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What Constitutes A Big Day Of Caching?


OldBear

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On January 5, 2006, my son (TXRangers) and I found 32 consecutive caches with no "Did Not Finds". We were in the field for 14 hours and covered 260 miles of East Texas country roads. I am curious whether this is geat, outstanding, amazing or just a good caching day. I would appreciate any feed back. After some great responses to my question, I have decided to add some information. This day started out as a laid back day for TXRangers who was on vacation and thisOldBear who is retired. The only pressure was for about an hour as darkness settled in. After it was dark and we realized it was not going to get any darker, we settled down again and enjoyed our first night caching experience. There is no question that this was a great day for us. We had exceptional weather and great fun spending the day together. On top of that, we enjoyed a long day experienceing an outdoor sport and we didn't kill or hurt any living things!

Edited by OldBear
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thats pretty good imo. our best was 28 finds and i think 3 or 4 dnfs that day. maybe 6 hours worth of driving, almost all were grab and go type caches that dont take but a few minutes each.

 

some people ive read about have gone 24 hours straight and found over 250 caches in that period. i believe the best place for those runs is nashville because of cache density. thats just too much for me to even imagine <_< we havent got that many yet and have been caching 9 months!

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A good, great, outstanding, amazing day of caching can't be defined by people outside. There are caching days when you do a single one, it's a great day. There are caching days you can do 100 and it's only a good day.

 

Whenever I go out, have fun and find some caches, it's a good day. If you're talking strictly numbers, from my not so long caching experience, I've found about 2 caches an hour is a decent number. This seems to be a number that keeps coming up.

 

I've done 77 in 15 hours (~5.2 an hour). It was great for the numbers but not so much fun when it came to logging and remembering. After the 40th generic micro/nano, I'd had enough but we kept going.

 

I guess what I'm saying is that we can't define your caching day for you. I can say 32 in a day is a very good number in most places~

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Well, if you go by number of finds, 240 was a pretty big day for me.

 

The more important question is: did you have fun? Your post omits the answer to this crucial question.

 

I had a lot of fun finding 240. I've also had a lot of fun finding just one cache in a day, but one which took many hours of hiking, puzzling and searching.

 

So, to answer your question, "FUN" constitutes a big day of caching.

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The BoB series in north Chicago has about 99 caches that can reportedly be completed in 5-6 hours.  I saw a post from someone that did 112 in this area in under 8 hours. My biggest day was 20 and involved three states (CA, NV, AZ)

The BoBs can be done in quite a bit less than 5 hours.... :D

 

My best day was the BoBs, got 104 by the end of the day. Other than that I've never gotten 30 or more, I think 28 is about it.

Personally I think any day I can get out and have some fun is a Big Day. :D

I'm lucky in that I can get out pretty often. :(

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My personal best is 7 and I figured out the average time between caches was one hour. Live where I do and you'll tell me that was pretty good.

 

(let's do the math....seven caches....seven hours......carry the one.... :D )

 

13 was my best with a partner.

 

 

edit: dangit!

Edited by BlueDeuce
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I think for me 10-15 is good on an all day Saturday or Sunday caching run. My best was 23 last year in April. With some routing software and good planning, I should be able to score 20 in a day. The only thing is that could take many hours of planning and research, so I settle for 10.

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...I am curious whether this is geat, outstanding, amazing or just a good caching day....

I don't know... I guess that's up for you to decide, but from your description I'd say it was a great day. :)

 

as for miles, I consider anything over 250 miles in one day to be a "full" caching day, so I'd say that was a pretty good trip as far as territory covered. But rating the number found depends on cache density. As few as 10-15 caches along a 200-mile stretch of country road is alot, while I've been on several cache runs in which I found 40 caches in one afternoon in one town, none of which were really worth writing home about. Personally I prefer the drive and would be more likely to consider it a "great" caching day than I would the run through the shopping center.

 

Like others, some of my best caching days have been the ones in which I've found only a few caches, or when I've spent several hours only to walk away with 4 DNFs in a row. It just depends on what I get out of the experience.

Edited by DavidMac
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Our best day was 43 and covered about 150 miles but we had it layed out pretty well as to where we were going. We normally cache 1 day per weekend and average between 15-25 per trip. The problem we have now is that we've found almost everything with 40 miles of our home so we keep traveling farther and farther away and have less time to cache once we get there so the numbers are declining. I think we've been going too fast anyway. We just started in mid August and we're just under 550 finds. I guess we're just N.U.T.S. :)

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69 caches in 6 hours. Starting with the Easy Series NW of Lakeland. However our best days of caching have all been on a single cache that took all day, or a couple of days.

I keep kicking myself that I haven't planted anything like that, though I do have a couple of 12 to 16 miles roundtrip caches, but no big multi loops. When you start planning one, you REALLY appreciate the effort in placement. Sorry, wandered off topic.

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We don't base great on the number but the experience.

 

We have sometimes done 8 in a day and it has been a poor day for us because the caches were in uninteresting spots, too easy, etc. Basically things that don't interest us but we thought from the description were going to be good.

 

Sometimes 1 cache makes a great day because it was a great day to be out, the trail was terrific and the cache was a great hide.

 

JDandDD

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What constitutes a big day of caching?

 

A really good walk, through woods preferrably, sand dunes too, with some up and downs, maybe some bird watching thrown in, lunch on a trail (or deer path) along the way, not a soul around me, bright sun (or rain, sleet. snow, drizzle, high humidity, etc.), interesting meet-ups with wildlife, a tiny bit of "at the zone" frustration, a place to take a short nap after I eat my sparse lunch (if I remembered to pack more than a granola bar or two), a little bit of 'off the map' history, a chance to burn a little cholesterol out of the old pipes, speaking in a foreign language or driving on the wrong side of the road to get to the zone, and oh yeah, a cache at the end of the walk in. When I get home, the love of my most understanding wife, the greeting of my loyal hound, a nod and/or a grunt from either of my teen aged sons, a really good beer or two, or a single-malt, and I'm good.

 

After almost four years, and finding ONLY 279 caches (any trip caching near my home entails at least a hundred miles of driving, at minimum, and I've done the extreme of going 9000 miles r/t to find a cache), I've come to conclusion that it is not how many I find, but how much I enjoy the day I've spent.

 

However you measure it, measure the amount of fun and adventure you have. Don't count the amount of caches over the experience involved in getting to the cache.

 

That being said, it sounds like you had a great day.

Edited by Metaphor
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My record is nine caches in one day. But, we have a life outside of geocaching, and don't go for the big numbers. We don't always get an early start, and we're always home before dark. (Did five today wth 20º temp, and 35 MPH winds!) Frequently, what we do is find a few interesting caches in an area, and add in whatever is close by. Had a nice two hour hike in a frozen swamp today!

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From a numbers standpoint, yesterday was my biggest day of caching. I finished the BoB series in Chicago in 7 hrs and 16 minutes (solo) [1 find every 4.5 minutes] and then picked up another 4 on the way home for a total of 101 Found. In addition there were 2 DNF's.

 

Almost gave up on the BoB series half way through, I'm not sure it was worth the effort.

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Last April I found 26 caches out of 29 attempts. I had planned more, but got started 5 hours later than planned and ran out of daylight.

 

However, last Sunday I found 9 caches, of which 6 totalled about 10 miles of hiking. (The other ones were conveniently placed on the way from one to the next, or promised a good sight). Again, I had one more planned, but ran out of daylight and I was not equipped for a night hike. That was a much more enjoyable day, even though I still have a muscle ache in my calves two days later.

Edited by Blue Bomb
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A normal day of caching for us would be going after 5 or so. One day we decided to go for 12. We found 11 of them. All but the last one so we were a little bummed since we were perfect for the day until then. It took us about 4 hours to do them. We both said that from now on we're gonna stick to our usual 5 for a cache day.

 

Krazymtbr

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Well, if you go by number of finds, 240 was a pretty big day for me.

 

The more important question is: did you have fun?  Your post omits the answer to this crucial question.

 

I had a lot of fun finding 240.  I've also had a lot of fun finding just one cache in a day, but one which took many hours of hiking, puzzling and searching.

 

So, to answer your question, "FUN" constitutes a big day of caching.

Lep makes a very good point. When I read your log, I thought to myself, "Did you have fun?"

 

I've found 31 in one day, about 6 hours of work, and I was with a caching buddy and I had a great time. I was exhausted at the end and I don't think I'll ever do that many again. 20 is a good caching day for me now.

 

I've found my most enjoyable caching experiences have been when caching with other people, but I also enjoy the solo hunt as well.

Edited by Webfoot
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My personal best is 50 down in PA in 22 hrs I dont think its about the numbers at all to me a good caching day can be 1 or 200 its about the fun or expierence you have seeking the cache.I have had several run ins with the local police which turned out to be somewhat fun I think a couple might even turned into cachers.

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OK. I see a lot of people hootin and hollerin about the numbers,'cept "Metaphor".

I'm with him. I have had some days with several caches, not anywhere close to some of the numbers posted, and it was a good day. But in my opinion, I have better memories of finding single caches that take a little work to get to. A long distance hike for example. These pics are from Tahosas Bishops Staff cache on Crosier Mtn.

 

1821989_400.jpg

 

1821989_1000.jpg

 

1821989_500.jpg

see the elk ?

 

1821989_800.jpg

 

Ya see. It is not always about the numbers. Enjoy yourselves.

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Ya see. It is not always about the numbers. Enjoy yourselves.

Yep. My best caching days have find counts less than 4, usually only 1. It's the adventure along the way that makes for a great day of caching.

 

I have had a couple of 400+ mile days with a big heaping double-handful of finds, but the caches weren't the best part of those days, it was the camaraderie that made those memorable.

 

Any day caching can be a good day. :mad:

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That sounds like a really good day, to me. I took a trip last summer and managed to do something like 65 over an evening, a day, and a morning before I had to get back to work, and I think that full day ended up with something about 35. Can't recall exactly, tho. I just remember I was ready to quit when that day was over. I can remember when getting to double digits was noteworthy, but with current densities, that just isn't the achievement it once was.

 

Good on ya!

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but with current densities, that just isn't the achievement it once was.

Yes - it really depends where you go caching doesn't it. On a recent visit to San Jose, California I found 10 caches in an hour on foot. They are so close there that at one point I was able to stand at a particular point and see the locations of 5 of those caches - and this in an urban area. While it bumps up the numbers it kind of takes away some of the challenge. One of my most fun days was going 15 km into the bush on very difficult trails and back again with a bunch of other geocachers - 9½ hours from trailhead back to trailhead - all to find one rusty old coffee can. (see Bushwacker ) - 2nd to find, 2 years after the FTF!!. Contrasting was my 5 caches in 5 countries in 5 hours (sort of) for another kind of fun.

 

And that's the key - if it's fun, then it was a good day caching :rolleyes:

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I have done 30 caches in 3 states on vacation.

 

I have done 1 multicache covering 100 miles round trip.

 

I have done 1 cache on a 200+ mile round trip on my motorcycle.

 

All were outstanding days!!

 

I have done multiple parking lot micros in 2 hours more timens than I care to member...

 

Those were not outstanding days.

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My best is 61 with Moun10Bike in the Yakima cache machine. But usually when I've gone solo caching or with with a buddy, I'll consider anything over 10 a good day. I managed to get something like 25 on my own one time in Bremerton after a full day of caching. 15-20 on a run would be considered my normal high count for a concentrated day of caching. I know if I were to go down to California or go to Wenatchee, I might really crank out the numbers, but really I'm more interested in going somewhat slower pace and having fun. My favorite caching days are the ones that are hikes. Maybe 2-3 on those days if lucky.

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Big caching days for us are 5 or more in one day. However, considering the driving distance between caches here, that doesn't necessarily mean those are short excursion. In fact, almost every day we have bagged at least 5 caches also means we have driven over 350 miles. Our longest driving caching day was six caches over 980 miles. Our most caches in one day was nine caches on a 440 mile drive through eastern Wyoming and Western Nebraska. I can't even imagine how many miles we would have to drive to bag more than 50 caches in one day - probably would require severely breaking the speed limit repeatedly.

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