Who is "Mountain Mike?"
Mountain Mike is the puzzler responsible for this site. If you are going to be able to seriously challenge Mike, it would, we think, be profitable for you to get to know something about him:
Mike has traveled extensively throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. He has lived in Detroit, Chicago, Southern Missouri, New York City, Philadelphia, Northern Pennsylvania and Grand Rapids, MI. Mike holds a master of arts degree from New York University, where he studied ancient languages.
He has also done further post graduate work at NYU, and at the Dropsie School of Hebrew and Cognate Learning (Philadelphia). Mike has also taken classes at Yeshiva University in New York.
During his course of studies, Mike has sat at the feet of such notables as Dr. Cyrus Gordon of Brandeis University. Dr. Gordon, in addition to his extensive work with ancient texts and seals, was the first scholar to successfully make a case for the deciphering of Minoan Linear 'A,' a feat many consider comparable to cracking the Japanese codes during World War II.
It was Dr. Gordon who introduced Mike to the world of deciphering coded messages, cryptology and puzzle solving. (Mike still boasts that he can crack any English language cryptogram (consisting of at least 30 alphabetic characters in contemporary idiom) in less that ten minutes.)
Mike also studied under Dr. Moshe Goshen-Gottstein of the Hebrew University. Dr. Goshen- Gottstein is reputed to be one of the world's top scholars of the Aramaic language.
One of Mike's favorite teachers was Dr. Robert Cooley, noted archaeologist and Greek scholar, and now Chancellor of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Mass.
While at Dropsie, Mike studied ancient Semitic languages under Dr. David Owen. Mike was especially attracted to neo-Sumerian texts and seals. In addition to numerous Semitic languages (Akkadian, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and others), Mike is quite capable of researching works in German, Italian, French, and Spanish. Mike is also at home with various systems of transcription, such as many logographic, syllabic and alphabetic systems of writing.
Mike is competent with Babylonian cuneiform, ancient Egyptian culture, and somewhat familiar with hieroglyphics. One of Mike's confessed current loves is American history.
Mike is also well versed in electronics, American and Russian literature, criminology, sociology, geology, cosmology, religion and religious literature, and several other disciplines. Mike describes himself as "peripatetic to a fault."
Players should also be aware that for the past fifteen years Mike has run his own security business. He has designed numerous covert surveillance systems, and installed thousands of sophisticated security systems, including systems for fortune five hundred companies, and the U.S. Department of Military Affairs.
Mike is an accomplished puzzle maker. He started creating treasure hunts with prizes in 1992, when he originated the "Mountain Mike Sure Luck Treasure Hunt." In this first effort, Mike's treasure remained hidden for fourteen weeks. Mike had hidden the treasure (a special ten dollar bill) in a knot-hole in a telephone pole just outside a park in Grand Rapids, MI (John Ball Park Zoo). A young mother, Christine Stoutjesdyk, solved the first treasure hunt.
In another one of Mike's treasure hunts, it took a one competent sleuth, a Mr. Bill Moore, twenty-six weeks to solve the riddles and win the prize.
That time the $10 bill was hidden beneath the sign at a public library (the Kentwood Library, in Kentwood, MI).
In both cases, the winners received $1000! Mike says that during this second treasure hunt he distributed over 60,000 sets of "Treasure Hunt Rules," even though the rules and the clues were published weekly in local newspapers.
In both cases, treasure hunters came in from all over the country just to challenge Mike's mind. Those treasure hunters included police detectives, insurance investigators, and thousands of other bright aspiring sleuths.
One lady, he says, came into town weekly from outside the state (from Milwaukee, WI) just to look for the treasure. Mike makes some promises concerning his treasure hunts.
As this site develops, and as you study his puzzles, you will begin to see into the soul of Mountain Mike. That gradually-acquired familiarity will be instrumental in beating him.
Mike makes the following promises relating to all his present and future contests:
1 -- In every case there will be a winner. Someone will eventually find all his treasures, and solve all his puzzles.
2 -- He promises never to construct a clue based on anything he has written. While Mike has published numerous articles, he considers his own published works far too obscure for use in the construction of clues. There is no need to research him.
3 -- Mike assures us that all his clues, now and in the future, can be solved and applied through normal (but heightened) analytical processes, and readily-available resource materials.
Good Hunting!
