Waterbury Adventure Challenge teases visitors, locals with ‘ciphers, codes, riddles, puzzles’

June 11, 2021  |  By Kris Nine and Tulley Hescock

Chris Triolo and Katya d’Angelo appear in a video demonstration for the Waterbury Adventure Challenge. Screenshot.

After a year of staying inside, visitors and local residents in Waterbury are ready for an adventure. The tourism arm of Revitalizing Waterbury has created an interactive scavenger hunt of sorts for this summer called the Waterbury Adventure Challenge. 

Started on May 28 and running through Oct. 11 (Memorial Day through Indigenous People’s Day), people can play this interactive game set in a semi-historical past. Players will uncover a fictional mystery involving 19th-century real-life Waterbury historical figure Dr. Henry Janes, Civil War surgeon who oversaw Union Army field hospital operations at Gettysburg and returned to Waterbury to continue his career in medicine and public service. 

The Adventure Challenge coyly suggests that Janes was inspired by President Abraham Lincoln “to begin the clandestine work of building the bridge that would become necessary to keep the future alive.” 

It continues like a teaser for a Dan Brown novel: “It is a story known only to a few that remained untold until now, over 160 years later, waiting for you to uncover its secrets and reveal the mystical link between the past and the present that has remained hidden in plain sight for centuries.”

Tickets are priced at $75 per person and the challenge is a fundraiser for Revitalizing Waterbury, the community’s nonprofit economic development organization.   

“After a long and quiet year, we are ready to welcome visitors to Vermont and particularly to Waterbury,” said Revitalizing Waterbury Executive Director Karen Nevin. “The Waterbury Adventure Challenge will let visitors really get to know our town and the area, while challenging themselves with fun ciphers and riddles as they try to solve the clues.”  

Described as a cross between geocaching and an escape room, participants gather clues and traverse the Waterbury area completing various thought-provoking challenges that have connections to local places, lore, or history. While she could not reveal too many details, Katya d'Angelo, who worked on the challenge, said players will have to untangle “ciphers, codes, riddles, and puzzles.”

She emphasized that the challenge is not just a scavenger hunt where you find landmarks and tick boxes off a list. “It’s more engaging than that. Problem solving skills are a must,” she said.

A video introducing the game features d’Angelo and her husband Chris Triolo, the pair behind Bridgeside Books and The Udder Guys summer ice cream trike. d’Angelo also is on the Revitalizing Waterbury board of directors. It demonstrates using clues similar to the real challenge as it follows d’Angelo and Triolo from downtown to Perry Hill to the Long Trail footbridge over the Winooski River in Bolton. 

In an attempt to find COVID-safe activities that could entertain locals and tourists alike, the creators of this challenge drew inspiration from a similar effort in Dover, Vermont. d’Angelo said she and Triolo did the Dover challenge a few years ago and thought Waterbury would be a great place for something similar. 

Rene Yoshi and Stan Morse take an ice cream break midway through the Waterbury Adventure Challenge. Courtesy photo.

The company Vermontime in West Dover dreamed up the Green Mountain Adventure Challenge to help bring visitors in the summer to Dover and surrounding towns that primarily see tourists in the winter. 

That version runs over the summer months, ending in early September and has a $75 ticket price as well. It puts $5 per registration into the cash prize pot and divides it among the finishers. Another $5 per ticket goes to a collection to be donated to charity. In 2019, the event raised $3,950 each, according to its website. 

Waterbury organizers recently hired Vermontime to create the challenge here as both a fundraiser and a way to boost local commerce as the COVID-19 pandemic eases this summer. “In a year when COVID hit a lot of small businesses, both in our community and beyond really hard, we knew that we needed another way to get some money [into the community]” said Ariel Mondlak, marketing associate at Revitalizing Waterbury.

And while some of the impetus for the challenge is to draw tourists to the area, it was designed with locals in mind as well. “It's fun, it's safe, and it's a good way to get people exploring new parts of the town that they may have never explored before. I think there's some clues that people are going to be really surprised by. They're going to learn a lot just going around and seeing new places,” Mondlak continued.

Waterbury residents Rene Yoshi and her husband Stan Morse are currently halfway through the challenge. Despite living in Waterbury for a few years,  Yoshi said she has still learned about new aspects of the town through the challenge. “We've discovered a little bit more about Henry Janes, and just some of the history surrounding culture and diversity,” Yoshi said. 

The game is designed to take two whole days, so it’s ideal for visitors who come for a weekend stay or those who live nearby and can complete the stages at their leisure, D'Angelo explained. “That's one reason why the game’s ‘season’ runs from Memorial Day to Indigenous People's day, because you can buy one ticket for the season and if you want to just kind of do it casually.” 

Several area lodging establishments are featured with discounted stays connected with the challenge. The game’s website lists the Best Western Plus, Old Stagecoach Inn, and Stowe Cabins in the Woods – all in Waterbury – and Grunberg Haus Inn and Cabins in Duxbury as participating. 

Time might be a slight advantage for locals as the announcement for the challenge carries this stark caution: “It’s not easy and no one is guaranteed to finish.” The game is designed so that it gets progressively more difficult with each of its eight clues, organizers explained. 

Yoshi said that the challenge allows them to complete each clue in their free time. She described the clues as she said, “some of them are pretty straightforward, and then some are a little vague and it does take some brain work.” 

Tickets aren’t required for kids 14 and under. Participants who complete the challenge will be entered into monthly prize drawings worth $250 and a grand prize worth $500. 

An agreement participants must review explains the nature of the activity – how participants are on their own, need a vehicle to get around, and may do some moderate hiking. Some clues may involve visiting a business with specific hours and participants are encouraged to have at least one smartphone along to use. 

More information is online at discoverwaterbury.com.

Community News Service is a collaboration with the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.