The Post Hunt was an annual

puzzlehunt A puzzle hunt (sometimes рuzzlehunt) is an event where teams compete to solve a series of puzzles, many of which are tied together via metapuzzles. Puzzlehunt puzzles are usually not accompanied by direct instructions for how to solve them; ...

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

. It was co-created by

Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by McClatchy, The McClatchy Company and headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Founded in 1903, it is the fifth-largest newspaper in Florida, serving Miami-Dade, Broward County, Fl ...

columnist

Dave Barry David McAlister Barry (born July 3, 1947) is an American author and columnist who wrote a nationally Print syndication, syndicated humor column for the ''Miami Herald'' from 1983 to 2005. He has written numerous books of humor and parody, as we ...

, along with

Gene Weingarten Gene Norman Weingarten is an American journalist, and former syndicated humor columnist for ''The Washington Post.'' He is the only two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. Weingarten is known for both his serious and humor ...

and

Tom Shroder Tom Shroder (born 1954 in New York City) is an American journalist, writer and editor who worked for the ''Washington Post'' for many years. Biography Shroder is the author of ''The Most Famous Writer Who Ever Lived: A True Story of My Family'' ...

. The Post Hunt debuted in 2008. The most recent hunt took place on May 22, 2016. The hunt was discontinued in 2017. It was a renamed version of the Tropic Hunt, also created by Barry, Weingarten and Shroder, which had a long run in

Miami, FL Miami is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a population of 6.14 million, is the second-largest metropolitan ...

. The

Washington Post Magazine ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

held a Hunt in downtown Washington DC, attended by about 5,000 people, including dozens who came up from South Florida. In 2015, for the first time in 10 years, Gene Weingarten, now a columnist for the Post Magazine, joined Shroder, now editor of the Post Magazine, and Barry in designing the Hunt.

Format

The Hunt consists of three parts. Answering the "opening questions" directs Hunters to five puzzle sites scattered through the Hunt area. Solving the five Hunt puzzles—the answer is always a number—indicates the five authentic clues on a list of dozens of numbered bogus clues. Hunters have three hours to solve the puzzles, then at 3 p.m., a sixth and final clue is announced from the main stage. This begins the "endgame", which is by far the most difficult puzzle of the day. Solving the endgame often leads to a

phone number A telephone number is the address of a telecommunication endpoint, such as a telephone, in a telephone network, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN). A telephone number typically consists of a sequence of digits, but histor ...

, or directs Hunters to go to a certain out-of-the-way location and give a

password A password, sometimes called a passcode, is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of password-protected services t ...

to someone identified in a cryptic way.

Previous Winners

The winners of the 2016 Washington Post hunt were Benjamin McRae, Erin McRae, Mark Swiatek, and Michael Engard The winners of the 2015 Washington Post hunt were Todd Etter, Chris Guthrie, Matthew Hartman, and Charlie Scarborough The winners of the 2014 Washington Post Hunt were Todd Etter, David Forrest, Chris Guthrie, and Charlie Scarborough The winner of the 2013 Washington Post Hunt was solo participant Sean Memon The winners of the 2012 Washington Post Hunt were: Phil Spector, 35, of Washington; Sabita Soneji, 35, of Washington; John Mackedon, 34, of Washington; Mark Cackler, 57, of Falls Church; Timothy Bouley, 31, of Washington; Madalina Cristoloveanu, 31, of Washington; Ebony Sunala Johnson of Maryland; Kris White, 29, of Washington; Sean Sharifi, 30, of Vienna; Nicole Mechem, 32, of Washington; Damon Taaffe, 35, of Arlington; Alva Kretschmer, 27, of Washington; Patricia Van de Velde, 27, of Washington The winners of the 2011 Washington Post Hunt were Sean and Diana Viera, Alex Elliott, Kevin Chang, James Auwaerter, Amy Posten and Galen Mullins The winners of the 2010 Washington Post Hunt were John Sanders, Eana Chung, Eric Pilar, Chris Wong, Suzanne Schwartz, Joe Grossman and Katie Elder The winners of the 2009 Washington Post Hunt were David Shahoulian, Emma Filstrup, Serena Hoy, Jim Reilly, Jenny Hunter, and Tom Jawetz The winners of the 2008 Washington Post Hunt were Todd Etter, David Forrest, Chris Guthrie, and Jack Reda

References

{{reflist

External links

Official site

The Tropic/Herald Hunt Archives
Puzzle hunts