Training Puzzle #7 – Cords Hidden in HTML Mystery Cache

Cache is NOT at the Posted Coordinates.

Like most geocaching puzzles this isn’t an original idea. See https://coord.info/GC5HFTZ and the series by charliewhiskey, as one of my inspirations.

I thought I would hide a few puzzle caches that could teach new cachers about some of the more common types of puzzles. I’m doing this, NOT because I’m a great puzzle solver. Quite the opposite! I struggle with most puzzles greater than 2 difficulty and I often must ask for a hint. Although this website https://www.geocachingtoolbox.com recommended by butcherandswimmer does help.

But I have seen many of the more common and easy puzzle types and I want to encourage new cachers to NOT automatically avoid all caches with the “?” icon. I’m also currently out of original puzzle ideas, so this will be easy for me. 😉 And easy for you! 😊

Puzzle Type #7 – Cords Hidden in HTML:

Hiding the numbers of the final cords in the HTML code of the cache page is one of the more difficult puzzles to detect. Hyper Text Markup Language, or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser.

I am not a computer programmer and have limited technical abilities. But I did learn to write some basic HTML source code back in the days before GC.com had created it's user-friendly template to help you create your cache description for publication. It is a relatively easy process to insert text into the source HTML code and mark it in such a way that it won't be seen on the cache description that gets displayed on the web.

The trick is how to detect this hidden text. I have only done this on a laptop or desktop computer running windows. But I'm sure it can be done on a Mac, or a phone using the right App. Every web browser is a little different. With windows-based browsers, selecting the "View Page Source" is usually just a right mouse click. Then you can manually scan the code for the hidden coordinate text. Don't look in all the header and footer code provided by GC.com. Just where the cache description text is encoded. Better yet search using the "Find in (or on) Page" function, which is usually accessed from the tool bar on the upper right side of you web browser. I usualy search for the known number in the cords like "N 44", "N44" or the text "North Forty Four". Using this technique, you will find the posted coordinates, but keep looking for coordinates that aren't listed on the cache description.

Puzzle = Look at the Source Code Under the Covers of this page: