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Shelter in Place (KPC2020) Mystery Cache

Difficulty:
4.5 out of 5
Terrain:
2.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:


The geocache is not located at the given coordinates. Solve the puzzle below to discover the cache's actual coordinates.

Nearly eight million of us in the Bay Area were ordered to Shelter in Place starting at 12:01 am on March 17th this year. Most of the rest of the nation followed our lead in the following month. But, as most of the country starts to relax those mandates, those of us in Alameda County are still sheltering as the case total continues to rise well past 3,000 here. Some of you who might be going stir crazy at home might be wondering what it would be like to live elsewhere in the country, and maybe you can do a little virtual real estate touring while you work on this puzzle.

  • 157332806
  • 227326075
  • 70920148
  • 55383517
  • 4808968
  • 117751639
  • 17788300
  • 303889362
  • 21219444
  • 21071491
  • 241857088
  • 66071844
  • 7502330
  • 2131414103
  • 37396692

Special Notes about the 2020 Puzzle Challenge: To be considered for Fastest Solver points, you must verify your solution with Certitude. Finders will receive Top Finder points when submitting Found It logs to the cache page. All "point" scoring is arbitrary, subject to change, at the discretion of the cache owner, and probably completely meaningless (unless you just want to be announced sooner at the celebration party, if one even happens in 2021). The real challenge is to see whether I will have enough time to create a puzzle each month this year! To maintain fairness, hints should not be offered by the cache owner or other solvers until the fifteenth of the month.

Special Notes about this month's puzzle: All the puzzles so far this year had been Difficulty 3. Time for something a little more challenging. When viewed on the satellite map, it just seems like this spot is supposed to have a geocache. I recommend using a hiking pole to poke around when looking for the cache, as snakes may be active in the area. The cache is a camouflaged metal tin that I won from one of KCSearcher's raffles; so it might be hot in the summer (bring a glove). I did not hide the cache in poison oak, but I could see poison oak from the cache site. It shouldn't be an issue for 2020, but we know how the stuff likes to spread; so be forewarned. Bumped the difficulty from 4 to 4.5 after there was only one solver in the first twelve hours, although that solve rate may have been caused by an error with the first item in the puzzle which was fixed after the first find.


You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.

First To Solve: TeamOttlet (6 hours)
First To Log: TeamOttlet (23 hours)
Named pre-hint solvers: 20
Pre-hint finds logged: 7
KPC2020 Solvers Scoreboard
KPC2020 Finders Scoreboard
Previous KPC Puzzle: Apartment Complex (KPC2020)
Next KPC Puzzle: Descriptive Pictures (KPC2020)

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

[Hints added June 15th.] Mvyybj cebcregl vqf. 19650392 jbhyq or Qnl 0.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)