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Tour de Ashburn Farms Multi-Cache

Hidden : 4/18/2006
Difficulty:
3 out of 5
Terrain:
3 out of 5

Size: Size:   regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

This 5-stage multi-cache will take you on a clockwise tour of Ashburn Farms via the Ashburn Farms walking paths.

Here's how the ORIGINAL listing read...
I really love living in Ashburn Farms, and I tremendously enjoy jogging, walking, and biking around the network of paths throughout our community. The intent of this multi-cache was to take you on a clockwise tour around (some of) the paths of Ashburn Farms.



Driving Directions and Parking: From Exit 5 (Claiborne Parkway) off the Dulles Greenway, go north on Claiborne and take your first right turn onto Windmill Drive. If you park somewhere in the neighborhood along Windmill Drive, then your car will be placed in between the first stage and the last stage. If you want your car to be closer to the final stage, then park somewhere just south of Greg Crittenden Memorial Park (which is at the corner of Ashburn Farms Parkway and Windmill Drive).

About the Tour via the Paths: This afternoon while planning the stage locations, I jogged and walked the full-circle route with my 2-year old in the jogging stroller and my 4-year old on his bike. The full circle came out to 4.1 miles. Now, there are spots where you could take shortcuts along the way, and certainly you could drive from one stage to the next, but we just wanted to enjoy the beautiful spring day along the paths.


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About the Hides: The first four stages of this multi-cache are micros, and the final stage is a standard ammo-can. Each of the first four stages includes a portion of the coordinates for the final cache. All coordinates given begin with 39 degrees North and 077 degrees West.

The final coordinates will be:
N39 AA.BBB
W077 CC.DDD


YOU WILL NEED TO REMEMBER THIS or take it with you on the trail.

I used micros because they're easier to hide and inexpensive to replace if they get muggled. At the same time, I know it really frustrates me when I consume all of my available geocaching-time for the day looking for a micro and come up with a DNF. I don't want anyone who commits their precious weekend family time to this endeavor to not be able to find one of the stages and have to go home and log a DNF . With that in mind, I have included hints below to assist in finding each of the stages. I intentionally made the clues SHORT so you can quickly decode them on the trail. I encourage you to TRY to find them WITHOUT the clues, and take the clues with you on the path in case you need them as a backup.

UPDATE 07/30/2011:Stage 1 is now only the single container. Stage 2 has a new container located about 100ft from where the original was -- in theory less mugglable.

FTF prize was an unregistered 2006 Geocache Earth geocoin. Please take care to return all stages to their correct position (and in some cases, orientation)

Position accuracy at the final stage was +/- 18 feet due to tree cover (even averaging the waypoint over time). The final stage is fairly well hidden from view from the trail itself, but not from kids playing in the surrounding wilderness. Please REHIDE IT WELL! The muggle children who live in the houses on either side of the trail like to crawl around in these bushes and around the stream.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

[Stage 1:] Ovfba nobhg 5 srrg hc, pybfr gb gur gehax bs n fznyy gerr nobhg 15 srrg fbhgurnfg bs gur oynpx envyvat. [Stage 2] Ovfba orgjrra n ebpx naq n ybat, uneq cynpr. [Stage 3, Clue 1:] Trbgbby arrqrq (zveebe). [Stage 3, Clue 2:] Qba'g or n pevzvany. [Stage 4, Clue 1:] Zntargvp. [Stage 4, Clue 2:] Pyrna hc nsgre lbhe crg.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)