Snails Conundrum Mystery Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with the coordinates above. I'm sure they would take you to a very nice location where you could enjoy God's creation. However, if you want to find this cache, I don't recommend going there; I recommend solving the puzzle instead.
Note: This cache is being published in conjunction with GC5Y35R, The Miami Valley Caching Conundrum #15, hosted by VPPLAYER.
This month's topic is Snails Personally, before this I've never found snails to be a conundrum. You see them once in awhile, but they are hardly a bother. But just trust VPPLAYER to turn these little creatures into a devious puzzle. Snails is played on a two-dimensional matrix, with equal numbers of rows and columns. Each square in the matrix will either contain a number or a dot, which means the square is blank. The numbers will be in some range, often 1-3 or 1-4. Each number in the range will appear in every row and column of the matrix, similar to Sudoku. Further, starting at the tail of the snail (the upper-left corner) and following the spiral, the numbers of the range must appear in sequence; e.g., 123123....123. The matrix will start with some of the numbers and dots specified; you must determine whether the other squares contain numbers or dots.
The coords for the cache will be N39 42.ABC W84 05.XYZ. To determine the missing digits, you must solve the 2 puzzles below, and then plug the values obtained into the formulas after each puzzle. Values for the formulas will be specified as the (row, column) location in the matrix of the desired value. Row 1 is the top row of the matrix and column 1 is the leftmost column. Thus, the upper-left square in the matrix will be specified with (1,1). For the formulas, locations containing a blank count 0.
The cache latitude is obtained from the following 8x8 puzzle, which contains numbers in the range {1-3}.
A = (2,2) + (3,3) + (6,6) + (8,8) + (5,4) + (7,4)
B = (2,3) + (5,2) + (7,3) + (4,7) + (4,8) + (7,7)
C = (6,1) + (3,1) + (3,2) + (1,7) + (3,4) + (7,5)
The longitude is obtained from the following 10x10 puzzle, which contains numbers in the range {1-4}.
X = (3,2) + (4,3) + (6,1) + (8,3) + (7,8) + (1,9)
Y = (4,5) + (5,5) + (10,4) + (10,9) + (3,10) + (8,4)
Z = (10,8) + (9,7) + (6,10) + (3,,8) + (8,9) + (4,8)
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Onfr bs fvta; cnexvat npebff gur fgerrg.