The BACON Murder Mystery Mystery Cache

Cache is not at the coordinates listed. The coordinates listed are parking for the first stage.

All stages of this mystery cache are located within Pennsylvania State Game Lands 95. There is a complete map of SGL 95 here which will definitely come in handy while completing this cache. Take careful note of the borders on the map and make sure to approach all stages from within the SGL so as not to trespass on private land. Please also take note of the following excerpts from the PA code involving gamelands:

"...every person hunting for or assisting to hunt for deer, bear or woodchucks shall wear either a minimum of 250 square inches of daylight fluorescent orange-colored material on the back and front combined or, in lieu thereof, a hat of the same color material. The material shall be worn so it is visible in a 360-degree arc."

"It is unlawful for non-hunters to be present on State Game Lands from November 15 through December 15 inclusive without wearing at least a Fluorescent Orange hat (a vest or jacket of 250 sq. inches is of Safety Orange is recommended ). Orange material must be visible from 360 degrees."

To summarize, non-hunters present in an SGL from Nov. 15 - Dec. 15 are required to wear a flourescent orange hat. For the rest of the year, it's not required if you're not hunting...but it's the smart thing to do.

Now then, the details of the cache. This cache is setup similar to the boardgame Clue. Your mission is to figure out who did it, where they did it, and what they used. What is IT you ask? IT is the demise of AndyFromButler, a fictional member of BACON. There are 6 suspects, 6 possible locations, and 6 possible weapons. In each stage of this mystery multi cache, you will find 3 cards and a "fudge number". As you find cards, you can cross that person/item/location off of the list. Be sure to note the "fudge number" and which stage you found it in. The cards for the person/item/location guilty of the crime are in the final cache. The "fudge numbers" will be used at the end to obtain the coordinates to the final. These are present to prevent anyone from doing a few stages and shortcutting to the final. The table below shows the 18 cards in the game:

Once you have determined who did it, where they did it, and what they used. Use the following formulas to obtain the final coordinates:

Latitude = Sum of the three Latitude #s + stage 1 fudge + stage 3 fudge

Longitude = Sum of the three Longitude #s - stage 2 fudge - stage 4 fudge - stage 5 fudge

Stage info:

Stage 1: The last known location of AndyFromButler. Parking coordinates for this stage are the listed coordinates of this cache. If you happen to like fishing, you're gonna wanna bring your gear for this one. Note: There are clues within this page that will lead you to numerical coordinates for this stage. Do not simply go to the parking coordinates and look for an object that matches the hint because there are probably 1000 places within easy walking distance of parking that match the hint.

Stage 2: This is a night caching stage. The trailhead to access this stage is N 41° 02.733 W 079° 53.142. Follow the "path" until you reach N 41° 02.639 W 079° 53.293. At this point continue down the trail and watch the right side of the path for 3 firetacks arranged in a vertical line. At this point, enter the woods and follow the firetack trail to the container. The location of the container is marked by 5 firetacks in a plus sign. There is an alternate route to this stage for those who don't wish to night cache, see optional stage below. Note: The firetacks used here are 4D stealth firetacks. You can try this during the day if you want, but you should know that I know where the tacks are and it took me 15 minutes to find one again 5 minutes after I placed it, they blend in very well during the day. All tacks are on trees between 5-7 feet off of the ground. Being that these are "retroreflective" firetacks, it is important that when spotting them the flashlight be near your eyes. I tested these tacks and if you hold the flashlight at your waist, they will not appear to glow. If you hold it next to your head at eye level, they're hard to miss. A headlamp works perfect for this. Also, make sure to mark where you park your vehicle. I did not firetack the way out :)

Stage 3: N 41° 02.324 W 079° 51.093 Another one that fishermen will like.

Stage 4: N 41° 05.097 W 079° 52.072

Stage 5: N 41° 04.711 W 079° 52.879

Final: A little hint for you, you deserve it if you get this far. There are two very different ways to approach this cache. I've tried it both ways and the easier way in is also the more scenic of the two so I recommend it. For the scenic route, head down the obvious road from the parking area and look for a path on the right just a hundred or so feet from the parking area. This route will lead you on a hike of slightly over a half mile to the cache. A well used trail that doesn't seem to be on the gamelands map will lead to a power line right of way. Hang a left at the power line right of way and walk to the edge of the hill to see a terrific view of the next hill. From here, hang a left into the woods and it will only be a few hundred feet to the cache. This route is fairly level and is only about a 80 foot elevation change round trip. The other, more obvious, route is about a 340 foot elevation change each direction or 680 feet total (basically 170 down and 170 up in each direction).

Optional Stage: This stage is a way to get the coordinates for the night stage so that the reflectors can be bypassed. I recommend doing stage 2 at night, it's a blast, but if you're not so inclined you can solve the following puzzle(yes I know it's tedius, just skip it and do stage 2 at night):

010001110110001000100000011000100110111101100111011011100111 011001100001001000000110011101110101011100100010000001110000 011000100110001001100101011100010111011001100001011011100110 011101110010011001100010000001110011011000100110010100100000 011001110111010101110010001000000110000101110110011101000111 010101100111001000000110011001100111011011100111010001110010 001011000010000001101100011000100110100000100000011110100110 100001100110011001110010000001101001011101100110011001110110 011001110010000001100111011101010111001000100000010001010110 001001100110011100100110101001100010011000100111000100100000 010100000111001001111010011100100110011101110010011001010110 110000100000011011100110011100001101000010100011010000110001 001000000011000000110100001011100011010100110100001110010010 000000100000001101110011100100100000001101010011000000101110 001110010011001100110010001011100010000000100000010100110111 011001100001011100010010000001100111011101010111001000100000 011101010111001001101110011100010110011001100111011000100110 000101110010011001100010000001110011011000100110010100100000 011001110111010101110010001000000111001101100010011110010111 100101100010011010100111011001100001011101000010000001100011 011100100110001001100011011110010111001000100000011011100110 000101110001001000000110000101100010011001110111001000100000 011001110111010101110010001000000110111101110110011001010110 011101110101000011010000101001101110011000010111000100100000 011100010111001001101110011001110111010100100000011011000111 001001101110011001010110011000101110001000000010000001000111 011101010111001001100110011100100010000001101110011001010111 001000100000011001110111010101110010001000000111001101110110 011000010110111001111001001000000110010101110010011001100110 011101110110011000010111010000100000011000110111100101101110 011100000111001001100110001000000110001001110011001000000110 011001110010011010010111001001100101011011100111100100100000 011000100111001100100000011001110111010101110010001000000110 001001100101011101100111010001110110011000010110111001111001 001000000110011001110010011001110110011101111001011100100110 010101100110000011010000101001100010011100110010000001100111 011101010111001000100000011011100110010101110010011011100010 111000001101000010100000110100001010010100110110010101101110 011000010111000001110010011001100010000001010101011101100111 100101111001011101100110111001100101011100010010000000110001 001110000100111000110110001011010011000100111001010011110011 000000001101000010100101011101100010011101010110000100100000 010000110010111000100000010001110111010101100010011110100110 111001100110001000000011000100111000001110010011001000101101 001100010011100101010000001100000000110100001010010011100111 100101101111011100100110010101100111001000000101101000101110 001000000101000001110101011001010111011001100110011001110110 110000100000001100010011100001010001010100100010110100110001 001110010011001000110101000011010000101000001101000010100100 011101110101011100100010000001110000011000100110001001100101 011100010111011001100001011011100110011101110010011001100010 000001100010011100110010000001100110011001110110111001110100 011100100010000000110010001000000110111001100101011100100010 000000110100001100010010000000110000001100100010111001010010 010011110101000100100000001000000011011100111001001000000011 01010011001100101110010100000101000001001110

All stages for this cache are army issue decon containers. If you're not sure what they are, a quick google search will show you. They are small containers, about large enough to hold a deck of playing cards. The final cache is a large ammo can. Included is an unactivated geocoin as an FTF prize.

A few caveats. The person/item/location cards were selected at random by my kids, so don't feel singled out if you happen to be the killer. Also, please don't feel left out if you weren't selected as one of the cards. If I put everybody in that I consider a geocaching friend, I'd still be out in the gamelands placing stage 12 or 13 right now.

I hope you have as much fun finding this cache as I did placing it. Now get out there and solve the mystery! Should you not finish all 6 stages in one day (which I think is pretty likely), please log a note detailing your progress so I know you're working on it. Good luck!