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Bear Den Multi-Cache

Hidden : 6/25/2016
Difficulty:
4 out of 5
Terrain:
2.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

At the posted coordinates is the trailhead and parking enough for one car off the road.

Welcome to the Bear Den family property, a trail maintained by the Guelph Hiking Trail Club. The path is quite wide and fairly flat for easy hiking. Please watch your step or better yet wear pants as there is poison ivy in the first 1 km of this trail.

This multi-cache requires the careful study of signs posted on the trail and analysing some of the trail features, in order to solve a field puzzle. I suggest you bring paper & pencil and be prepared for some counting! The coordinates for the stages are provided as waypoints in the cache listing.

STAGE 1: At the posted coordinates is a sign describing the permitted uses and prohibited uses of the Bear Den property. Sum the number of permitted and prohibited uses and call this 'B'.

STAGE 2: Continue down the trail to a sign describing the Bear Den family property that was donated to The Nature Conservancy of Canada.
- Most numeric digits appear somewhere on this sign, find the ones that are missing. Call the smallest digit 'P'.
- Most alphabetical letters appear somewhere on this sign, find the number of letters that occur only twice, and call this 'U'.

STAGE 3: Continue down the trail to a warning sign about poison ivy. If you're not sure what poison ivy looks like, there is some below the sign (this might be handy later!).
- Study the sign and count the number of letters and count the number of words. Multiply both counts together. Take the result and determine the digital root (i.e. sum of digits repeatedly until only one digit remains) and call this 'N'.

STAGE 4: Continue down the trail to small bridge. Count the number of wooden planks on the surface of the bridge and call this 'E'.

STAGE 5: Continue down the trail to another small bridge. Count the number of wooden planks on the surface of the bridge and call this 'F'.

STAGE 6: Continue down the trail to the junction with the Beaver Pond Side Trail and carefully study the sign.
- There is a grammatical error on the top half of the sign -- find the word that doesn't belong. Then take the last letter of this word and convert it to its alphabetical sequence number (i.e. A=1, B=2, etc.) and call this 'G'.
- The sign also refers to the length of the path loop in km, call this 'H'.
- Subtract H from G and call the result 'I'.
May 2018: In lieu of the sign being missing, I'll just give you the answer for now until I can come up with something else: G=5, H=3

STAGE 7: Continue down the main trail to the boardwalk.
- Take note of the slippery boardwalk warning sign and count the number of words and call this 'J'.
- Next, count the number of wooden planks on the surface of the boardwalk and round off to the nearest 50 and call this 'K'. (this will accommodate counting variances due to repairs made with different sized boards on one side of the boardwalk, and a little bit of grace for those with counting 'challenges')
- Divide K by J and call the second digit of the result 'A'.

STAGE 8: Continue down the trail to another trail junction and carefully study the sign. Locate all the individual numeric digits on the sign and multiply them together. Then add to the result the total number of planks on the two small bridges counted earlier (E & F). Take the last digit and call this 'T'.

Now with all the information collected, substitute your answers into these coordinates:
N43 3P.AIN W080 0B.UTT

GOOD LUCK!

(Special thanks to ApolloandMe for the inspiration to up the difficulty on this one. I know for sure I would have lost him on a couple of the stages!)

For those that absolutely despise math, the final coordinates are also available in the logbook of the classic cache GC9E09. Although personally, I think all the counting would be easier! (Special thanks to WiFi902 for helping me out with this!)

Additional Hints (No hints available.)