Doubled for Wednesday, March 6, 2024
One picture, one hidden three-word chain. The first two words make a familiar phrase, the last two make another, and the middle word belongs to both. New to the game? Read how to play first.
Hints
Open them one at a time. Each one gives away a little more than the last.
Hint 1
The answer is 3 words long, with 6, 5 and 3 letters.
Hint 2
The shared word - the one that belongs to both phrases - has 5 letters and starts with T.
Hint 3
The first phrase is 2 words, the second is 2, and they overlap on one of them.
Hint 4
A pioneer wagon route (and a classroom computer game), then a snack of nuts and dried fruit.
The answer
Stuck, or want to check? Opening this reveals the whole answer.
Reveal the answer
Oregon Mix
Oregon trail and Trail mix, joined on Trail.
Oregon trail
The Oregon Trail was the wagon route settlers followed west across the United States in the nineteenth century, and the name of the classroom computer game in which your party kept dying of dysentery.
Trail mix
Trail mix is the hiker's snack of nuts, dried fruit, seeds and often chocolate pieces, eaten by the handful.
How players did
Across 1,940 plays, 40% got the whole answer in one guess, 3% solved it without a miss, 13% got there after at least one wrong guess, 26% used a hint or finished on their last chance, and 18% did not get it.
This puzzle ran on March 6, 2024, October 10, 2024, March 6, 2025, October 10, 2025 and March 6, 2026.