The Solar System Series (Redux)

In May 2008, I placed a Multi-Cache along Skyway Drive trail, just outside the Helena Regional Airport. GC18EWR The Solar System Series was a scale model of the Solar system, and its purpose was to give geocachers a sense of the size and scale of our Solar system. Starting at the posted coordinates, the geocacher would "follow" the route of the New Horizons spacecraft, which at the time, was on a mission to conduct close fly-bys and capture detailed photographs of the surfaces of both Neptune and Pluto.

Using plastic cattle ear-tags and 10" fence-rail spikes, I marked out the scale model and submitted the geocache to the reviewer. Once published, this Multicache was found often and well received. I had also included a special Mystery Cache, GC18F71 Where Is "Planet X"? that could only be found if the geocacher had collected all ten of the numbers written on the back of each marker. This was long before Bonus Caches existed, but people really liked the idea of being able to get this geocache only if they completed the Multicache.

Unfortunately, like many of my other earlier placed geocaches, once I moved out of the area, I had to archive this one. As it turned out, a large box store was built right on top of the previous geocache location, so I suppose I would have had to remove the geocache anyway.

Today, however, after having replaced both of these geocaches, and using more durable materials, they have been published and ready to be found. GCAXWNN Helena's Copernican SystemCAXWNN Helena's Copernican System and GCAXWPD New Horizons' Discovery: Where Is "Planet X"? are redux geocaches of my previous two and I am hoping that they will be as well received as the originals.

Adequate Cartographer

Adequate Cartographer (GCAYRTD), a new Puzzle Cache of mine, was published today. I don't normally place these types of geocaches and have not historically gone after them because I used to believe that they were all just too difficult to solve. Many of the "older" and now archived Puzzle caches required a lot of technical skills, such as being able to pull up the source-code of the cache page, in order to find the "hidden" coordinates.

Recently, however, I decided to take another shot of this type of geocache and am glad that I did. So far, the Monsters and I have been on a streak of solving every Puzzle cache that we can. We have solved all but one Puzzle cache in the Helena valley and are working on some of the other larger towns in Montana and Alberta. Most of these Puzzle caches are very clever and have given us a fair challenge to solve. Of course, there have been a few that we extremely disappointing, and some that were really difficult, but in the end, we have all enjoyed stretching our brains a bit while working on these puzzles.

Back to my geocache - well, this particular Puzzle Cache is named in tribute to one of my favorite cartographers, u/AdequateCartographer (on Reddit). Here are some examples of his work:

 

I really like his style of mapping, and that they are all representative of a small undisclosed locations that could honestly be just about anywhere. These maps also happen to be really good for short adventures in playing some good old-fashioned Dungeons & Dragons (one of my other hobbies). Anyway, I hope people enjoy solving and finding this Puzzle Cache of mine - it really isn't too hard (unless it is over-thought).