The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) "Cache to Eagle" series is a National program to highlight past Eagle Scout projects. In addition to all of the typical Scout skills you would expect a Scout to have, an Eagle Scout has to do quite a bit more to earn their rank. This includes:
- Earning 21 Merit Badges - 13 required ones and then another 8 from areas that interest the Scout. The required ones are: First Aid, Citizenship in the Community, Citizenship in the Nation, Citizenship in the World, Communication, Cooking, Personal Fitness, Emergency Preparedness or Lifesaving, Environmental Science or Sustainability, Personal Management, Swimming or Hiking or Cycling, Camping and Family Life.
- Actively serve in a leadership position for 6 months.
- Perform a service project: "While a Life Scout, plan, develop, and give leadership to others in a service project helpful to any religious institution, any school, or your community. (The project should benefit an organization other than Boy Scouting.) The project proposal must be approved by the organization benefiting from the effort, your unit leader and unit committee, and the council or district before you start".
The geocache is located on the Oldmans Creek Preserve, a private preserve owned by the South Jersey Land and Water Trust. It was preserved in 2009 and is opened to the public 7 days a week, dawn to dusk.
The location of this geocache, which was actually a Boy Scout Camp from 1938 until 1962, is adjacent to two separate Eagle projects by two Scouts from a pair of Scout troops.
The posted coordinates will take you to the first project, a fire pit that was built several years ago. You’ll need to use information that you gather here to find where the cache is hidden. The second location you’ll need information from is less than 100 feet North Northeast from this one. It is a bench that was part of another Eagle project, and you will need information from this one as well.
The cache is located at N 39° 43.ABC W 075° 22.DEF
In order to find the cache, you must find the following information from the plaque by fire ring area:
A = Number of letters in the Scout’s last name minus the second digit of the Troop number minus the third digit of the Troop number
B = Second number of the year project was completed
C = First digit of the day the project was completed
You must find the following information from the plaque from the bench area:
D = Second digit of the month the project was completed
E = Number of letters in the Scout’s first name plus 1
F = Number of Eagle Scout badges on the plaque
Some folks have better luck subtracting .002 from the north solution.
Cache placed with permission of the South Jersey Land & Water Trust.
A great big thank you to SouthJerseyTrails for finding this location and setting everything up!
Checksum ABCDEF = 8