Team Dennis

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this subject. Note to others: View this thread as a guide to having a civil discussion of opposing viewpoints.

What if your buddy made it to GZ and found the cache before you even had a chance? Like you stopped to admire a tree or something and your buddy found, signed and replaced the hide before you even got there?

If I may play Devil's Advocate for a moment...what if (for whatever reason or for no reason at all) you never got within 10' of your cache? Let's say your friend found it, but you just stayed where you were for whatever reason but you could easily have walked over to it (as opposed to it being up a tree or across a river or something) to touch the cache or sign the log. What's the difference with you doing that and me seeing my buddy signing the log on a cache as I whizzed by him on my bike en route to the next cache? We (you and I) were both 10' away from our respective caches, but we never touched them or signed our name on the log. When I leap frog with my buddy, I never leave GZ until he has eyes on the cache and vice versa.

If caches 1-1000 are in one area (let's say in Florida) and caches 1001-2000 are in another area (let's say Texas) and John and Jane are never in each other's area, then it's much different than the two of them riding down a bike trail together. Also, if John can't find cache 1 on the bike trail, Jane stops to help look until they either find it or DNF it..which would not happen if the two of them were nowhere near each other. It's a HUGE difference between leap frogging and divide and conquer. How about looking at it this way: If you are out caching with a friend while hiking thru the woods, and as you search GZ your friend finds the cache first, do you sign the log yourself or just have your friend sign the log for you since they already have the log in hand? If you have personally signed the log for every find that you've logged, then good for you for having purist levels of morality that would make Knowschad proud. (Seriously...I'm not being facetious about that. It's rather impressive no matter what.)

For what it's worth, I grew sick of chasing numbers years ago because it just wasn't fun anymore. I probably won't even find 150 caches this year, but the ones I found are the types that I like...mostly ones at the end of a long hike or a mountain climb or virtuals. I think I found at least 6 hides over 14,000' above sea level this summer alone...THOSE are the kind of numbers in which I am interested these days.

Not sure if this question was directed at me, but I do have some answers. Yes, we were spacing out. Big time. Especially towards the end of our 24 hour run...which was actually 29 hours since we started at 7PM the previous day. It became very difficult to focus as the driver, and finding caches got to be difficult as we were just so exhausted. Our driver fell asleep with his foot on the brake in the 15 seconds we were stopped for a cache. The E.T. Highway is nearly all plastic film cans with a few notable exceptions like the 0001 and 2000 and a few more. We brought several hundred replacements that we bought on eBay for next to nothing...I think like maybe $10 including shipping. Logs are just strips of paper just wide enough to curl up inside the film cans. The original E.T. Highway were all hidden on metal sign posts right near the edge of the road, but that series got archived because a Nevada DOT vehicle came around a corner and almost hit a cacher's vehicle that was pulled over in a blind spot. That stretch of the E.T. Highway (something like 2-3 miles???) still has no caches hidden on it because of this near miss.

Divide and conquer (at least my definition) is multiple people (or multiple groups of people) going in all different directions and find specific caches that the others are never anywhere close to finding or seeing. Not Team Dennis approved. Leap Frogging is as I described above: 2 or more people on a bike trail finding and moving one. It's actually a lot of fun with 2 people. Team Dennis approved.

I knew my post would bring on more questions, so here goes... We looked for what we considered a reasonable amount of time. If we found a pile of rocks with no cache under it, we dropped a new one. If we didn't find a pile of rocks, we gave the area at least 60 seconds of 2 people searching before making a new pile of rocks at our GZ and then dropping a container. We had one stretch of at least 50 caches that had recently gotten taken out by a road grader...literally nothing left but freshly leveled sand...no rock piles, no sage brush, no tracks, no nothing. We replaced every single one of them.

On 5/9/2014, I did a portion of the E.T. Highway with 3 other cachers. We went from midnight to midnight (24 hours) only taking breaks every 90 minutes to swap drivers, relieve ourselves and stretch. We also took a 2 hour break from caching to refuel our vehicle and check into our hotel. We did the "Three Cache Monte" where we swapped film cans and stamped our logs in the vehicle to save time which (as noted in previous posts) is generally accepted on the E.T. Highway. We also "replaced" any cache we determined to be missing. We did NOT employ the "Divide and Conquer" method as we only had one vehicle and we weren't willing to play that way. At one point, I found 105 caches in a 60 minute span and also found 151 in a 90 minute span...but that was during the day when we had good visibility. In the end, we logged 1522 finds that day. I look back on it today with fond memories with good friends, but at the time it was monotonous and exhausting so definitely classical Type Two Fun. It should also be noted that I have ZERO desire to do it again. NONE. I was so sore from hundreds of 20 yard sprints that I could barely get out of bed the next morning. So, to answer the OP's question, if one was part of a dedicated group using the the generally accepted methods, took next to no time off, carried enough fuel and food to make it through the day without stopping, didn't get tired towards the end of the day, AND made finds at our highest rate per hour for 24 hours straight, then the math suggests that the extreme upper bound would be around 2400 finds. Realistically speaking, I feel that 1700-1800 finds would have been the most we could have found that particular day if we didn't have to stop for 2 hours and 2000 finds would have been our upper limit had things gone absolutely perfectly. I've also found 100+ caches in a day more times than I can remember...mostly while riding bikes but sometimes in a car. I seem to remember one day that I rode 50+ miles and found 300 or 350 in a day up in northern Minnesota. That was with one other buddy and we were "leap frogging" the entire way...so I found a cache, he went to the next one, and if he didn't find it I would stop and look...otherwise he'd say he had it and I'd move along to the next one.

Nope! I looked at a few old pics in the gallery and found one with some metadata. Bingo, bango, boingo I had the coords. I've solved a few difficult puzzle caches with this method as well.

Got another one last week! https://coord.info/GC11ZTW Short story is this puzzle cache is now impossible to solve because the web pages needed no longer exist, but I didn't let that stop me. Not only did I score the find, but it was 4+ years lonely as well. I also CITO'd the container...a sweet ammo can. Thus far, the CO has not requested it back.

That TB in my photo is the TB that was on the mountain for 15 years before we found it. After having a nice phone conversation with the CO, he suggested I keep the TB in my possession and take it on as many mountain climbing trips as I could.

He's doing a lot of metal detecting and probably hunting edible mushrooms as well.

I have sort of an odd fascination with old, archived caches and have searched for a half dozen (or so) of them over the years. On 7/24/2020, I scored what will probably go down as my most epic FTF ever on this cache hidden 15 years and 3 days before we found its remains along with the travel bug that was inside. So, to answer the OP's question...we find them by going out and finding them. :)

I did a good chunk of the ET Hwy back in 2014. I think we got 2200+ finds over the course of 3 days including 1522 in a stretch from midnight to midnight on 5/9/14. It was utterly insane and I have no desire to ever do anything like that again even though I can look back at it as a fond memory. It helped to be with a good group of friends. I could not imagine doing anything like that alone. After an hour or two I'd want to just quit and go home. About a month ago I did a short trail down in Florida. It consisted of an ammo can every quarter mile that was 40-200' into the woods from the side of a dirt road. I think there were about 20 caches in that string and I felt somewhat relieved when I had it completed. Kind of an odd feeling to have considering I was doing it for fun. I do like power trails along hiking trails thru the woods. There is an area about 90 minutes from my house where my dog can run free and there are about 200 caches scattered on miles and miles of hiking trails. I've done about 2/3 of it and I'm planning to go back on Memorial Day weekend to see if I can clear out whatever remains. Pros: Good for numbers, good exercise (if you are hiking or biking), good comradery, it can bring revenue to local economies. Cons: You might hate yourself in the morning.

Dinosaur here*. I have been caching nearly 6 years and I have over 13,000 finds. I host and attend events as often as possible. I hide caches in the parks around my house. I cache with friends whenever possible but I do enjoy a nice quiet hike in the woods with my dog. I have literally told hundreds (if not thousands) of people about Geocaching as a volunteer field guide for the MN Outdoor Youth Expo. Not everyone that visited my booth became an active Geocacher but there are quite a few that can trace their roots back to talking to me during those events. I am active on the MN, WI and CO Facebook pages. I have made a lot of friends and a few very good friends through caching. It's become a passion...even an addiction. I have spent thousands of dollars over the years to go Geocaching. I've taken trips across the country just to cache. Gas, plane tickets, hotels, car rentals, food, campsites, gear, medical bills, etc... It adds up quickly but I wouldn't trade the experiences I've had for anything. Well...almost anything. I also used to be somewhat active here on these forums but I left in disgust a little over 2 years ago. I, too, have only recently returned. We old timers bring something to caching that just cannot be quantified on a spreadsheet or algorithm or quarterly report. By and large we are the ones that hide the caches, we are the ones that host events and we are the ones that will still be here next week, next month and next year. We are the ones that made this hobby what it is today. We are also human so we are not perfect. We sometimes do and say things that might be questionable. Or sometimes our words get in our way of what we are attempting to convey. I'm not trying to cover for those that have gotten a warning, a timeout or worse. I'm also not here to knock Groundspeak, its employees or its volunteer network. Knowschad is right and it doesn't even pain me to say it. The forum regulars ARE your volunteers just as much as mods and the reviewers. We might not be recognized as such but it's true nonetheless. We are all in this together. *Yes, at the tender age of 38 I consider myself a dinosaur mostly because I rarely use my phone to cache. I like my dedicated GPSr.

Hey gang! I'm taking a break from my self imposed vacation to shamelessly promote the event I'm holding at Loveland Ski Area on Valentine's Day. Come on out, say hello and get (re)married! What are you doing for the rest of your life?

Echoing the words of those before me may I strongly suggest you do not put the ring in the cache even if it is unpublished. Perhaps maybe a fake ring instead and keep the real one in your pocket? She finds the cache and opens it to see a note from you then turns around and you are down on one knee? Besides...you'd never leave a fat stack of hundred dollar bills laying around for anyone to come along and grab...would you? If so then where? PM me the details. I don't want to have to race against all these other cachers. Thanks and good luck!

I had a GREAT time in Colorado back in late September. I spent well over a week there camping, climbing and caching with my dog. The weather was perfect and we found so many great spots that it really spoiled me. I'll be back in Colorado in just over 4 weeks for a ski trip. CAN'T WAIT!!!

I'm just mad (at myself) for not having MORE smiley faces on the map. Better get to work on that ASAP!

Here's a shot of me from last winter while caching at Loveland Ski Area in Colorado.

I've been the proud owner of a pair of snowshoes for 2 years now. LOVE them. Best way to get out on public hunting land in the winter IMHO. Way better than XC skis as there is usually not a well groomed trail out there. Oh, and Willow River SP in Hudson, WI, just opened up a ton of XC trails on the north side of their park. I was just out there caching a few days ago and it was beautiful.

I know it is a bit of a drive from the NW metro but there is a Geocaching 101 event in Hudson, WI, on Saturday January 19th.

Lake Elmo Park Reserve (just south of the city of Lake Elmo) has a vast network of XC ski trails. I think Big Marine Regional Park (southeast of Forest Lake) has XC ski trails as well. Both parks are part of the Washington County park system. The first (non holiday) Tuesday is free entrance day, so you have a week to prepare!