Greater Austin Oldest Multi-Cache Challenge Mystery Cache

For purposes of this series, the greater Austin area is defined as being within 40 miles of the Texas State Capitol (N 30° 16.479 W 097° 43.118). This distance was selected because the oldest cache in Central Texas, CenTex Prime, hidden 12/17/2000, falls within this radius. I decided to hide this series because I have found that the oldest caches tend to be among the most interesting and often offer nice hikes to scenic locations. They also tend to have larger than micro containers and contain large log books with comments by many cachers who have found these caches over the years.

The series is made up of five caches. The first four caches in this series are Challenge Caches dedicated to the most common cache types: Traditional, Virtual, Mystery, and Multi-Cache. To be able to log one of these four caches, you must have found approximately half of the existing caches of that type hidden before a particular year that are still active at the time of your find.

The fifth cache in this series is a Bonus Cache that requires that you find, although not necessarily qualify for, the other four caches in the series. You will need to gather some information that is contained in each of the four Challenge Cache containers to solve a simple puzzle to find the bonus cache.

• All previous finds count.
• To count a previous find of one of the older caches, you must have physically visited the site, found the cache, signed the log (except for virtuals), and logged your find on geocaching.com.
• For this cache, you may sign the log before having qualified for the find and log it as a note, but you cannot claim the cache as a find until you have met this cache's requirements.
• Any caches that you own cannot be used by you for this challenge.
• You can document your qualifications for this cache in any way that shows that you have met the requirements of the cache. Options include: 1) Create a Bookmark List, 2) include a list of qualifying finds in your log, or 3) capture a screen shot of a ) a Pocket Query or b) a GSAK sort that shows your finds, and post it as a picture with your log.
• Your qualifying information should include the cache name, GC code, and date you found each cache.

A “Multi-Cache” involves two or more locations. The final location is a physical container. There are many variations, but most Multi-Caches have a redirector that contain either the coordinates of or a hint to find the second redirector, and the redirector cache has a hint to the third, and so on until you reach the final. An offset cache (where you go to a location and get hints to the actual cache) is considered a Multi-Cache.

Beginners are often a bit intimidated by multi-caches, because they are afraid that they will take two to four times as long as a traditional cache. My experience is they typically only take a bit, maybe 25-50%, longer. So if if you have not tried them previously, give them a try, and experience the joy of making several finds for the price of one!

To claim this cache, you need to find or to have found 15 of 37 active or 17 archived Multi-Caches that were hidden in the greater Austin area before December 31, 2014. (The complete list of qualifying current and archived caches can be found in the Old Austin Area Multi-Caches bookmark list.)

Here is a list of the active caches that meet this criteria:

1. "Up YOUR Greenbelt" Challenge | by Sandra & RoyD | GC3996 | 02/13/2002
2. Zork | by The Outlaw | GC56CB | 05/10/2002
3. Chicas de Saltillo | by Mexicat, gina, Alex | GC72AC | 07/18/2002
4. Trailhead Trial | by Coppertone, Austin Explorer, & Dan | GC9318 | 09/24/2002
5. Accidental Tourist | by threelanes | GCDB3C | 02/25/2003
6. Bubbles' Cache | by BubblesPPG | GCGP4P | 08/18/2003
7. Watch Your Step | by TxBigfoot with Matt and Mikey | GCHQ38 | 02/19/2004
8. MONSTER | by Dr Essenstein and the Austin Igors | GCKGF2 | 09/08/2004
9. Sunset View In Sunset Valley | by BANDA | GCT3Q1 | 01/21/2006
10. Old Stones of 969: Manor | by Blind Yak | GCTCZD | 02/10/2006
11. TPS-BH WILDFLOWER | by Tx Paradise Seeker | GC18NPG | 01/17/2008
12. Dual Depots | by specops1 | GC183AJ | 04/01/2008
13. Dog Dayz Multi Cache | by TheGeoHunter1 | GC1DBMN | 06/23/2008
14. Everything's Bigger in Texas | by Indigo Parrish | GC1DXJT | 07/06/2008
15. Coyote Ugly at Trailhead Park | by TheGeoHunter1 | GC1E6CF | 07/14/2008
16. Not an Odd Fellow | by Al, LaRita, Liz and Chris | GC1F40B | 08/10/2008
17. Backyard - My Favorite Bands | by 4dimensions | GC1KVN4| 01/17/2009
18. Canyon Creek Cache | by TheGeoHunter1 | GC1MDP2| 02/05/2009
19. Aphrodite 101| by S6sputnik | GC1P2YY| 03/23/2009
20. FP Series #374 - Peter Gabriel | by drives | GC1QYGV| 05/03/2009
21. Goodwater Clockwise | by ATXTracker and HalapenyoHarry | GC1VWBD| 07/11/2009
22. Downtown to Rural Pflugerville| by DrPflug | GC247EM| 02/21/2010
23. Kilocache | by PDubATX | GC2CTMB | 08/03/2010
24. Platoon | by Lt. Indigo Parrish and his platoon | GC2JQRR | 11/25/2010
25. Call of Kahuna | by Chemist Kahuna adopted by Bigguy In Texas | GC2M6BY | 01/09/2011
26. Paper, Scissors, Rock | by Buckandi | GC2ND9P | 02/05/2011
27. Threat Level Midnight | by ATXTracker & PDubATX | GC2RB96 | 04/01/2011
28. Murals of Austin | by Soaring Eagle | GC2TMBF | 04/03/2011
29. Fortune Teller | by Buckandi | GC3PBV4 | 07/07/2012
30. PFAP - Play For All Park | by Bigguy In Texas | GC3W9DE | 09/12/2012
31. Leopard Larders | by SwensonianInstitute | GC3X540 | 09/19/2012
32. Llano's Racetrack | by Mh171 and Llano | GC42QDF | 12/11/2012
33. XII Twelve 12 | by strontium87 | GC41MQ4 | 12/12/2012
34. Electric Island | by JEBJAR, Mh171 | GC43ZY0 | 01/06/2013
35. Who let the dogs out? | by redsox2 | GC4C6RE | 05/15/2013
36. Art Dress | by sec-guy | GC4CAPG | 05/17/2013
37. Bridges | by j2dad | GC5GPQQ | 12/07/2014

Like many Challenge Caches, the difficulty and terrain ratings for this cache do not reflect the difficulty of finding this cache itself, but rather the time and effort that you would have to invest to qualify to claim the find. The hides for this series are not your usual Challenge Cache basic hides. I tried to make them interesting, but not too difficult.

Be sure to record the two sets of information in the form "letter = number" attached to the cache log. You will need this to determine coordinates for the Bonus Cache that is part of this series.