It depends. If it's an urban cache in a public place, not more than couple of minutes. If it's in a state park, maybe an hour. If there other caches nearby that I can move on to, I'll probably stop looking sooner. If I came a long way to find this one cache, I'll stay until the sun goes down on me (I keep forgetting to allow time to hike back!) or, as was the case this past Saturday, I'm about to keel over from heat exhaustion and I'm out of water.
I'm not at all embarassed to log DNF's (as you can see if you check my record!) as I feel the "saga" of the hunt is just as important as the find. I appreciate a find more if it took me six tries to get it!! That being said I am also not afraid to ask for a hint from the owner if I'm really stumped - it's their choice whether to give it to me or not.
