A series celebrating the proliferation of Sheep Mountains and other Sheeps of prominence in the Pikes Peak Region.
Make sure to copy the puzzle piece stapled to the log and save it for the Sheep Series: Final.
Either:
Bring a pen and paper and draw the blocks and letters or
Take a picture or
Write down the link URL or
Scan the QR code with your smart phone.
Okay. This is not a Sheep of prominence. But you will get to see a real (though expired) Bighorn Sheep and there's a chance of seeing live sheep. If you've ever owned or desired a secret decoder ring, this is the cache for you. It's a little more than a 2 mile hike round trip through Garden of the Gods with plenty of decoding. You can enjoy this cache without completing the rest of the Sheep Series but why not keep venturing further up and further in. :-)
This cache puzzle requires some preparation but no special skills or knowledge are needed aside from following instructions. No decoder ring needed.
--Firstly, the Code Sheet looks like this:
--Print out the PDF of the Code Sheet located Here. You may also want to print this cache listing to follow my byzantine instruction regimen.
--Then bring the Code Sheet, a paper hole puncher, pen, additional paper, GPSr and binoculars (not required) to the Garden of the Gods Visitor center. The visitor center is open daily from 8-7 Memorial Day through Labor Day and from 9-5 the rest of the year.
--Find the Bighorn Sheep mounted on a wall of animals upstairs. On a nearby touch screen navigate to the Bighorn screen. Write down the first 6 words of the second paragraph on a separate piece of paper ignoring spaces. You should have 23 letters starting with T and ending with n.
--Using the hole punch and starting at the top left of the Code Sheet, punch out the letters of the sentence you wrote down, in order, as they appear from left to right, skipping letters, symbols or spaces that aren't in the sentence, until you have 23 holes total punched in the first 3 lines of the code sheet.
--Now flip the Code Sheet over so it's blank with holes on the bottom. The bottom left hole will be the 'Key' Hole and the bottom right hole will contain the Next-Key. (You may want to label those 2 holes with arrows.)
--Finally, the first Key is '1'. Fold the paper until the number 1 appears in the Key Hole. Copy the letters visible through the other holes (ignoring spaces) and follow those instructions. The characters in the Key and Next-Key holes are not part of the message. After completing the instructions, place the Key Hole over the next Key and repeat until you find the cache and a secret message :-).
Notes: Stay on posted trails at all times. Do not take short cuts or cut corners.
--For all coordinates assume N 38 52.xxx W 104 52.xxx
--In accordance with city park regulations the cache is a small micro located right off of a trail.
--The park is open from 5am-11pm from May 1- Nov 1 and from 5am-9pm the rest of the year.
Congratulations to WingsAndTales for being FTF.
If you liked this field puzzle you could try one of our other (very different) ones- Our field puzzles.
The other Sheep Series caches are Here.