A Diabolical Journey

Hurm,

I realize I detailed out the first of these two caches, but never got around to telling about the second. At least I don't think I did... Anyway, here goes.

Stage one,

From the parking coordinates, the Cacher would begin by sweeping their flashlight around until the fire tack in a nearby tree reflected back. Moving to that position and repeating let them to a second fire tack in a sagebrush. Hidden on the other side of the branch with the tack was a small red push button. It was set in such a way that cachers needed to bend over to push it and as such would miss the string of LEDs behind them in a mid sized bush. This was accomplished through the LED strips at wal-mart and simply lengthing the wiring supplied in the packaging. Once they did see the lights, there was a PVC pipe attached to the truck with a pill bottle at the bottom. The trick on this one was the bottle was not magnetic from the top. A strong magnet needed to be slid along the outside of the pile to lift the bottle (two two earth magnets on the bottom). I supplied the magnet in the lid of the pipe cap and after a few folks there was a noticeable scrape mark along the outside of the pipe. Coordinates for stage two inside the pill bottle.

Stage two,

Parking was along the road beside an empty cheatgrass field. Shining the flashlight around revealed a trail of fire tacks leading out. The trail circled around to the only bush where a large flat board was placed with a faded stenciling stating Do Not Remove and the GC number. Lifting the board showed nothing underneath and shining a white light on the backside also gave nothing. But once the white light was turned off or a UV light used, the clear UV paint lit up and revealed the next set of coordinates. This idea had some issues, the paint wasn't as invisible as hoped (it's a pale white) and over the winter, critters used the board as shelter and ate away at the wood.

Stage three,

Park and shine the light around for the fire tack. At the base of the bush was a clear UV reflective fishing line. Using paper clips, the line snaked across the ground and led the Cacher in a meandering path around the sage brush. At the end was a black ammo can with an altos tin and three holes. After while, cachers realized if they shined a light into one of the holes, the bottom of the Altaic tin lit up and revealed the next set of coordinates. This was accomplished by using mirrors to direct the light andante cutting out the bottom of the tin. Foam allows the light to shine through from the bottom but prevents the text from being seen from the top.

Stage four,

This is the simplest, yet most wicked, stage. Coordinates led to a small clearing at the top of a low ridge that provided a nice overlook of south Carson. There were a ring of larger rocks/boulders surrounding an spares about 10 feet wide. The coords led to the dead center where some smaller hand size rocks were scattered. Given the accuracy problems with handheld GPS units, the entire area was open for searching. Most cachers, upon finding ground zero, will set the GPS down and expand. After several minutes of searching, they come back to the gps to check. They may notice a slightly larger hand sized rock near their GPS. Some might pick it up, and find one of groundspeaks fake rocks. The coordinates have to be dead on for this to work. I left mine to average for about five minutes.

So there ya go. My second diabolical cache.

And for a bonus treat, here's how my three night school caches out in Fallon worked...

Elementary: simple follow the fire tacks stuck onto sticks.

Middle: go out at dusk and follow two fire tacks to a hidden valley. WAY off in the distance is a very faint light. I used solar lawn lights and blacked out the globe except for the direction I wanted it to shine. Follow about five of those until you get to a stick with a button. Push it and a wireless doorbell rings about 15 feet away. Shine your light in that direction to reveal another fire tack and the ammo can.

High: coords take you right to the locked ammo can. Shining the flashlight around reveals four fire tacks in the cardinal directions. Each tack is on a lawn stake with a small black box. If you put your fingers in the box, you'll feel the stake has been notched into the shape of a letter. The four posts have the letters O P E N which s the combination to the lock on the ammo can.