Table of Contents

Cover Page

An Interview with DeViDe

Solving Mystery/Puzzle Caches

An Interview with SnappyTurtles

Don't Miss the Dixie Train & Caboose

A Few Words from A Couple of the Totally Insane

Regular Features

Chuckles

Credits

Back Issues of the UTAG Magazine

It is a beautiful Saturday morning and I head out on the trail in search of the Forbidden Planet cache. I have my GPSr in hand and the coordinates I had solved from the cache page. I also have my nice little decoder page I printed out for decoding anything needed for the hunt. All is well on the trail and the hike is great. I get to ground zero and begin to hunt for the cache location. I am looking all over the trees and rock face. 30 minutes pass by with no luck and I feel like I may have decoded incorrectly. All of a sudden I catch a glimpse of the little sucker hanging in the rock face at eye level. WHEW! Success!

I open the cache container and sure enough there is a second piece to decode. Good thing I brought along my decoder page. I proceed with the decoding of the coordinates with little difficulty and am ready to continue on. Of course by now in my geocaching career I have decided that the fastest way to the cache is not always the easiest. I did not want to go up and then back down so I proceed with Bunker Dave style and bushwhack my way across. That really made my bare legs happy. Again I arrive at ground zero and find a massive amount of scrub to search through. 20 minutes later I have the “bad boy” in my hands.

This hunt turned out successful and the hike and view are just awesome. I log the cache, take my reward and proceed to make my way down the mountain. After arriving at home I logged the cache and told my story.

Mystery caches can be some of the finest, most rewarding caches you will do. It all begins with a mindset that you WANT to solve a mystery or puzzle and search for it. This requires some thought and determination. I always begin an unknown cache with a simple Google search for any number of keywords I find in the cache name or page. Sometimes these results will be numerous and sometimes they will be miniscule, either way it is up to you to barge through it and have the determination to fulfill your quest.

After I have a small database of items (decoders, fonts, ciphers, etc.) I find on my search, I begin to test them as to their validity in what I am looking for. Most often than not I can come up with something that makes perfect sense. I decode the puzzle or mystery and prepare for the hunt. 99% of the time you can email the cache owner and get a verification of your decoded coordinates and even if you don’t get the verification try the hunt anyway. You are more than likely correct if had made any sense at all.

Take a little time when you are solving these types of caches and don’t be overwhelmed. There has been many a time I just walked away from a cache page for a few days to refresh my mind while I hunted for traditional caches while I settled down. But in the end you will not be disappointed by the outcome of a successful hunt on these caches. I have yet to complete an unknown cache that did not WOW me in one way or another.

Now get out there and solve those puzzles and go find your reward, it will be well worth it!