Mount Wireless Mystery Cache

This is the description of a puzzle cache. The cache is not at the posted coordinates. You'll need to solve the puzzle below to learn the actual coordinates.

Mount Wire sits in the northeast corner of Salt Lake City, rising over Emigration Canyon, the Hogle Zoo, This Is The Place State Park, and Research Park. It is a favorite of trail runners, hikers, and geocachers. According to Wikipedia, it is named for Lester Wire, the inventor of the traffic light.

In the 1920s, the United States Postal Service introduced Air Mail as a way to speed up delivery. According to the Deseret News, by 1924 the Postal Service had erected a series of 185 electrically-powered lighted beacons to guide pilots flying at night along the corridor from New York to San Francisco. One of those beacons was atop Mt. Wire, which is presumably why the mountain is also called Big Beacon. The decommissioned beacon tower remains on the summit to this day.

According to a man with whom I spoke at the top of Big Beacon one day, there was also a beacon on the smaller peak about a mile south of the main summit, which he called Little Beacon. (Although there is no tower there today, there are indeed the remains of some sort of structure.) The man pointed to the stump of a power pole near the top of Big Beacon and said that it was part of the power line that brought electricity to the beacons. If you have climbed Big Beacon via its southwest ridge, you have probably noticed several other power pole stumps. One in particular is at a switchback on the final ascent; it used to harbor a geocache.

I recently decided to try to trace the route of the old power line. It took a while, but in the end I succeeded in finding a series of 28 sawed-off power poles leading from the summit of Big Beacon directly to the summit of Little Beacon and then down to within a few hundred feet of the road up Emigration Canyon. I had such a great time doing this that I decided to share the fun.

To solve this puzzle, you will need to follow the old power line and find the 28 power pole stumps. At each stump, I have placed a one-inch diameter washer stamped at the top with a two-character code and at the bottom with a number. The washers are numbered consecutively, with #1 at the bottom near the road and #28 at the top of Big Beacon.

The table below has 36 rows. On each row is a two-character code and a digit. When you find a washer, cross off the row that contains the washer's code. When you have found all 28 washers, eight rows will remain. The cache is hidden at N 40 4X.XXX W 111 4X.XXX. The first four remaining rows will provide (in order) the missing digits of the north coordinate; the final four remaining rows will provide (in order) the missing digits of the west coordinate.

I strongly suggest that you hike to the summit of Big Beacon via your favorite trail and then follow the old power line down from there. You will be off trail most of the way, and it is much easier to bushwhack going downhill. There are a few short stretches of dense scrub oak, and a short uphill stretch on Little Beacon, but the going is not too difficult.

From the pole stump at the summit of Big Beacon, head directly to the summit of Little Beacon. There are 22 pole stumps along this stretch. If you are like me, you will wonder why you haven't noticed more of them before. You will often be able to see the next stump from the previous stump. (Be careful, though, because sometimes you will be able to see a stump that is not the next one in the sequence.) The longest gap between stumps on this stretch is about 340 feet; 250 feet or so is more typical.

From the summit of Little Beacon, head directly to the posted coordinates. There are six pole stumps along this stretch. Except for the first two, which are only about 135 feet apart, the stumps are between 290 and 320 feet apart. I found it to be a bit more difficult to find the stumps along this stretch. Most of the stumps appear to have been charred in a fire, and some of them are hidden in scrub oak thickets.

The last pole stump, which is #1, is at the posted coordinates. I am not certain that this stump was part of the original power line. You will notice that the surrounding area is a power pole graveyard, with all sorts of power pole fixtures littering the ground. Pole stump #1 is, however, on the direct line to the top of Little Beacon, so it's my best guess.

Take your time as you bushwhack, because some of the stumps are easy to miss. You can use the numbers on the washers to determine whether you've missed one. If you can't find one, all is not lost. You'll simply have to investigate more than one possible location for the final.

Be safe! Hike with a partner, or at least carry a cell phone. There is a small parking area on the road near the posted coordinates, which makes it feasible to set up a car shuttle. If you are hiking by yourself and start from the parking area for the Bonneville Shoreline Trail near the zoo, you'll need to walk about a mile down the road to get back to your car. If you live close enough, I suppose you can just grab the dog and go for it.

Have fun! If you find any pole stumps that I missed, please let me know.