A bold murder. A hidden stash of lost secrets. A series of puzzles that must be solved in 24 hours. Such is the story behind the Second Not Exactly Annual Twin Cities Treasure Hunt to take place starting on Saturday, September 13th. Get some friends together and take up the challenge put on by the Como Park Mason Lodge of St. Paul.
The event starts at 10am when all the teams will assemble at the Lodge, located at 1044 Front Ave., a block east of Lexington and just south of Como Park between Gabe's and the Half Time Rec. Breakfast will be served to all the teams (with a limit of 5 members per team). Then at 11am we will call up one member from each team, hand them the packet of clues, and the race is on.
The story is that the Freemasons chose Como Park Lodge to hide some of their ancient secrets. They are kept secure there under lock, key, and booby trap. Only the Grand Master knows the password. But in a shocking development, the Grand Master was just murdered and it is believed his killer was after these documents. The killer and his accomplices were caught, but the police lack evidence and will have to release them in 24 hours. Since they might have gotten the password before killing the Grand Master, it is imperative that the documents are recovered before they are released.
Even though no one else knew the password, the Grand Master did have a backup plan and left a clue to it through a series of puzzles. It is believed he knew his life was in danger and consequently he set these puzzles throughout his home. The Masons know the password is eight letters. However there are 10 puzzles. One of them is a series of pictures, each relating to a letter. The Masons believe they have figured out that 8 of the puzzles each lead to a location. If you can find the item in one of the pictures at that location, that must mean the corresponding letter is part of the password. Each of these puzzles has a symbol on it and they think the symbols must somehow tell you the order of the letters. The last puzzle, with no symbol on it, has eight items. They suspect it must offer hints as to how to solve the other puzzles.
Unfortunately that is as far as they have gotten. Consequently they have put out a call for help, offering $500 in reward money to the group of people that can help them solve the puzzles and be the first one to recover the documents.
This is a fundraiser for Como Park Mason Lodge. Consequently there is an entrance fee of $100 per team. Teams are limited to 5 official members. Only official members are allowed into the Lodge. However you are free to solicit help from other people if they wish to contribute.
The hunt starts at Como Park Mason Lodge when the clues are distributed at 11am. They will lead you to 8 different locations around town. These locations are limited to an area bounded on the east and west by the two donwtowns and bounded on the north and south by the city limits of St. Paul and Minneapolis. All locations should be accessible around the clock. Once there, you will need to figure out which of 24 pictures was taken there which will then tell you that the letter corresponding to that picture is in the password. Each puzzle also has a symbol on it and if you can figure out the order of the symbols, that will tell you the order of the letters. Once you know the password, return to the Mason Lodge. Someone will be there around the clock. Try the password on the padlocks and if they open, you may then attempt to disarm the final booby trap.
The first team to disarm the final booby trap and recover the documents will win $300. Also, at each location there will be a padlock. Each team will get one key that opens half the padlocks and another key that opens the other half. Teams will then get a $25 prize for every padlock they return to the Lodge which should prove they were the first one to get to that location.
Teams that do not win, but still manage to complete the challenge within 24 hours will get a certificate for each member of the team to document the accomplishment. Teams should register by September 6th to David Allison at AllisonWondrland@yahoo.com. To register simply provide your team name and a contact person (and their contact information). Registration fees will be collected the day of the hunt and we will verify the final team membership at that time.
Our first hunt was quite a success with every team saying they really had a lot of fun. So don't let another one go by without participating!
David Allison
Master, Como Park Lodge #324
I'm getting pumped!
and I don't want my 'drive' to be just to beat out my fellow Coolercrew friends. I do agree the lodge should get a chunk.
who else is missing in action for this hunt?
Mainly I don't think I can participate this time due to having a lot of things to get done currently. If there is another one at a later time, maybe I'll have time then.
ONLY because My team is The Shitznat!!! MOFO!!! :cool: :cool: :cool:
I forget the team :smile:
even if we didn't win :sheepish:
If the consensus is half the money towards prizes that would be $10 per lock and $120 for the big prize, assuming no teams show up at the last minute. I am going to have a couple of extra sets ready to go though just in case someone shows up at the lodge in the morning not realizing they were supposed to RSVP first.
Thanks AW for all the work you put into the hunt, it was fun.
nice job gang.......
shows that i'm really not needed :eek: :lipsealed: :ooh: :sad:
At 11 am David gave us our clue envelopes with pictures of stuff - some were location shots, some were photos of puzzles. The location photos signified both a place and a clue letter for the final password. There was 24 photos, but only eight legitimate locations. Each legit place had a padlock hanging nearby where the photo was taken.
The puzzle images, when properly decoded, spelled out locations for some of the padlocks. Each puzzle was a different type of cipher and none of them were exceptionally easy. Some teams just went to the parks and found the locks, others solved the puzzles to find out where to look.
The Spidermonkeys figured out the master password very early on somewhat of a "hunch" from the original notes given, and solved the main puzzle (I believe) without using the rest of the clues or locations. I'm not sure of the exact details, but it sounded something like that.
I think just about everyone finished by about 10:00 pm. I think my wife has now got really hooked into treasure hunting when she found one of the locks while we were searching in the rain. "Oh, WOW, that was EXCITING!!!" she kept saying over and over in the car.
Thanks David - it was nicely done, and a lot of fun.
AlisonWonderland Yahoo Page Link
Congratulations to the SpiderMonkeys.
Now as for my thoughts about the hunt...
I do agree the puzzles were harder. I never thought they would be easy. I did go on the theory though that if you present clever people with something you think is beyond them, they can and often will surprise you. Indeed I thought it might be worse to have puzzles that were too easy. In the last hunt, it took the winning team 14 hours. In this hunt the whole thing was done in about 10, and a lot of the puzzles had been solved by at least one team or another. In that sense one could argue they weren't too hard.
I couldn't resist putting the answer in plain sight in the hint puzzle. Those of you who have done my mock hunts probably know I have a fondness for doing that. My rationalization was that if the puzzles did turn out to be too hard, there was another way to get the answer. I figured once a team got a few letters, they might realize the answer is right in front of them. I didn't think they would do it on one letter though (remember what I said about clever people surprising you?). While I may build a secondary route to the finish in future puzzles, I probably won't make it as obvious next time.
I do have to admit I was quite surprised by how well people did at recognizing the pictures. I knew a couple were obvious enough, but the hunt was structured on the idea that the majority of them could not be picked out without the help of the puzzles. So the fact that people did changed the game somewhat, though not exactly for the worse. It just made it a different kind of game for them.
In some ways I feel a little disappointed because the hunt didn't last longer. On the other hand though the goal of any hunt is not to have hard puzzles or easy puzzles or to make people travel a lot. Rather the goal is twofold. The first goal is to create that feeling of "the thrill of the hunt". It's that spark you feel when you figure out something and you're hot on the trail of it. It's even better when you find something. I know the whole Spider Monkeys team had that feeling when they opened the locks and took off to figure out the final puzzle. Jake told me he had it when he got the lock at Iris. I'm sure Red Bear, Ares, TC, and the Dachsunds had some excitement when they found their locks. The Cookie Bakers also found a couple of locks and probably solved the most puzzles. So in the sense that every team shared in some excitement, the hunt was unusually successful. The other measure of success is did people have fun? It was a rainy day and some things didn't go as planned. There was probably some room for improvement, but I think everyone had some degree of fun anyway.
I got a lot of questions and suggestions about what people should be looking for out in the field. The problem is if you have something people are supposed to take, someone might take them all, especially if we have people we don't know participating. If I were to put out a sign, people could take that. If I drew a picture, someone could try and wash it off to foil other teams.
The thing I think that worked really well this time was the locks. They helped spread the excitement. They also created some drama when a team got to a place they thought was right, but didn't see a lock there. I think I'll keep that first-to-get-there element. It also helped encourage people to actually go to the places in the hunt.
Based on this experience what I think might also be fun is a picture scavenger hunt. Give each team like 50 pictures taken around town and they have to find where they were taken. Maybe it's enough to see who can identify the most. Maybe people have to actually go there and collect something or find something to prove they found it. Maybe take the same picture with a team member in the shot?
So anyway, I'd like to thank everyone who participated again. And thanks not just for participating, and not just for being understanding, but also for going above and beyond and making sure the effort ended up raising money in the end after all. It certainly does give me cause to keep doing these. I'm thinking the next one might be sometime not too long after the Winter Carnival Hunt so that we can at least get more hunters aware of it. Sometime between February and April depending on if people want a winter activity or would rather wait for a bit of spring.
cm used to do that at pf a few years ago. identify the location of the pictures is a cool scavenger hunt!
I think the URL was something like: www.angelfire/taos/something/something/earmuff
Green found it. I kept using the plural. I was so ticked!
David:
I've been working out the puzzles and have PDF "spoiler" documents illustrating the solutions to the puzzles. I'm still working (on my own) to decipher the last two. Do you want these files for your Yahoo page? PM me.