Turning A 1.5/1.5 Into A 4.5/4.5

[TheBrewhaha]

We just returned from a cache hunt where I lead my troops (wife and 4 kids) down a perilious descent into a canyon. After traveling about 500 ft we found we were within 60 ft of the cache. The only problem, the cache was up the canyon wall on the canyon rim. I carefully scaled up the 60 ft wall and found the cache. I climbed back down and we led the troops back the way we came. Then we hopped into the van and drove on the paved road to within 100 ft of the cache. We then quickly walked to the cache. So I figured we turned this 1.5/1.5 cache into a 4.5/4.5 cache. I guess the moral of the story is "Don't go down into the canyon if you don't have to." On the other hand, the kids said it was the funnest cache we did today. It was a hit with them.

 

Anyone else have stories about turning easy caches into tough caches?

[+fishingdude720]

Well yeah. I found out to not trust the GPS. We parked in a parking lot on the inlet because it seemd closest. I thought is wan in the jetty rocks and there was not a walkway and they were not in any straight order. So I hopped from rock to rock nearly falling in the inlet and tripping over this fat guy tanning. I king of turned the cache from a 1 difficulty and 2 terrain into a 1 difficult and 5 terrain. Well that is what happends when you follow the GPS. I never found the cache that day. Came back the next day and parked in the other parking lot. Walked up the boardwalk, climbed down and retreived the cache. Now it is like a 1 and 1. Thats what happends while Geocaching!

[+Les Nomades]

A nice exemple of the importance of the rating. Beeing rated 1.5/1.5, there had to be an easier way. The importing thing is you had a good time.

[BRTango]

There is a cache just over 1/2 kilometer from where I live. There are three different ways to approach it each one with increasing difficulty. I decided to take the mid-range trek to the cache since I'd have to drive to get to the shortest route. Not too much trouble getting to the cache, but as I approached it my GPS went all screwy on me (thick trees in the area) and started pointing me down into a bit of a valley.

 

As I climbed down to look under a rock overhang my caching partners, followed me down. I realized fairly quickly that I wasn't going in the right direction and decided to turn around. As I did, Bailey the short legged one, couldn't get back up to the path. Have you ever seen a Basset Hound panic... it can really break your heart. So I had to go down and help her back up, but of course I slipped and twisted my knee. So we were both kinda stuck there with the wolfhound staring down at us (I could see him laughing).

 

Well we eventually made it back up and what'dya know the cache is sitting right there on the other side of the trail. So we logged it and decided to head home. Since my knee was killing me and the Basset was pretty tired we decided to just shoot a straight line azimuth back to the house (I swear there was a path almost all the way back)... should be easy enough... like I said it's just over 1/2 kilometer from the house... no problem.

 

About an hour and half of bushwacking later we finally broke out of the treeline onto a familiar powerline trail. It was easy sailing from there. So for a straight line round trip of just over 1 kilometer, it took us about 3 hours to get there and back. The underbrush was pretty tough on the poor Basset.

 

About a week later I decided to try it from the short route. It was about 30 minutes in and out.

 

[+DocDiTTo]

Well, I was scouting out a potential hide once on some local gamelands. Followed trails until I found a nice spot, then decided to head back to the car by a different trail... which looked like it went they way I needed to go. And it did, for about half the distance, then it turned and went the wrong direction. Ok, no big deal, I figured I'd just bushwhack through the 200 yards of woods rather than walk the 3/4 mile following the trail the whole way back. About 30 minutes later I emerged from the woods, which was nothing more than a solid briar patch for the whole 200 yards. I was wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt, and looked like I'd just fought a herd of cats for a pile of fish. Had I known it would take 30 minutes to beat back the briars and fight my way for 200 yards, I'd have opted for the 3/4 mile trek. Never did actually hide a cache there, either.

[+jimmyreno]

California has a lot of caches that were placed when the nearby poison oak was small, several years and 5 feet of growth latter they're a 4.5 for me

[+Wandering Bears]

Snake Hunt

 

Although, this was turning a 3 into a 4+...

 

[+denali7]

i'm clumsy, stubborn, and not very bright at times. i can turn any cache into a 5-star, and i do it every day!

[TaniOtoshi]

I had to laugh while reading this thread. We're fairly new...only a couple finds under our belts, and I came into the forums to get some hints on how to make it easier on ourselves. We always seem to pick the hard way in! Now I see, it's part of the game and we all learn (or not learn:-)) at our own pace.

 

I'm catching on to this stuff.

 

By the way, as a newbie, I'm finding these forums VERY useful and everyone helpful. Thanks so much.

[+StarBrand]

A bit off topic but please remember that the difficulty portion of the rating has nothing to do with the difficulty of the terrian but rather the difficulty of the hide. A 4.5 hide should take many hours or multiple visits to find.

 

While the OP may well have turned the terrian into a 4.5 - the hide difficulty, I suspect, remained at 1.5

 

Back on topic, I have done this on at least 2 occasions. Once when I was a newbie and again last year when I simply failed to recognize the easy way there.

[+sept1c_tank]

Take any traditional cache that is a mile or so into the woods and do it at night, in the rain.

[+Les Nomades]

That's when I think Google Earth comes in handy. I often look over head to see if there is an easyer way to get to the cache. Stops me from sometimes getting in the woods to soon and often saw a trail that we couldn't see on ground level.

[+2Rad4U]

Every cache we look for turns into a 5! My sons loves to bushwack. If the GPS says left, we go left!

[+Airmapper]

I turn easy hikes into rugged treks all the time. I once went to a cache through the woods, down a steep hill, and thought bushes, only to come out on a well marked and maintained hiking trail. (Oh well, I'm young.)

 

I think me, and many of us, take GOTO, wayyyy to serious.

[+wandererrob]

more than once I've emerged from thorns, brush or some other such thing with various scrapes and such only to find myself on a trail that leads almost TO the cache.

 

Those are often my favorites, the ones where the direct line is NOT the best way there.

[+whistler & co.]

Kids under 5 turn EVERY cache into a 5/5. Parents who cache with little kids should get smileys with halos over their heads!

[+dkwolf]

ALL the time! I sorta 'paperless' cache in that I don't take printouts with me, and I may have a cache loaded into my GPS for a month or more before I actually go look at it--by then, what I can remember of the description has blended with all the other descriptions, so I not only have no idea where I'm really looking, but I don't know what I'm looking for either. And despite having maps on my GPS, and the most detailed paper road maps available for my area....I use neither. When I walk out the front door, I hit 'goto' and follow the arrow. I've flown down 8 miles of gravel roads to discover that I could have stayed on the paved highway for another 6 miles, and my most memorable 'ascending difficulty' cache was (same trip...) one where the cache description mentioned an artesian well in the same park. So, I parked the truck near the well (since that's all I could really remember about the cache) and got out. .25 to the cache, no visible trails nearby, so bushwhack away (bushwhack is general term here, since it was timberland that I could easily walk through) Down through a valley, back up the other side. Come to a very high embankment. Railroad bed. Had to be 40 ft high. STEEP slopes. Cache straight ahead. D'oh! So, I scramble up the hill, hoping no train is coming. Get to the top, find no tracks, but rather a well-maintained trail (rails-to-trails program). In fact, looking down the trail, I can SEE the lot I was supposed to park in about 600 feet away. Cache was 15 feet off the trail on the other side. Walked back towards the river on the old rail bed, and found a stairway back down to the ground level--less than 300 feet from my truck.

[+pairomedicchick]

most memorably, I was on an easy treck, just follow the path. right? except that there was a fork in the road, and I took the wrong one. So instead of taking the loop around (didn't know how far it would be) or going back and taking the correct one... I figued it couldn't be that far across, and bushwacked through the middle. The briars and such got about 5 ft tall and very thick, and I circled around, and by the time I got unstubborn enough to consider going back, it looked worse than continuing on. About the only thing it had going for it was that it was all realatively flat. Once I finally got to the correct path, the cache was an easy 6ft or so off it. I did take the easy way back to the car, though.

I wouldn't say I turned the 1/1 into a 1/5, but maybe a 3.5?

[+RedhedMary]

First time night caching, also trying to get my first FTF. Also, had finally convinced my two sons to go with me. We get to the site, no visible trail that any of us could see. So did some major bushwhacking about .3 to the general area, even had to make our own bridge (with a fallen log) over a little creek. We finally find the cache (2nd to find...) and were looking it over when the cache owner came up to us. After talking, he offered to help us find our way back and proceeded to lead us directly to THE TRAIL...complete with bridge over the creek. My kids are still giving me a hard time over that one!

[ProfessorFlight]

Team King of the Hill has a habit of doing caches at night. We will often times end up bushwhacking in only to find the easy trail on the way out.