My Precious! Mystery Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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This cache is not at the posted coordinates.
If you solved the puzzle before 05/06/2016, solve it again for updated coords.
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PLEASE MAKE SURE THE CACHES ARE CLOSED TIGHT!
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This geo-art consists of twenty-nine Unknown/Mystery caches which each have a puzzle to solve in order to determine the coordinates of the final location (a container with log book and in most cases some swag). Boots may be needed during certain times of the year when it's rainy. I will be doing regular maintenance so please do not replace any missing caches. Log replacements, on the other hand are fine and most appreciated. Have fun!
The puzzle...
Gollum, originally known as Sméagol (or Trahald), was at first a Stoor, one of the three early Hobbit-types. The name Gollum was derived from the sound of his disgusting gurgling, choking cough. His birth can be estimated to have happened in the year TA 2430. His death date is given as March 25, 3019. His life was extended far beyond its natural limits by the effects of possessing the One Ring. At the time of his death, Sméagol was about 589 years old, a remarkable age for a creature that was once a Hobbit, but he had been deformed and twisted in both body and mind by the corruption of the Ring. His chief desire was to possess the Ring that had enslaved him, and he pursued it for many years after Bilbo Baggins found it while walking in the Misty Mountains.
He lived in the Misty Mountains for over four hundred years, living on raw blind fish (which he caught from his small row boat), bats and Goblins when he could get them. Indeed, he made a song about raw fish, that he uses as a riddle to Bilbo and much later sings to Frodo in a longer version. In later years, he found Hobbit and Elven food repulsive.
During his centuries under the Ring's influence, he developed a sort of dissociative identity disorder: Sméagol, his "good" personality, still vaguely remembered things like friendship and love, while Gollum, his "bad" personality, was a slave to the Ring and would kill anyone who tried to take it. Years later, Samwise Gamgee would name the good personality "Slinker" (for his fawning, eager-to-please demeanor), and the bad personality "Stinker". The two personalities often quarreled when he talked to himself (as Tolkien put it, "through not having anyone else to speak to") and had a love/hate relationship, mirroring Gollum's love and hatred for the Ring and for himself.
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Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
ybj onfr