The Solve
This first Loot Quest was pretty technical. Other styles that may suit other peoples' way of thinking will be introduced as well.
So if this Loot Quest wasn't jiving with your way of thinking, the next one might!
All concepts in this Loot Quest could have been researched online to figure out how to complete.
The riddle says that the first two keys are hidden here by good measure.
That is somewhat literal; the first two "keys" are literally hidden and found within the image of the riddle itself. The important word here is "measure", as in the measurements of the image.
If you tap and hold the image on your phone (right click on computer desktop) and save the image of the riddle, you can then view it's details/properties,
and you'll be able to see the height and width (in pixels) of the image. 1020 x 408.
Divide each number by 4 to get their "true" value. So 1020 / 4 = 255 and 408 / 4 = 102. 255 and 102 are your first two keys. Then multiply them together to get 26010.
Some people got confused on how we could know your "current location" or where that was. It was not a physical location. Your current location was your internet location, or the web address (URL) that you were currently at: www.utahlootquest.com.
To view different pages of a web address, you add a "/" and then the webpage you want to see. In this case, you were supposed to add "26010", to get www.utahlootquest.com/26010.
If you put this into your web address bar, this will take you to a page that only has an audio file of a short guitar melody named "Right Track".
In the riddle, it says to connect the "dots" to get the third key, and that word "dots" has a line, or dash through it.
This is hinting at the concept of dots and dashes, which is a nickname for morse code. You have to listen to the track for morse code to hear the 3rd key. In the song, you'll hear two distinct parts of the song that do:
. . _ _ _ and . . . . .
In morse code, that is a 2 and a 5. As a third key together, that is 25. So now all the keys you have are 255, 102, and 25.
It says you now need to make them into one, and that our state flag will help you think of how to do that.
Our state flag has a hexagon on it. 255, 102, and 25 are the RBG (Red, Blue, Green) Color Code numbers for a bright orange color (like the color of the box that was found)
Another type of Color Code is called a HEX Color Code. The reference to our state flag's hexagon was the clue there. If you look up the RBG Color Code of (255, 104, 25), you'll find that it's HEX code version is ff6619.
"Adjust your location accordingly" means to do the same thing as before and add that to the end or our website's web address: utahlootquest.com/ff6619.
This will open a webpage that asks for an answer to a puzzle. There will be image of a Little Caesars pizza box and then a phrase that says
“and a game of checkers perhaps?” Below that is a code: UGDBTHKENEDYOIAN. The Little Caesars Pizza Box and Checkers reference is the clue that you need to put the letters into a Caesar Box cipher method, and then use a checkboard parttern to see the letters that matter.
The coded letters is UGDBTHKENEDYOIAN. Put into a 4x4 grid of a Caesar Box Cipher, and if you apply a checkerboard pattern to the grid, you get the relevant letters.
If you read each column of the grid downward, going left to right, you get "UNHIDDEN".
The password is “UNHIDDEN”
If you get the password right, GPS coordinates and a book/text cipher code will appear. Go to the GPS coordinates, which is an information panel at the Wrangler Trailhead
of the Dimple Dell Park in Sandy, Utah.
The book/text cipher (where the first number is the word, and the second is the letter of that word) is used to point to which letters on the information panel you need to pick out. The revealed text will give you directions to the loot.
The instructions read:
"Tunnel//Bridge//Hard ground//Soft ground//Bench//Left and down//East//Thin trail//Pile of rocks//Right//Loot near"
Those instructions are pretty literal. You go through a tunnel, over a bridge to asphalt then back to a dirt/mulch trail, you see a bench, at the bench go left and down a small hill, go east, follow a thin trail to a pile of rocks, turn right, and the loot is nearby.
The loot was lightly covered up with some sticks and some brush! And there is the solve!