In which our heroes attempt to find a geocache; a puzzle is solved; a plan is hatched.
GCZZSL9 The Secret Of Dawson’s Gold
A mystery cache by Bear-Zinga Hidden: 2014/09/01
Difficulty: * * * * *
Terrain: *
Size: Unknown
In, North Carolina, United States
Cache Description:
*** THE CACHE IS NOT AT THE POSTED COORDINATES - TO FIND THIS GEOCACHE YOU NEED TO SOLVE THE PUZZLE ***
This cache can be found on its own, however it is also a part of The Legend Of Dawson’s Mine series. This cache contains a code book. You will need the code words from 6 other caches, and the clues in the code book from this cache, to be able to solve the series. See GCZZSL0 The Legend Of Dawson’s Mine for more details.
Now, onto the cache!
To solve something as complex as The Legend Of Dawson’s Mine, one needs to do a large amount of research. Many historical records are available in libraries, so this cache is going to bring you to the Brysonville Public Library.
The posted coordinates will bring you to a courtyard. In the middle of this courtyard is a statue of Thomas Bryson, founder of Brysonville North Carolina.
Also nearby is an informational plaque about Thomas Bryson. You need to locate this plaque, and get two numbers off of it. The first is the year that the plaque was placed. The second is the number on the 4th line of the plaque. Plug those numbers into the following formula:
Also nearby is an informational plaque about Thomas Bryson. You need to locate this plaque, and get two numbers off of it. The first is the year that the plaque was placed. The second is the number on the 4th line of the plaque. Plug those numbers into the following formula:
(first number) +(second number) - 2943.7
The answer will guide you to the next stage.
Hint:
Ybbx hc lbhe snibhevgr orirentr. Zvar vf Zbhagnva QRJ.
---
A yellow Jeep Wrangler pulled into a parking space along the edge of Main St, right in front of the public library. Inside, the two passengers sat and stared at their GPS devices.
“Says here that the first stage of this cache is to get some information from a memorial plaque”, Billy said, reading the description for the geocache. “Looks like if we plug the date the plaque was placed, and the number found on the 4th line of the plaque into this formula, we’ll get the clue to the final location of the cache.”
“Sounds easy enough!” exclaimed Ted enthusiastically. “Lets go find that plaque!”
The boys piled out of the jeep and followed their GPS around the corner of the library to a small courtyard. The courtyard was about 100ft square. The edges were lined with flower beds full of flowers and English ivy. On two sides were doors to the library. The other two sides had paths to the sidewalk. The center of the courtyard was round, and paved in brick. In the middle of the brick stood a statue of a man wearing a suit and a cowboy hat. The inscription on the statue read “Mayor Thomas Bryson Jr. 1882-1967, Founder of the town of Brysonville, North Carolina.”
“That doesn’t seem like the right plaque”, Ted said, confused. “Seems like the obvious spot tho, doesn’t it?”
“I guess we’ll just have to look for the non-obvious, eh, bro?” Billy smirked, as he looked around the edges of the courtyard. He found what appeared to be what he was looking for a few minutes later.
“Aha!” he exclaimed. “I think this is it.”
Ted rushed over and looked where Billy was pointing. In the flower beds, half covered in ivy and fallen leaves, was a plaque. He cleared off the vegetation and read the following words:
“In 1914 Thomas Bryson and his family settled in the area
and built a wood cabin in the woods near this spot, thereby
founded the town of Brysonville. He served as mayor until
1952 when he retired from public life.
This plaque placed by the Brysonville Historical Society
This plaque placed by the Brysonville Historical Society
On July 23rd, 1968”
“Yep, that looks like what we need”, agreed Billy. He set about the work of running the numbers thru the formula from the cache description.
“Huh”, he said, puzzled. “I get an answer of 975.3.”
“That doesn’t sound like any coordinates I’ve ever heard of. Are you sure?” Ted asked, equally puzzled.
“Yes, I ran the numbers 3 times.” Billy confirmed. “What could they mean?”
Both brothers looked around, and then looked at the cache description again. Ted looked around some more. His eyes fell on the words above one of the doors leading to the courtyard: Brysonville Public Library. He smiled.
“Dude… remember the Dewey Decimal System?” he asked, with a mischievous grin on his face.
Billy laughed. “Of course!”, he exclaimed, “That has to be it. Genius!”
With newfound excitement, the boys headed towards the library. As they passed thru the door, Ted held it open for an old man with a grizzly grey beard.
Once inside they quickly located the shelf associated with the Dewey number 975.3. Billy thumbed thru all the books in that section, and paused at a book entitled The History Of Dawson’s Gold Mine, 1st Edition. Billy looked at his brother and grinned. “Found it!” he exclaimed.
He pulled the book off the shelf, and opened it. Inside he was disappointed to find that the book really was just an historical account of an old mine once owned by the Dawson Mining Consortium. He flipped to the back to look at the card in the back. Tucked behind the card used to record who borrowed the book, was another laminated card in a bold red font.
“Ask for my mate”, Billy read the words off the card.
“Ask for my mate? What the heck does that mean?” Ted asked, a quizzical look on his face. “Ask who, and what does it mean by ‘mate’?”
The brothers stood in the stacks for 15 minutes and talked over the possibilities of what “ask for my mate” could possibly mean.
“We may need to ask for help on this one”, Ted finally exclaimed, getting frustrated. Billy perked up.
“Help!” he blurted out. “Thats it - who do you ask for help in a library? The librarian!”
The brothers rushed over to the reference desk.
“Excuse me ma'am, is there another copy of The History Of Dawson’s Gold Mine in this library?” Ted asked of the elderly lady behind the desk.
“Let me check”, she smiled politely at them, then started typing on her computer. “Well look at that. We have two copies. Are you boys looking for the first or second edition?”
Both boys broke into a huge smile and had to resist yelling. “Second edition, please!”
“That copy is kept back in the reference section”, she said, “I’ll be right back. You boys sit tight.”
She wandered off into a back room, and returned a few minutes later with a large, heavy book. “Here ya go boys. I hope you find what you’re looking for”, she said with a knowing look. Clearly she was in on the secret of this geocache.
The boys grabbed the book and headed over to a table, and sat across from the grizzled old man, who was now reading a newspaper.
They opened the book to find that it was hollow. Inside was a tin container. They removed the container and popped the lid open.
Inside they found two things: the log book, and a large card folded in half. On the card was printed a list of words, with numbers beside them. There were well over 50 words/number combinations, but the boys instinctively knew they only needed 6 of them.
“This is easy”, Billy said, having already figured out what he needed to do. “Get out the notebook with the code words from the caches.”
Sure enough, putting each of the code words in alphabetical order revealed a set of numbers that looked a lot like GPS coordinates. “Check these coordinates with the geochecker on the main cache page”, Billy requested, reading off the numbers. Ted pulled up the cache information on the browser on his smartphone, tapped the link called ‘geochecker’ contained in the description and found himself at a web page called GeoCheck. Geocheckers are used to confirm that a geocaching puzzle has been solved correctly. Ted typed in the coordinates for the cache into the website.
“That’s affirmative, good buddy! We have the coordinates to the final! I wonder where they are…” his voice drifted off as he concentrated on getting the coordinates to show up on the satellite view of the Google Maps app. “Ah, here we go. Looks like an old abandoned settlement up on Burkes Peak. “
Both boys looked at the maps, and started to discuss the plan to get to the final cache location on Burkes Peak. They eventually settled on a plan that would involve them taking the Mountains-To-Sea trail until it met Bryson’s Bridge trail, which would lead close enough to the abandoned house that the could bushwhack off trail to the final location. It was a 14 mile hike, so it would have to wait until another day.
Satisfied that they finally had a workable plan, the boys signed the cache log, then packed up the contents of the geocache, and returned the book to the librarian.
Satisfied that they finally had a workable plan, the boys signed the cache log, then packed up the contents of the geocache, and returned the book to the librarian.
“Good luck, boys!” she said, clearly amused at the fanciful adventures of young boys.
“Thanks ma’am”, they replied, then headed back to their jeep and headed home.
“Thanks ma’am”, they replied, then headed back to their jeep and headed home.
Once they were out of sight, the grizzled old man also left the library, hopped into his beat up old truck, and drove off. Tucked in his pocket were notes made of the boys plan to attempt the to hike to Burkes Peak.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Copyright 2015 by Dave DeBaeremaeker. All Rights Reserved.
