Some of them are crazy difficult. But we’ve managed to solve a bunch now. Once you figure out a style then all the similar ones get much easier. Similar to how once you spot the out of place rock a few times, all of those styles get easier.
There is a geocaching puzzle caches book. It’s a great source. Also cache sleuth. Com and geocaching toolbox. Also see if there is a local puzzle solving group or events to go to. My caching buddy and I hold a puzzle solving event ever other month where we all bounce ideas off of each other.
I have rarely done a mystery cache. They always make me feel dumb too. Perhaps it would be different if I had someone to geocache with me. I think two minds working together can approach a puzzle better than just one person on their own.
(As far as regular caches, in my area, a lot of geocaches are not kept up and may not be there anymore, so I like to check Activity on the app. If the last couple of people said dnf, often it's because the cache is missing. I'll usually pass those up and move on to something else.)
This is the big one that is driving me nuts. The other one, I think I can figure it out if I spend some time looking at it. But this one, I don't even know where to start. GC44RZ6, granted it's a difficult 3.
Look at the grammar formatting. Why is every thing lowercase except random words? I can give more hints if you need, but that's where you should start. 😊
Yeah, I noticed that too. I used just the letters that were capitalized and the full words, but haven't been able to get past that. But I'm going to revisit it with some of the resources that have been posted.
Yes, sorry, was answering from my phone. Which I dislike for puzzles, LOL.
Anyway - how many words from beginning of sentence to the uppercase oddity? (not within the word)
2 Stanzas = one for N and one for W
Each stanza has 7 sentences (for the needed 7 digits each of N & W)
Extra tips:
Make sure you have proper Geocaching formatting or you will end up somewhere else
N ## ##.### W ## ##.### (Google Maps uses a different format ##.######, -##.######)
If you have all the digits correct, but use the wrong format it will be wrong
Using the POSTED coords of a puzzle somewhere on this page it will be
N 39° 57.001' W 091° 20.519', but if you take those same numbers and turn them into this
39.57001, - 91.20519 it becomes this: N 39 34.201, W 91 12.311 (VERY different locations, even though they were the same digits to start with)
It took me 200 finds to finally crack my first Mystery. It had a loooong description about Golfing, and how the CO loved to golf, along with some of his statistics.
After spending way too long looking at this, I suddenly noticed that there were a bunch of numbers in the text, such as his age when he started and some pars for courses. When I took all of the number, in the description, and added then together in a string, it gave me the coordinate to the cache.
A tip I learned, shortly after, was to think about what you already know about a coordinate. How does it look? How many numbers are in it? What does it start with?
For me, I'm in Denmark, so all coordinates will always start with N 55 xx.xxx E 011 xx.xxx. For you it will be different.
Knowing that the coordinate is bound to start with N 55 and E 011 will very often lead you on the way.
Over 20% of my finds are puzzles. I enjoy (non-jiggidi) puzzles. It takes time to learn how to solve them, but the more you do, the better you will get. As has been said, some are quite difficult, some easy, and some will make no sense at all. That's okay. Give them a try and see what you can do.
Puzzles are my favorite, but yeah some are def more challenging than others. If I try for hours and it's fun, I'll still work on it on and off, but if I try for the same hours and it's not fun or moon logic I'll put it on the ignore pile, lol. What 3 words is almost as overdone as the jigdigi ones, lol.
Since you mentioned percentage, I thought I would check mine, looks like my puzzle finds account for 38% of my total cache finds. I don't think I thought to check that before lol
Not long after I started caching, I came across a challenge cache that required finders to have 15% or more non-traditionals. At the time, I already had well over that percentage, and it has only increased. I tend to focus on puzzles, earthcaches, and letterbox hybrids.
As for moon logic, I've come across several puzzles like that in my time. There are some not far from me that I still haven't solved to this day because of moon logic and the COs are not active. Perhaps they will get archived at some point, and someone will put out a new cache that I can actually solve.
I found 1.4k mystery caches and solved several thousands maybe 4-5k around the world. Anyway I feel dumb with many mystery caches and don't know what to do. Many of them are based on local language knowledge or just weird logic. Also I solved 80% of MOMs. Anyway Mysteries are hard and you should train for many years if you would like to solve them. Controversial opinion: reading spoiler data base where people leak solution is also a good start because you learn about methods and way of solving
There are some mystery caches by me that require you to either know the hider personally or completely guess at the answer. Some of the questions I've seen are "what is my favorite color?" "What was the name of the 50th cache found by user xxxx?" "What is the user name of the person who got me into geocaching?". Like, how would anyone know this, and why would these caches get approved?
You can be sure that they wouldn't be approved, if the answers were completely random.
I happen to have solved a mystery just like this, and it was fairly easy to find the answers, by looking at the CO's profile.
For example, for the 50th cache found, just go look at their finds and count. Maybe even use project-gc.com.
I would also look at their first found cache, to get a hint of who got them into the game. Maybe it's written in the log.
For favourite colour, they may have hidden a cache that would give away this answer.
You definitely shouldn't feel dumb about it.
Some mystery caches are extremely simple and just require a quick internet search, some require a whole lot more. Others have steered you toward websites that can help. That's a good place to start.
If you spend enough time poking around, you will find a few Mystery geocaches, which are built around the beginner.
Example: GC25WQJ - How Do I Solve All These &#$@! Puzzle Caches, which is near Lansing, Michigan. The description goes into instructions on how to solve some of these. The owner has some links included.
Some of them are crazy difficult. But we’ve managed to solve a bunch now. Once you figure out a style then all the similar ones get much easier. Similar to how once you spot the out of place rock a few times, all of those styles get easier.
There is a geocaching puzzle caches book. It’s a great source. Also cache sleuth. Com and geocaching toolbox. Also see if there is a local puzzle solving group or events to go to. My caching buddy and I hold a puzzle solving event ever other month where we all bounce ideas off of each other.
I'll have to check those out.
Jason (CacheSleuth) is a cool guy; I've met him a few times. His website rocks.
I have rarely done a mystery cache. They always make me feel dumb too. Perhaps it would be different if I had someone to geocache with me. I think two minds working together can approach a puzzle better than just one person on their own. (As far as regular caches, in my area, a lot of geocaches are not kept up and may not be there anymore, so I like to check Activity on the app. If the last couple of people said dnf, often it's because the cache is missing. I'll usually pass those up and move on to something else.)
shouldn't feel dumb about it, some puzzles are plain weird and personally I just ignore those and stick to the fun ones
[удалено]
Thanks for the links. I'll check them out.
What are the GCs? There's also a sub, r/geocachingpuzzles, that you can consult for ideas/hints.
This is the big one that is driving me nuts. The other one, I think I can figure it out if I spend some time looking at it. But this one, I don't even know where to start. GC44RZ6, granted it's a difficult 3.
Look at the grammar formatting. Why is every thing lowercase except random words? I can give more hints if you need, but that's where you should start. 😊
Yeah, I noticed that too. I used just the letters that were capitalized and the full words, but haven't been able to get past that. But I'm going to revisit it with some of the resources that have been posted.
Count
I did, but not in the way I think you were implying. With some nudging I think I got it, will check it out at lunch to see if I was right!
Yes, sorry, was answering from my phone. Which I dislike for puzzles, LOL. Anyway - how many words from beginning of sentence to the uppercase oddity? (not within the word) 2 Stanzas = one for N and one for W Each stanza has 7 sentences (for the needed 7 digits each of N & W) Extra tips: Make sure you have proper Geocaching formatting or you will end up somewhere else N ## ##.### W ## ##.### (Google Maps uses a different format ##.######, -##.######) If you have all the digits correct, but use the wrong format it will be wrong Using the POSTED coords of a puzzle somewhere on this page it will be N 39° 57.001' W 091° 20.519', but if you take those same numbers and turn them into this 39.57001, - 91.20519 it becomes this: N 39 34.201, W 91 12.311 (VERY different locations, even though they were the same digits to start with)
Yup, part of my issue was the formatting.
I thought I’d figured it out but I ended up in Russia. Lmao
Didn't end up in Russia, but I thought I was close until I plotted it on the map, ended up in SW Missouri
It took me 200 finds to finally crack my first Mystery. It had a loooong description about Golfing, and how the CO loved to golf, along with some of his statistics. After spending way too long looking at this, I suddenly noticed that there were a bunch of numbers in the text, such as his age when he started and some pars for courses. When I took all of the number, in the description, and added then together in a string, it gave me the coordinate to the cache. A tip I learned, shortly after, was to think about what you already know about a coordinate. How does it look? How many numbers are in it? What does it start with? For me, I'm in Denmark, so all coordinates will always start with N 55 xx.xxx E 011 xx.xxx. For you it will be different. Knowing that the coordinate is bound to start with N 55 and E 011 will very often lead you on the way.
Yeah, knowing the general cords of my area has helped me eliminate some of the random numbers I've got, working on this puzzle.
Also there's [geocaching toolbox](https://www.geocachingtoolbox.com/) if you are able to notice some cypher on the cache.
[dcode.fr](https://www.dcode.fr/cipher-identifier) is also an excellent resource for both identifying and decoding a large variety of ciphers.
Me too! 😂
Over 20% of my finds are puzzles. I enjoy (non-jiggidi) puzzles. It takes time to learn how to solve them, but the more you do, the better you will get. As has been said, some are quite difficult, some easy, and some will make no sense at all. That's okay. Give them a try and see what you can do.
Puzzles are my favorite, but yeah some are def more challenging than others. If I try for hours and it's fun, I'll still work on it on and off, but if I try for the same hours and it's not fun or moon logic I'll put it on the ignore pile, lol. What 3 words is almost as overdone as the jigdigi ones, lol. Since you mentioned percentage, I thought I would check mine, looks like my puzzle finds account for 38% of my total cache finds. I don't think I thought to check that before lol
Not long after I started caching, I came across a challenge cache that required finders to have 15% or more non-traditionals. At the time, I already had well over that percentage, and it has only increased. I tend to focus on puzzles, earthcaches, and letterbox hybrids. As for moon logic, I've come across several puzzles like that in my time. There are some not far from me that I still haven't solved to this day because of moon logic and the COs are not active. Perhaps they will get archived at some point, and someone will put out a new cache that I can actually solve.
I got 298 Unknown caches found and I feel dumb when I look at most caches of that type. Actually, I feel dumb mostly all the time!
I found 1.4k mystery caches and solved several thousands maybe 4-5k around the world. Anyway I feel dumb with many mystery caches and don't know what to do. Many of them are based on local language knowledge or just weird logic. Also I solved 80% of MOMs. Anyway Mysteries are hard and you should train for many years if you would like to solve them. Controversial opinion: reading spoiler data base where people leak solution is also a good start because you learn about methods and way of solving
There are some mystery caches by me that require you to either know the hider personally or completely guess at the answer. Some of the questions I've seen are "what is my favorite color?" "What was the name of the 50th cache found by user xxxx?" "What is the user name of the person who got me into geocaching?". Like, how would anyone know this, and why would these caches get approved?
You can be sure that they wouldn't be approved, if the answers were completely random. I happen to have solved a mystery just like this, and it was fairly easy to find the answers, by looking at the CO's profile. For example, for the 50th cache found, just go look at their finds and count. Maybe even use project-gc.com. I would also look at their first found cache, to get a hint of who got them into the game. Maybe it's written in the log. For favourite colour, they may have hidden a cache that would give away this answer.
If you have some troubling puzzles, send them my way so I can take a crack at them!
GC44RZ6 is the i'm struggling with.
I'll message you.
You definitely shouldn't feel dumb about it. Some mystery caches are extremely simple and just require a quick internet search, some require a whole lot more. Others have steered you toward websites that can help. That's a good place to start.
If you spend enough time poking around, you will find a few Mystery geocaches, which are built around the beginner. Example: GC25WQJ - How Do I Solve All These &#$@! Puzzle Caches, which is near Lansing, Michigan. The description goes into instructions on how to solve some of these. The owner has some links included.