Official Stuff
This cache is hidden inside the Winder Public Library with permission. Current library hours are:
Monday-Thursday: 9 AM to 7 PM
Friday: 9 AM to 6 PM
Saturday: 9 AM to 5 PM
Note that holidays may affect closing times and they are subject to change. Please check before heading out.
This cache was hidden by the Georgia Geocaching Puzzling Society. See a description of our group at the end of this cache page!
This Cache
The cache is NOT at the posted coordinates.
You are looking for coordinates to the first stage of this cache. The actual cache is inside the Winder Public Library. Heck, I’ll even tell you it’s a book on the shelf! You are welcome to wander in, and look through the thousands of books they have to offer, or you can solve this puzzle.
Solving this puzzle will give you coordinates to an important clue to find the final cache. Your job will be to solve the puzzle below to get the coordinates to this clue! Note that to read the instructions, you will need a QR code reader and an internet-connected device to read the instructions.
There is a checker at the bottom of this page to validate your solution.
The puzzle presented here corresponds to the concepts presented at the GGPS-01 event.
The Puzzle
North
14, 9, 14, 5
Babe Ruth
WIZIR
Elephants in grass have things yet noticed in nearby eaves
Boron
Before the Dewey Decimal system, books in most libraries were usually arranged by:
Alphabetical order by author (6)
Alphabetical order by Title (7)
Weight (0)
Height and date of acquisition (3)
West
Steak and Lobster
It was no acident that the page wasn’t properly proofread…
597820
In what year was the act approving funds for books for the use of Congress (the beginning of the Library of Congress) signed?
1790 (54)
1812 (22)
1800 (79)
1842 (83)
QEOBB
Twice, he remembered elegant eagles
Checker
You can validate your solution with the Certitude checker below!
Some Basic Methods to Hide Coordinates
There are LOTS of different ways to hide coordinates. Here are some examples of basic methods:
Quizzes
Questions can be asked and getting the answers can provide an answer! Some quizzes will only be one question (getting the answer will give you the full coordinates). Others may give you a portion of the coordinates for the answer
Letters = Numbers/Numbers = Letters
It's very easy to code letters to be numbers. A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, etc. Likewise, numbers can represent numbers-- 1 = A, 2 = B, 3 = C, etc.
If you see a series of numbers 1-26, you may have a number = letter type of situation. If you have a series of letters A-J, you may have a letters to numbers situation. Note that many people will use J (the 10th letter of the alphabet) as "0". You can easily create word strings with just numbers. 8, 5, 12, 12, 15 translates to HELLO. Sometimes, you will be given the string without separators (i.e., 85121215). The solution is the same, but you will have to determine if the string begins 8,5,1 or 8,5,12. This can be done with some trial and error.
Sometimes puzzles will use missing letters to hide numbers this way. If you are reading a puzzle and see, "He is breathng slowly", you might notice the letter "I" is missing. I is the 9th letter of the alphabet, so you may have found an "I"! (Be careful though-- people do make typos!)
Numbers in Real Life
There are many "numbers in real life" that can be used in puzzles. Sports numbers, dates, atomic numbers, number of awards-- the choices are nearly limitless!
Text Hidden in Plain Sight!
It's easy to hide words inside of other word strings. A common method is to use the first letter of words. "He exited lazily- last out" may seem like nonsense but taking the first letter of each word spells out "HELLO"! Look for this in text strings. First letters, capital letters, proper names- all can be used to hide coordinates in plain sight!
Counting Things
Many puzzles use counting things to hide coordinates. You can count pretty much anything, but common methods include hiding counts in word lengths, syllable counts, or looking for certain characters. TWO TWO EIGHT could easily be 3-3-5...
Rotations
One of the simplest methods of encoding things is with a "rotation". Rotations simply move letters a fixed number of spaces through the alphabet. Geocaching hints are hidden using ROT(ation)13. This means we move13 letters. So, A moved 13 spaces becomes "N".
While ROT13 is the most common rotation, you can rotate any number of characters 1-25 (If you rotate 26, you wind up back at the original letter). Many online and app-based rotation tools are available and most offer easy cycling through different numbers of rotations.
Colors
Colors can be used to hide things or help put things in order. The most famous color code is ROY G BIV, which many people learn to memorize the colors of the rainbow. ROY G BIV stands for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. If you see different colors, you may want to check and see if ROYGBIV may be a clue to the puzzle!
The Two-Mile Rule
While not a method to hide coordinates, the "Two-Mile Rule" is VERY important. This rule has been established by Groundspeak and states that posted coordinates must be within 2 miles of the actual physical cache container. This can be helpful in solving a mystery cache.
Why is the Two-Mile Rule Helpful?
If you are trying to solve for the entire coordinate string (all 14/15 digits), then this can be very helpful. For example, the North coordinates for this cache are N 33° 59.905. N 23 59.905 is south of Key West, and N 43 59.905 is in Michigan-- both of which severely violate the two-mile rule. So, you absolutely KNOW that the first number of the coordinates to this cache is a 3!! You can see that this can be a valuable tool in solving a puzzle!
Additionally, when you get a solution, and there is no geo-checker (explained below), one of the easiest ways to see if your answer is reasonable is to calculate the distance between your solution and the posted coordinates. Is it less than 2 miles? If so, then your solution is at least reasonable. If not, it may be incorrect
Note that the two-mile rule is relatively recent (It was established around 2008). Older geocaches do NOT have to follow this rule.
About the Georgia Geocaching Puzzling Society
The Georgia Geocaching Puzzling Society was created in 2022 to support the Georgia puzzling community. The goals of the organization revolve around the three "E's":
- Educate: teach important skills and help geocachers find important resources to help them solve puzzles.
- Encourage: Encourage people to look at puzzles and develop a love of puzzling and hide more puzzle caches!
- Engage: We want to engage and create a community that supports creating and solving puzzles in Georgia!
We hold events the last weekend of the month in various locations. You can search for "GGPS" to see all of our scheduled events!