Current at 11/6/2011 (Online waypoint URL) You have already found this cache! Master Index    Nearest Caches Yellow Park-1 by Old Billygoat (2.5/1.5) N49° 50.191  W97° 08.320 (WGS84) UTM  14U   E 633844  N 5522116 Use waypoint: GCMWMQ Size: Small    Hidden on 2/21/2005 In Manitoba, Canada Difficulty:     Terrain:                     *** The coordinates are not of the actual cache location*** This is a two stage mystery cache in “Yellow Park”. When my brothers’ kids were younger they identified the neighborhood parks by the color of the slide on the play structure. “Mom/Dad lets go to [yellow, black, red] park” was heard on many summer evenings. They do grow up fast. To find the first stage of this cache you will need to decipher the message with a Leap Year code. The second stage is also encrypted, but needs nothing but some common sense to figure it out once you find it. If you do it in the dark you will need to bring a light and [maybe] a third hand. The actual cache isn’t too big, but has a few small tools and toys in it, and oh yes, there is a FTF certificate also. You need to “viqszi srilyr hvihjv sqxlip exmxyh ierhxas lyrhvi hjvsqx lipsrk mxyhi” of the above coordinates to locate the first container. This is my first hide, hope you enjoy.

Additional Hints Hints

2/25/2007 by Kabuthunk
[Words cannot describe how long I've been wanting to get this cache. It's (aside from an event cache) the closest remaining unfound cache to my home, and has been taunting me ever since it gained that status.

I generally left it alone for months upon months, seeing as I wasn't really fond of puzzle caches. Still generally not too fond of them, but for some strange reason, yesterday I had an urge to solve some of them.

This cache was one of the first on my hit-list .

So... not knowing much about decrypting codes, I figured this particular one had to be a typical rotation-type decode. I couldn't figure out the "leap-year" reference, or what that meant... since either 1, 29, or 366 yielded nothing useful to decoding... so I did what Kabuthunk's do best.

I brute-forced it

I tried every combination of said decoding on the first word until I hit a word that existed in the english language! Continuing with the rest of the the coded message, and I had my location.

Off I went today! Wearing my patented Safeway-brand insta-winter boots, I trudged through the snow. Now... I didn't realize that there were pseudo-paths here and there... so Kabuthunk once again what Kabuthunk's continue to do best.

I mean I trail-blazed a dead-straight line from where I was

About 3/4 of the way to the cache, I discovered one of the pseudo-paths. Which was kinda nice, because I was walking in snow up to (and sometimes deeper than) my knees without the path. Relatively quickly, I located the... location... in general. At which point, I did what looked most obvious. I dug.

So 20 minutes of blindly pawing around inside the base of a tree later, I started to get a tad disappointed in that the cache may be missing. However... determined not to give up, I searched the base of many a nearby tree as well... finding nothing. Going back to the original tree, I ]dug around as far as I could reach... at which point, my fingers found non-tree inside the tree. [I quickly figured out how to extract the cache container, and frantically cracked it open.

At which point... I was absolutely stumped in any way, shape, or form. Trying to see if I could somehow use it as a measuring device, or pointing device somehow led me to dead ends. About 10 minutes later, my pants were getting wet, and my insta-winter boots were getting torn... so I packed it up and left... final-cacheless.

At that point, I drove off towards "Remember #81 - Not" cache. Halfway there... the 'hint' for "Yellow Park-1" kept running through my head.

It was at that moment, at about Notre Dame and McPhillips, that it solidly clicked.

Everything fit. Every last bit of confusion... the spacing on the ribbon... the orientation of the lettering... the hint... it ALL FIT!

Being mostway to the 'Remember' cache, I went and completed that one, and then hurried back to here. Quickly extracting the cache again, I attempted my hunch that clicked. SUCCESS!

A quick trek over to the final location, and the cache that had plagued me for months has been found. AWESOME puzzle! I generally don't like puzzle caches, but this one is DEFINITELY an exception to that rule. Thanks for providing me with such a great feeling of accomplishment on finding this fella .

Took: Nothing
Left: Logbook entry, Poker Buddy TB and chainmail ball]

Hints (Back)
Use more than the obvious piece. The hole in the ribbon is intentional