GC82CXT Evergreen Math Multi Madness
Type: Multi | Size: Regular | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: MLCCrashers @ | Hide Date: 01/12/2019 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N39° 39.374 W105° 20.875 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0
                           

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Welcome to the Evergreen Math Multi Madness cache, a challenge that will test your mathematical acumen, your physical fitness, and your geocaching prowess! We have rated this a 5 for difficulty and a 5 for terrain given the cumulative challenges you will face across all the stages. Most of the individual stages are easier than that. We were inspired to make a math multi geocache after helping our daughter with her homework through her first semester of high school. The math will probably seem hard to most people, but it is all fairly basic algebra and geometry. You may need to do some research to solve the problems, and that research, combined with the search for the various caches, will likely make this a multi-day cache for most people. If you wish to verify your coordinates before searching for the caches at any or all of the stages, or if you get stuck and you need a few hints, you are welcome to contact us.  The final stage cache has lots of loot, including $21 for the FTF...we're hoping you'll use it to reward yourself with lunch, dinner, or ice cream at one of many great places in nearby Evergreen. {The $21 went to, appropriately, PayMeCache for the FTF. It sounds like this was a team effort, so congratulations to PayMeCache and his posse: DimensionGarret, Landon24, weasel311, heh324, fearthefish, and herdonrd. Well done!}

A quick safety note: We did not place any cache in any location that would intentionally jeopardize your life or safety. We personally felt comfortable at every cache location that we placed. That said, there are risks in some areas that vary with the season and time of day. The most serious risks include severe weather (including lightning), dangerous animals (such as mountain lions, bears, bats, and ticks), falling rocks/trees, and falls over cliffs.

There is no physical container here at Stage 1, but this is a good place to park to start your search. From this location you can take a very short walk over easy terrain to find the first physical container at Stage 2—a small (not micro) camoed pill bottle—which will contain information needed to find the next container in this multicache. Please do not attempt to find the first physical cache at Stage 2 unless you can do so without being seen by muggles. There will be times where this is impossible!

The partial coordinates to the first physical container at Stage 2 are as shown below. The numeric answers to the math problems A, B, C, and D can be plugged into the corresponding letters to complete the coordinates for the first physical container at Stage 2:

N39 A.B

W105 C.D

Note that the answers to problems A and C are each 2-digits in length, and the answers to problems B and D are each 3-digits in length.

Problem A) A geocacher is standing right next to a flagpole on very flat ground.  The sun is rising directly behind both the flagpole and the geocacher. The geocacher is exactly 6 feet tall. His shadow is exactly 15 feet long. The shadow from the flagpole is exactly 97 feet and 6 inches long. How tall is the flagpole in feet?

Problem B) Two geocachers, a husband and wife named John and Jenna, are on very flat ground and facing true north. John, not realizing that Jenna is not following him, begins walking approximately northwest, directly toward a cache he wishes to find. Jenna, not realizing that John is not following her, begins walking approximately east-northeast, directly toward a cache she wishes to find. When John gets exactly half-way to his cache, he realizes he is thirsty. He stops and turns around to ask his wife Jenna, who is carrying their water, for a drink. Realizing she is not there, he calls out to her. Jenna, hearing her husband calling from afar, realizes he is not following her. She stops to respond at exactly the half-way point to her cache. John and Jenna walk directly toward each other, he to drink, and she to bring him the water. Since the two are perfectly compatible and know they are in need of each other, they now walk at exactly the same pace, and the water changes hands at exactly 82 feet and 3 inches from where each veered toward the other. How far apart from each other, in feet, are the two caches that John and Jenna are still hoping to find?

Problem C) A regular polygon has many interior angles, each measuring exactly 162 degrees.  How many sides does this regular polygon have?

Problem D) Jenna wants John to paint the side of their single-story house before he goes geocaching again. The main floor of the house is rectangular-shaped on the side that needs painting. It is 48 feet wide, and 10 feet high. Above that is triangular-shaped attic, which, at the apex, rises 16 feet above the top of the ground floor. How many square feet of paint will John need to paint this side of the house if he adds 1 extra square foot to the calculated dimensions just in case he needs a little extra for touch-up?

Additional Waypoints

08/05/2019 By Greasepot
Spent a good hour trying to find the right approach to the final. Garlic came up with the find. We got to see the bat guano! Thanks! Started working on this cache on 6/29, so took us a while to complete it.

07/01/2019 By Greasepot
Came back today and picked up the clue for WP3. Went home and solved it. Will be back soon.

06/29/2019 By Greasepot
Went to grab the first waypoint today, and the puzzle for it. Got on site, and did more research, and realized that the first puzzle is on the cache page. So, I picked up "Bob the Dinosaur" and will solve this one soon and come back for this waypoint. Thanks!

01/27/2019 By herndonrd
So 6 months later PMC finally gets around to telling us that the CO gave permission for all of us involved with this adventure to log the cache, even though PMC went behind out backs to get to the final after all the hard work was done.... So everyone who knows him will probably agree that without FeartheFish and me (primarily me on this one) doing the math there's no way that PMC would have gotten to the {FTF}. This was quite the adventure and anyone who tries it should be ready for a challenge because it earns it's 5/5 rating. Give it a fav! TFTC!

01/27/2019 By PayMeCache
Hands down, this cache was definitely one of the hardest caches I have conquered. You challenged me mentally and physically. You also test my patience, mapping skills, surroundings and awareness. I have climbed many 14'ers and the final journey of this cache was much harder than any of them! I think the 5D/5T rating here is quite worthy. Maybe during the summer months this will be a easier but I would argue with anyone if they try and say this is not worthy of a 5D/5T. As previously mentioned, this cache took more time than any other cache I have embarked on. That says a lot for many crazy journeys, hikes and challenges I have done over the last few years in the Geocaching world. This also will now go down as the longest log I have ever written for a geocache but I felt compelled to share my fun journey.

Thank you for filling a new D/T grid via a multi cache on my fizzy. I am still quite shocked how you were able to put all of this together. If this is any indication of what we are up against for future hides and or challenges from you, I am excited and to be honest, a little nervous!

Favorite point earned for such a memorable journey that we will never forget.

Found GC82CXT - Evergreen Math Multi Madness on January 27, 2019 using Cachly for iOS.

Some may call me seriously mentally ill. Some may state that I am in a state of mind that prevents social interaction. Some may say I am in a state of mind that prevents normal perception and or behavior. I prefer to say that I tend to do the same thing over and over again, but I expect different results. That being said, I believe we only live one life and I am trying to make the best of it. I thank you, MLCCrashers for placing a fun geocache to fuel my "insanity" or addiction as I call it. I appreciate you bringing me here so that I can try and sign my alias on a piece of paper that you have hidden.

I look forward to finding more of your geocaches. I also look forward to potentially finding geocaches with you one day and sharing stories of our insanity... I mean hobby or addiction? Cheers!

01/27/2019 By PayMeCache
You’re seriously telling me that this is 7th grade math? Holy ______’ing moley! Maybe it’s just been too many years since I’ve done such ridiculous mathematics? Or maybe I shouldn’t have graduated past the 7th grade, let alone a college degree, especially if it was a timed test. I will be much more prepared for DimensionGarret, Landen24 and weasel311 when they bring home these math equations and ask me for help as I am now the professor emeritus of middle school mathematics.

I won’t mention how many stages there are in this multi so I will jump ahead and talk about the final journey.

Wow, wow, WOW! Winter definitely is not the right time to try and track down this thing unless you are a crazy lunatic like me. I had prepared myself by studying information online in multiple fashions and felt good about it. I felt prepared and ready for what was in front of us. Or was I? Upon arriving to our parking destination the wind was howling and blowing worse than a tropical storm. Well, we are here, lets bundle up as this is going to be a cold journey. I helped tie DimensionGarret, Landen24 and weasel311’s boots and we headed off and quickly disappeared under the timber. The wind quickly was reduced, and I was feeling good about things. The path we had chosen was looking to be a good route… Unfortunately, the fun was quickly ended and we began the extremely slippery ascent. We came across lots of fairly fresh mountain lion tracks. I am quite certain I have been seen by mountain lions but thankfully I have never seen one. The tracks magnified and we came across momma and baby lion tracks (picture attached) and that’s when I started to worry about our choices. Was I putting my children's lives in danger? Not only were we cold, wet and tired we were now very close to a den. My fatherly instincts (or some might question that statement) kicked into extremely high alert as I was monitoring our surrounds every step we took. I kept the group close and was prepared for any unwanted circumstance.

It took us over 2.5 hours to finally reach ground zero (pictures along the way are attached). Thankfully after much needed skirting and bouldering on the icy rocks it didn’t take us too long to find the final. Once I got within 30 feet of ground zero I pointed and said, “I bet the cache is there.” However, I didn’t see the cache at first and climbed around for some different viewpoints while DimensionGarret, Landen24 and weasel311 cheered me on. I busted up my hand via the sharp surroundings and was now bleeding but who cares at this point - we were successful. Cache now in hand, the task of signing our sexy John Hancock’s on the fresh white logbook was beyond rewarding. We took a photo of the trackable in the container to add to the thousands of photos that we have (someday I will finally sit down and log them all) and left it for others to discover or move. When I placed the cache back in it's Heidi (w)hole I wondered if I was looking at bat guano? (picture attached)

Thank you kindly for the first to find prize, this is the nicest gift we have received over the years. Unfortunately, the group was way too exhausted to enjoy the prize as intended by the CO afterwards but we promise we will be back to do as hoped for.

Being cold and wet was an understatement. If it wasn’t for the one pair of microspikes I brought (that I ended up giving to Landen24), I don’t think we would have made it; the hiking poles we fashioned up from Mother Nature were just not enough to keep us upright on much of this trek. All in all this last leg took us 4 hours to get back to the car.

I am quite thankful that I was not stupid enough to attempt this later in the day on other trips like I had wanted. I am extremely grateful that I did not run into any of the known bats, mountain lions and or bears in the area. I assume other cachers will also need to be aware of rattle snakes, ticks and others critters during the warmer months.

More on a third log...

01/27/2019 By PayMeCache
[FTF] First to Find at 1:58 PM with DimensionGarret, Landen24 and weasel311. By the time we were signing the log with our frozen digits it was 2:00 PM.

What an incredible journey! This will go down as one, if not THE most memorable cache found to date. As I’m writing this I can honestly say I have never put so much time into a cache before. Yes, EVER! Accumulated miles on vehicles was almost 370 and took three days of efforts to complete (the calendar will mark it 10 days).

This all began on January 18th when heh324 informed me of this cache. It had snowed the night before (1/17/19) and continued into the following day. After shoveling snow she and I looked at this. Quite frankly I don’t even remember how it happened but it peaked my interest as I have not found a 5D/5T multi cache. I have completed a fizzy by finding only traditional caches and another fizzy with only puzzle caches. Multi caches take a lot longer to complete and there just isn't as many options in the world. That being said I am slowly trying to acquire a fizzy grid with only multi caches and love a good challenge.

So, that’s when the fun and head scratching began. We pondered a few ideas and drew some visuals to get through the first stage. Both of us have been through numerous levels of mathematics in high school and through college but were still swearing and wondering what we were missing. Ultimately, it was fearthefish who had the light after I was reading through some 'things'. Later we learned that herndonrd had already gotten through this stage. At this point I was not racing to obtain the first to find, I just wanted to complete this for the stats.
By this time it had started snowing again and fearthefish convinced me to take a break from a test and go find a puzzle cache in Evergreen as he needed it for a ridiculous challenge he’s trying to complete. If you don't know fearthefish, he loves challenge caches and is currently working on 482 of them. Amazingly he remembers all of them and when or if I am about with him he will detour hundreds of miles to obtain one more to add to the list. I am crazy enough that I typically go along but I am smart enough to realize that I most likely won't qualify for a lot of them. Now enough squirreling, I'll get back to the story of this cache.

I met fearthefish just after 3:00 PM and we headed up to Evergreen. We sat in traffic for over 2.5 hours before reaching the second stage. It was now approaching darkness but that didn’t stop us. We dug in snow and looked under, what we thought was the holding place, and ultimately expanded our search. After finding it we double checked the coordinates and had initially thought the coordinates were off. After further looking and studying the satellite imagery I feel coordinates were accurate. Well that is a good sign and typically unheard for a new(er) cache owner. :)
Of course fearthefish didn't want to quit and called herndonrd with the news. That quickly led to the next stage with not as much head scratching or IQ needed. Thankfully the CO was kind enough to provide us what we needed to proceed even further since Mother Nature prevented us from opening the container. We decided to call it quits at that point, find the puzzle cache fearthefish needed and we headed home.

heh324 joined efforts with me to locate the fourth and further stages. One location really tickled me as I had not seen one of these before! With the information in hand we then sat in the car for 2.5 hours to solve this mind buster. I am a visual person, so I drew out some things here again at this stage. heh324 and I had a lot of vulgarity that flew out of our mouths. Each of us crunched numbers and continued to look at the satellite imagery wondering if our answers COULD be correct. FINALLY we made some progress.

More about the journey on another log...

01/13/2019 By Heartland Cacher
Published