- Some puzzle cache owners will be kind enough to provide a hint in the cache description; however, if not, then pay close attention to the cache name as it will often give you a clue to the solution.
- A number of puzzle caches are in the form of Sudoku, Crossword or other word puzzles. They will most often have letters on the puzzle board indicating the numbers you are looking for once the puzzle is solved.
- If you see an unintelligble string of alphanumeric characters then you are most likely looking for a cipher which will be covered in other caches within this series.
- Many puzzle caches incorporate Braille, Morse Code or Sign Language.
- Remember that Google can be your best friend!
- Puzzle caches can be as simple as trivia with the answers indicating which numbers you are searching for to plug into your coordinates.
- A lot of puzzles incorporate other languages including Klingon which can be easily solved with internet tools
- Some puzzles are field puzzles meaning something must be done at the cache location. Usually they will indicate in the cache description that they are a field puzzle but not always.
- Occasionally there is hidden data in a puzzle description so highlight a puzzle cache page to see what may be revealed.
- Look for a link to a "related web page" above the cache description, pictures below the cache description or trackables which may provide clues
- Puzzles are required to be within 2 miles of the posted coordinates. This does not appy to caches placed before this rule was enacted. With this in mind you can almost always assume that the first digits of your North and West coords are the same as the posted coords.
- Now for the first practical lesson. A few puzzles are simply solved by counting the number of letters in a word, words or syllables in a paragraph, sentences in a paragraph, etc.
EXAMPLE:
The first action of this tutorial is
Count the number of letters written here
If you count the number of letters above then this translates to N35 62.482 W53 62.774. Obviously these are not real coordinates but an example. If you were trying to solve this in Colorado Springs then as soon as you got "35" you would know that this solution is invalid since our North coordinates are 38. So to find the container and log for this cache simply count the number of letters in the words below:
NORTH
Day Colorado Vainu Sun Historic Yoda Disney
WEST
Broomfield Erik Erie Dog A Eads Historic