Tales From The Cache

[+Team JSAM]

Tell your story about your most painful caching experience or that of a friends..

[+doctor scotland]

well, it wasnt painful for me but...

i took my daughter out caching with me some time ago, she was only 2yrs old or so, and i had her in a backpack carrier type thing.

i was looking for a FTF and after a while i located the cache and took the pack of my back with her in it - unfortunately, my grip on the handle slipped and the pack and my girl dropped to the floor! - luckily the mc d. toys inside it took her mind off the fall!

then on the way out, i had her on my back again, ducked under a low tree branch, but heard a hollow sounding thud as her head met the branch!

 

everything was fine though, at the end of the day - not cuts, no bruises - just a few tears!

ive never told the missus how bad a dad i was on that day, and will feel guilty for years, im sure.

[The Great Mizuti]

Over the summer, I had to cross a river that came over my knees. It was fine, I got across okay, but I got some stranger rash on my legs. It vanished after a couple of days, and resurged one day every other week or so. It continued until about January...

Whatever, I'm still alive--

[+Lotho]

Me and a freind started a multi where we needed to go to a sign to get details to finish the co-ords. We had the sign in our sites, only about 20 metres away, with only a small hill in the way, he assumed he could ride over the hill, but there was a ditch the other side. Landed on his head and could have been ALOT worse. He cut the top of his nose which was the worse injury, considering he went into a ditch on a bike, hit his head on the ground (always wear a helmet!!!), cut his nose and then the bike fell on him..

[+basquenv]

A small cache, now archived because of flooding was located on a small island in the Truckee River in downtown Reno sets the scene. We were the second to find the camo cache, and going back to the truck my girlfriend asked me to carry her purse while we crossed the shallow, but fast moving river. This is the only time I have ever carried her purse, and I'm sure it will be the last as on my first step, my feet went out from under me and the purse turned into a makeshift ladle as I tried to get my body out of the cold water. The fun thing about this is this is downtown Reno, and there must have been 50 men, women, and children that got to watch the whole thing.

[wandat24]

I've been lucky in the way of getting hurt... Really amazing though...For some reason or another we have a habit of going after ones on the other side of thorn "forests". The most I've ever gotten is a sprang ankle getting down off a fallen tree I didn't have to climb....the was you didn't have to go into the bottom of the river bed, look up.... well I get there and yeah you guessed it I looked up and seen the end of the tree had a spot something could be in/on NOPE wasn't there!!! Anywho I also stepped wrong once and it didn't help my back very much (the Weds before Christmas I pulled a strained mussel and it still acts up when I move oddly). Other then that just a few scratches (gonna have a few scars from some on my arm ) but I don't mind "war" scares, ya ought to see the ones I've gotten from climbing through fences! lol

[Bungo]

I have to say the most anoying things are thorns and brambles. And falling of my bike into a ditch full of stinging nettles. I landed on my head but I was wearing a helmet which now has a big crack in it, lucky it wasnt my head, read Lotho's post (three posts up) for more details. ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET!!

Edited April 29, 2006 by Bungo

[+Dew Crew]

Not really painfull physically:

 

0.36 mi. I can swim that! Well, I tried to swim it and learned a lesson. Some background info: For starters my GPS is not at all waterproof...nor is my digital camera. I triple Ziploc bagged them (and they stayed safe). I still held them above my head as I swam for the island. The lesson I learned is this...shoulda had a flotation device. I swam halfway across using just one arm...holding my GPS/digital camera above my head. I pooped out halfway across and while I was trying to make up my mind took on a wave and had my glasses pulled off my face. I grabbed for them as they sank but missed (several times). I paddled back to my truck where I dried off, changed, and blindly drove back to Houghton. I drove around looking for a phone booth with a phone book. HA! none to be had. I blindly blundered onto an optometrist's office that took my vision insurance. An hour and a half later and $95 poorer I had a new pair of glasses and was out caching again...but no more swimming to caches for me. At least not without a flotation device to hang onto.

victorymike

Mike Landis

Garmin eMap

Ann Arbor, MI

Day 5 of 7 of my U.P. Cache-A-Thon

The day my glasses sank to the bottom of Torch Lake.

My only DNF today (had 21 finds)

112 finds (with 18 DNFs) the entire trip

 

And a rather funny one:

Well, we found this one without any problem but it was all downhill (literally) from there. Smith had crawled down to the cache and was in a precarious situation so I (Cow) said "Toss me the cache". The cache landed at my feet and before I knew what happened it had rolled down the hill and into the river and was immediately swept out into the pond. We were in shock. We just threw a cache into the river! We had no idea how fast it was going to go and we had no idea what the river was like downstream. Smith took off and I tried to see the cache and find a long stick. She ran down by the dam and I found a 15' tree that had been broken off. We ended up deciding that the best thing we could do was to have one of us down below the dam in case it went over and one of us up near the top to try and catch it before it did. I got around the fence and stood near the water on the dam with my tree in hand. Smith ran down to look for a good place to wait down below in case the cache went over. It took a lot longer for the cache to get near the dam that you'd think. We waited for about 20 minutes while the cache floated all over the pond. At oe point I swear something under the water was playing with the cache because it began to move very quickly against the current. Very weird. Eventually it headed for the dam. It stalled about 15 feet from the edge and I was just able to get it with the tree. I pulled it in and tossed it over the fence to a waiting Smith. Just thankful no one came along so we didn't have to explain this fiasco. We returned to the top of the hill. Upon opening the cache, I dropped the lid and it headed for the edge but was stopped at the last second by a desperation dive from Smith. I think she referred to the lid with some words I shouldn't put here. After all that we left a purple die and signed the log. Moral of the story: Be careful and hand caches to each other don't toss them.

 

And one of our own:

Wow! What an adventure! We heard that the cache had been moved and wanted to check it out, so we went up the opposite side and crossed over. Once we did that we walked for a little bit and found the sign/hint, then soon after found the cache (again). As we were signing the log book a team of drunk 4-wheelers came along the trail. Good thing we were hidden well in the trees and bushes so that they couldn't spot us from the trail. Once they passed we decided to finish logging and re-hide the cache (didn't have much time to!). We then followed them down the trail until we came to the stream. We decided to cross further upstream because the drunks stopped next to the water. This is when we GOT LOST! We walked in circles (it seemed) until we magically came to the ORV trail next to the bridge. We were releived to be on flat land. Thanks for the adventure!

Edited April 30, 2006 by Dew Crew

[+Ed & Julie]

My wife fell on some river rocks and her leg bruised horrible...it eventually led to bloodclots and a 6-day stay in the hospital.

 

[+mrmnjewel]

My wife fell on some river rocks and her leg bruised horrible...it eventually led to bloodclots and a 6-day stay in the hospital.

 

 

Yikes...Hope she is doing okay now...

The worst injury I have received was a yellowjacket sting to my right ear while reaching for a cache. I had read in logs for this particular one that there was apparently a nest nearby. I cautiously approached and didn't see anything. An ear is not a place I recommend being stung. It HURT...but it seems pretty inconsequential after seeing that leg.

[Geopuckz]

Actually a pretty bad but hilarious one was we were on a cache after it just poured rained for a few days earlier & my friend was walking behind me. Then i slipped on some mud but didn't really fall. I looked back to see if my friend had mad it over and she just slipped and fell in a pile of mud of water and she had mud all over her. Well you know its not really a thing to bring towels when you geocache so we had to figure a way to get her washed up lol. Anyhow we did find the cache but it was one muddy experience that I will never forget!

[+blkhawks]

I have had the usual scrapes and twisted ankle but the worst was a last weekend we were on a FTF night cache and we met up with another caching family with three young kids. I am at the back of the pact making sure all the kids are ok when I looked up at the wrong time and got a tree branch in the right eye. Well what do you do? I don't want to scare the kids so I slowly open my eye and make sure there isn't any blood and how is my vision. After assessing that it didn't get my cornea I didn't mention this to anyone till we were on our way back. Next day went into the doctors and received antibiotics as it had caused an infection and I got to play pirate with a patch over my eye for a couple of days.

 

Mrs Blkhawks

Edited June 12, 2006 by blkhawks

[+Criminal]

Yow, after seeing that other leg, mine looks like a little boo-boo:

[+ravens3]

Yow, after seeing that other leg, mine looks like a little boo-boo:

 

So....were you wearing the kilt? []

Edited June 14, 2006 by ravens3

[+Criminal]

Yow, after seeing that other leg, mine looks like a little boo-boo:

 

So....were you wearing the kilt? []

No, it was a bushwhack cache, no exactly kiltable.

[+...The Girl]

Yow, after seeing that other leg, mine looks like a little boo-boo:

Kiss it'n make it all better.

On topic: I think I broke a nail a couple weeks ago.

... and *dang* those bruises look *awful*, I hope she's all better now. Not you, Crim, Ed&Julie. Whew! Crisis Averted.

 

Edit for clarification

Edited June 15, 2006 by ...The Girl

[VI Waypoint Hunters]

My wife, son and I did a cache in a small park in a town about 50 Kms to the north of the city we live in. It was dusk and in the trees it was getting quite hard to see. I was leading, my son following and my wife behind him. All of a sudden my wife starts screaming, I jog back to her asking what's wrong. That's when I get my first of 16 wasp stings. We had walked over an in ground wasp nest. My son and I had got them mad and they started stinging my wife. We ran like h*** and for quite a distance. Those little yellow and black terrors don't give up easily. Final tally, 28 stings on my wife, 16 on me and 3 on my son. Long drive home and now I carry anti histemene.

[mizleftie]

i went geocaching for the first time april 28th and 29th and knew i was hooked..geocaching is the most fun anyone can have if you love the outdoors..found most of them on my list the april 28th, started looking again on the 29th...after finding 3 more, i decided to stop and hide my own.

i was up around fort davis, texas....wasnt really prepared to hide on, but i found enough things with me a container and set out to find a really good spot...........i did, wrote all the info down so that when i got home i could post it...............but later that afternoon, i was involved in a real bad motorcycle accident with many injuries and never got to post it... .......sad to say lost all the info and am no longer able to get out and do this anymore....just wished i could remember the name of the road. So you all keep geocaching for me