Relax, the hard part is over. You've done the tough puzzles already. The only reason for this one being so detailed is to mathematically make it very very difficult to guess a part of this cache's formula and get usable coords for the stash out of that effort. On with the show. Here is what you do.
Step 1: Take the seventeen clues in all the caches that you collected doing the series and write in Column A. I suggest a spreadsheet program for this, but you can surely do it with pencil and paper if you must. If you use a spreadsheet, it will look like this once you enter your clues:
With, of course, the actual clue content filled in.
Step 2: Find the coords for each landmark in the clues. To be sure, some of these landmarks are bigger than even a tenth of a minute. To prevent ambiguity, therefore, you only need degrees and whole minutes. Drop any seconds or decimal portions of the minutes.
Also, disregard hemispheres. No N, E, W or S, and please no NEGATIVE NUMBERS. Every entry you make in columns B through E will be a POSITIVE INTEGER. If you put negative numbers in your grid and then write me a whiny email that the final coords put you on the Ross Ice Shelf and it's just getting to be really nasty weather there this time of year, I will mock you publicly. So just say no to the minus sign.
Step 3: Here's what you put in the columns:
- B: Degrees of Latitude
- C: Minutes of Latitude
- D: Degrees of Longitude
- E: Minutes of Longitude
Step 4: Once you have filled in the grid, you need to execute three spreadsheet style formulas. They are:
N1: (B1*D2*E1)-(C3*C4)-(E4*E1)-(D4+D5+C5)
N2: (B6*D7*E6)-(B8*C7*E10)-(B7*E9)-(B11*D11*E11)-D8
N3: (B12*C13*D15)-(D13*E15)-(B15+D16+E17)
Each of these will yield a positive integer with four or five digits. If they do not, you may want to check your grid for minus signs. Remember, public mockery awaits....
Step 5: Now take N1, N2 and N3 and concatenate them. Not add, not multiply, concatenate. String them together like so much mathie popcorn as we decorate for Sir Isaac Newton's Birthday (you can look that up later).
Step 6: You now have a number that might have as many as fifteen digits. Hm... you got this far, so clearly you know what to do with THAT. But unlike the last time, don't discard anything. Shuffle things around a bit. When your results look right... they will be.
Happy caching!
Congrats to saberspark77 and kgazette for the FTF!