location, re-using the original logbook, with its GAG8 label, in a blatant celebration of my Scots heritage. However, I didn’t skimp on nailing down the coordinates of the center of the large circular object (a picture of which is in the gallery) or that (GC10T3Z) cache location. I let my GPSr average for more than 5 minutes for each of them. For this cache, Circular Logic Redux, I’ve used a new camoed-ammo box, the previous one being, as Xira so accurately noted, “toast.” (See the abundant, conclusive, visual documentation in her log.) Ammo boxes are sturdy, but not indestructible, and, on the face of the evidence, not sufficiently fire resistant that they are able to protect either logbooks, cache contents, or themselves, against forest fires. The Burrow and I independently measured the location of the new cache (with averaging), and our GPSr units agreed to within one milli-minute on both latitude and longitude.
Because of trail closures resulting from the forest fire (as of late summer 2012), The Burrow and I placed this cache starting off from the NCC parking area just north of the Wild Bird Center on Moodie Drive (You can park at P8 (~N45 17.990 W075 49.256).), but once the Lime Kiln trail access is reopened, you could also use the Lime Kiln parking area (~N45 17.227, W075 48.813) as a starting point.) In either case, though there are various trails in the area (and now a number of bulldozed fire breaks as well), there will be non-trivial bushwhacking involved, over uneven terrain. Again, because the July 2012 fire damaged the roots of some of the trees in the area, please exercise caution with respect to potentially unstable trees. Our route in placing the cache wove around the fire-damaged areas, adding some distance to our trek, but keeping us away from trees whose roots had been burned.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)