Escape Room Family Reunion

Each summer the Keisels have a reunion with the immediate family. Each year a different family member is in charge and this year it was John's turn to plan the trip. This year we camped at Spruces campground up Big Cottonwood Canyon south of Salt Lake City. Typically, there has been some sort of theme associated with camp and this year I wanted to put together an escape room. I've had lots of people ask or follow along with me putting it together so I thought I would write it somewhere to be able to share what we did. Unfortunately, I was not great at taking pictures of each step like I wanted to be, so I mostly just have descriptions.

John and I drove out from Colorado and only had an hour to set up from check-in to our family's arrival, so we knew our planning would have to work in a short time frame.

When they arrived at camp there were 6 containers that were locked on the table as well as a puzzle and envelope with coloring sheets. When we started, we had each person take a gallon sized ziplock and grab a pencil and small notebook they could use if they needed to take notes. There were three tracks that merged together in the middle.

TRACK 1

We had an envelope that had 3 of these Querkle Masterpieces with some colored pencils. On each of these coloring sheets was numbered 1, 2 and 3. When they colored in the coloring page, it matched a painting that we had hanging up. (We had the Mona Lisa on the site sign, the Van Gogh self portrait by the men's bathroom and the Girl With the Pearl Earring by the women's bathroom) On the back of each of these paintings was a number that when put in order on the coloring sheets opened the first lock. This was the only part of the escape room I would have changed. The family hacked the paintings and opened the lock without even coloring the pages. In the future if I use the same idea, I'd hang up 10 different paintings so they had to do the coloring pages to know which ones to do.

So the coloring page for the Mona Lisa had a 1 on it and on the back of the Mona Lisa picture was the first number to unlock this lock and the same for the 2nd and 3rd number.

When they unlocked this lock, inside they found an envelope that had TEXT:HELP written on it. Inside the envelope were 10 sudokus. There was also a card that had the Morse Code alphabet on it. 

Each of the 10 sudokus had an Easy, Medium or Hard written on top just so kids could work on the easy ones and adults on the harder ones. There was also a number written on top and a square circled in the puzzle. I used Printable Sudoku Puzzles (dadsworksheets.com) to find the Sudokus. They have different difficulties as well as the answer key so I wouldn't have to do all the puzzles to find the number I needed to circle. They finished the 10 puzzles. When they put the puzzles in order 1-10 and used the circled numbers it revealed a 10 digit phone number. At that point they texted the word HELP to that number (which was my brother's number). He then responded with an audio file.

We had created a file with a word in Morse Code using a Morse Code generator CW Generator | Morse Code World.  The word was 'toads' and unlocked another lock.

In this box there was a card with the Pigpen Cipher on it as well as some candy for them to put in their bags as a reward.

TRACK 2

This 750 piece puzzle was on the table to do. 

TRACK 3

This lock was on another container. We used this colored electrical tape and made rings around the legs of the picnic tables at camp.

Our camp had a ring of tables around the fire pit and on the legs we put 4 yellow rings, 7 green rings, 3 red rings and 2 blue rings. Once someone figured out it was there and counted them up they were able to unlock the lock. In that box was a puzzle box.

On Amazon it is the BSIRI money holder puzzle box. I let them try to open it for a while. No one was able to do it and so I coached them along to open it. In it was a key to a bicycle lock which held our camp t-shirts. 

Each year the family has designed shirts for that year's reunion. I thought it would be cool to try to have the shirts be incorporated into the plot.

This might have been my favorite part of the plot, because the arrows on the shirts corresponded with this directional lock.

Inside the box with this lock was some more treats, a black light flashlight as well as blacklight pens with lights on the lids for each of them to put in their bags.

COMING TOGETHER

So the three tracks found them a completed puzzle, a black light flashlight and the Pigpen Cipher.

When they used the light over the puzzle, this is what was revealed. It spells out Looking Glass as well as having the car in the puzzle circled. Tucked in the mirror of our driver's side vanity mirror was a blank paper. When the black light was used again it gave them a set of directions. I can't remember the exact numbers but it said something like...

X marks the spot (we had an X taped to one of the picnic table benches to start)

45 steps at 290 degrees

25 steps at 80 degrees

11 steps at 0 degrees

We didn't hide a compass, we just let them use a phone compass. (This could have been another step) They found a box hidden under a tree limb on the ground and on the box was written 0 + (Addyson+Lucy+Erik). The lock on the box was a 3 digit lock and my nieces and nephew's ages added up to 34. The lock code was 034.

Inside this box was more treats and a key that unlocked the final box's padlock.

Inside the final box was a sign that said "Congratulations you have escaped!" There were more treats, party blowers and an envelope with letters that spelled out WE ESCAPED! for our family picture.

We had talked about locking everyone's keys in or something, but there were hikes to drive to etc. so we just had a party instead.

So as a recap, when they got to camp there was a puzzle, coloring pages as well as 6 different locked boxes sitting on the table (as well as one that was hidden under a tree). 

The 6 boxes had a locker lock, a letter lock, a directional lock, a color lock, a bike lock, a padlock on them.  

There was an x on a bench, tape rings on the legs of the picnic tables and 3 art portraits hanging up.

Because we were doing the reunion over multiple days, I purposely chose some time-consuming activities.

I had so much fun putting it together and we had a great time at camp. Though the mama and baby moose walking through our camp was probably the highlight of it all!