OIAL 114: Me down letting Mystery Cache
Hidden : 5/12/2023
Difficulty:
3 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size: micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:



How often you can log a geocache as found.
The frequency of finding your first cache.
The number of times you will be in this moment.

The Once in a Lifetime geocaching series...continues with a combinatorics puzzle in Vacaville, CA!

Congrats to LydiaSimmons for the FTS!
Congrats to bluewarble for the FTF!

Here in the States, the Church Micro series is off limits. However, anyone around the world can place a Once In A Lifetime Cache! For this one, Once In A Lifetime continues in Vacaville, CA, near Mt Vaca.

I recently placed a cache not far from here, and I offered a simple puzzle related to the Nifty 90 Peaks of the Bay Area to find the coordinates. If you check it out, you'll have the context for this puzzle. In the course of creating that cache, I thought of another puzzle, almost as simple. Instead of looking up the answer, what if someone guessed randomly? How many combinations in total would they confront?

In GCA8DB4, the solution is a number, XX.YYYY. For this puzzle, forget about the Nifty 90 context and consider a number XX.YYYY. The first two digits, XX, are a number larger than 10 and no more than 90. The other four unknown digits, YYYY, are a number that is larger than 999, smaller than 4343, and odd. How many possibilities for XX.YYYY could there be?

Another way to pose the challenge is to break it up into parts: How many whole numbers meet all of these conditions:
  • are larger than 10
  • are no more than 90
    • This is XX.
So far, so good. Keep going: How many whole numbers meet all of these conditions:
  • are larger than 999
  • are smaller than 4343
  • are odd
    • This is YYYY.
So, if you had no information about the Nifty 90 Peaks of the Bay Area, how many combinations or possible answers would there be to the challenge (XX.YYYY) asked about in GCA8DB4? Easy, right? Is the hide just as easy? Go find out.

You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Gur fznyyrfg cbffvoyr nafjre vf 11.1001; gur ynetrfg, 90.4341

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)


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