The cache is not at the listed coordinates, but I will get to that after some information about this series of caches.
THIS SERIES
This series of Geogym4 caches is meant to be easy to find along a well-defined loop trail that is almost 4 miles long. The trail has one moderately steep hill on a road near the midpoint of the loop. The caches are mostly puzzle caches that require some work before heading out to find the cache. Once there is a find, puzzle help will be available through my usual obscure hints progressing to solution directions. One Multicache uses NFC technology, so be sure to read all the instructions to prepare. There are five challenge caches. You can sign the cache log anytime, but you must meet the challenge requirements to claim a “Found It” online.
The trail is bicycle friendly with this cache and Alien Stump cache being the most severe single-track terrain. Cyclists might want to get these first two caches by hiking a short loop before getting the bikes out. Cyclists can hike a short loop on the Centennial Trail from where it crosses between the parking area and cattleguard to find these two caches and return on the gated road at the end of the parking area to pick up bikes to go to the rest of the caches. The caches are along the Centennial Trail for the first 8 caches, then follow the coordinates to other caches along closed roads and other trails as your GPS leads you. Cyclists may find a few short areas where you will consider walking the bike, but overall the ride will be worth it. Caches are spaced to make a power trail so you will be stopping often.
You will come across a few stumps with odd shapes while doing this series of caches. Some of them were used for cache containers. The number of hide possibilities along this route was endless, but there is a limit on how close the caches can be so all the neat locations could not be used. Enjoy the scenery while looking at the multitude of hides that could not be used. Fall colors are magnificent here. As always, GPS coordinates can move around due to many factors. I tried to obtain the most reliable data, but you may have to search for some of these on some days. None of the hides are meant to be difficult so do not hide them better than you find them. You are looking for black 7 ounce aluminum cans for most of the caches. The second most common cache is a small bison (four black, one silver). Other containers are a 30 cal plastic ammo can, small plastic container, red flashlight body, and yellow NFC tag. Now that you know what you are looking for, let’s get started determining where this cache is located.
THIS CACHE
As I looked at some of the stumps with the most contorted shapes, I imagined trying to calculate the volume of wood in the odd shapes. This brought back fond memories of the fun and challenging engineering classes at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology from five decades ago during the era of punch cards and paper printouts. Calculating the volume of a weird shaped solid can be challenging when it is based on two exponential curves, but not impossible if you imagine it as series of thin slices of area added together. Of course, now you realize this is a use for your calculus skills that have been slipping away since high school and college. The stumps and roots you will see on this loop are perfect examples, so let’s try a simple problem.
First a few basics. Area of a triangle is ½ base X height. In this case, both base and height are ex so the area would be ½ e2x and the area would be the sum of all the triangle cross sections. So a little integration will add up all those areas into a volume for the solid. Keeping it simple, we will use a single unit and integrate from the origin to one unit. So our equation is:
Round your final answer to four significant digits, then do the following:
North = 43 54.149 + V
West = 103 30.728 - V
Now that the hard work is done verify your solution with the checker and go find the cache. It is not in a stump, but wood is involved.
