Pole Position (Karenina) is a puzzle cache that depends on getting numeric information from the Tolstoy novel Anna Karenina. It also requires info from 3 signs on poles (hence Pole Position) in Sycamore Grove park. I suppose it’s designed so that you can complete it with one visit to the park–get the sign information, do the arithmetic, and find the cache. I didn’t do it that way. The park is so close I ran out the other day and got the sign information.
I would never have attempted this puzzle if I actually had to read the whole novel to find the answers. Google is a marvelous tool, especially since the whole novel is available on-line, and thus completely indexed.
However, I couldn’t get my answers to correspond with the given check formula: XXX + YYY = 1305. Then I realized this formula defines a linear path from N37° 38.999 W121° 46.306 to N37° 38.306 W121° 46.999. Of course, information in the previous logs helps reduce the path length to a very manageable amount.
So I used the GPSr to find coordinates that were on that linear path in the target area, and established a track heading, and searched likely hiding places. Like others, I started on the wrong side of the creek, but after getting to the right side, I found it fairly quickly. It was in a hollow log.
I also did complete the puzzle. Actually, I had the right information from the novel all along; I just didn’t carefully follow the directions about how many digits of a multi-digit number to use. Coordinates are: N37° 38.510 W121° 46.795.
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