Never Quit

[Blackarrow911]

I spent a while on a cache today which got me thinking, whats the longest you have spent searching for a cache? I have seen some wicked cache pictures on this website so I know the numbers have got to be high. I refuse to quit looking until I'm sure the area in question has been covered completly. How about you?

[bogleman]

About 1 hour, normally I'll give it about 10-15 minutes. I treat each cache on it's own merit, depends on the location and the possible hiding spots - high traffic areas=less search time.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Ten months? Evil, five star mystery cache!

Oh, you mean in one day? If I don't find it in a half hour, I probably won't find it that day. But I have spent an hour at times. Doesn't mean that I won't keep coming back to look again, with a different persepctive, and different satellite configurations.

[+norsehawk]

45 minutes is my longest time searching at ground zero for a cache.

I usually look for 10-15 minutes, walk off, sit down just studying the area trying to spot any hiding spots I didn't notice up close, then go back and do more searching. One time I seached off and on for about 45 minutes, didn't find it, came back after thinking about the problem and having someone tell me that it might be a magnetic cache, and found it within 1 minute on the 2nd try

[+briansnat]

An hour is my absolute max in one trip, though there have been caches where I returned a bunch of times and the total over all the trips was probably closer to 3 hours.

[BRTango]

I've spent over an hour and a half looking for a 1.5/1 that apparently a five year old found without any difficulties.

 

In total... over 8 different trips I probably spent about 6 hours. Never did find the darn thing.

[+Snoogans]

I spent close to 2 1/2 hours looking for a cache only to DNF, but I had a blast! A revisit found the cache to be in an old armadillo hole and covered with so many pine needles it might as well have been buried. An evil hide by what turned out to be a 10 year old girl.

 

I had a 4 hour+ DNF, but I only spent the first hour or so looking for the cache. It was between Laughlin & Needles, in JULY, and between 115 & 125 degrees outside. I ran outta water and conserved energy in the shade next to the very cool Colorado River. I used river water to stay cool too. I finally just jumped in the river and waded chest high upstream for about a half mile to get around the obsticle that I couldn't tackle without enough drinking water to scramble over. Quite a lesson was learned about desert cachin that day, but I still has a blast.

 

Many of my favorite cachin' memories have been DNFs. I may forget to log a cache for years, but I log my DNFs right away.

Edited September 23, 2006 by Snoogans

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Total of 5 hours over 6 trips to find the end of an evil multi; finally took my son on the 7th attempt, who found it in under 5 minutes!

 

Curse you, Joefrog!

Ed

[+Bad_CRC]

the cool thing about geocaching is that there are different cache types for everyone. Some people don't like hiking so much, but love the mystery of a well hidden cache.

 

I'm the opposite. I love seeing YAPIDKA, but I don't like crawling around or walking in circles searching for the cache for more than 10 minutes or so when I'm at gz.

 

gf and I spent an hour trying to find a micro in the middle of a dense wooded area with no luck. I went back by myself a few days later with a lot of energy and a new sense of optimism. After 30 minutes of digging around in wet leaves and mud, I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes even though I was covered in bug spray. As I was running (literally) back to the truck I realized that as much as I love geocaching, I HATE micros, and I really don't like searching for them because (in my opinion) it's a pretty stupid thing to do in situations like that, and it's really not fun at all for me.

 

I'll stick to regular caches from now on.

 

I think I'll put a 45 minute limit for myself from now on.

[+oldsoldier]

My FTF I searched for well over an hour. I later found I was about 60' off. I located it on my way walking out, looking randomly around logs, large stones, etc. I was a little angry, as the hint went very well with the area I was searching, and not so much for where it was found. But, thats part of the game. Normally, if I dont find it after about 10-15 mins, I give up. But, again, this was my first FTF, and I had a hard time convincing myslef to quit.

[+D@nim@l]

I spent 4+ hours on multi in a single day, only to DNF it, when I was in Tokoyo (GCNQKZ). I guess I should have brushed up on my kanji. The wife was none too pleased. I only gave up cause I had to catch the Shinkansen back to Nagoya.

Edited September 23, 2006 by D@nim@l

[+brodiebunch]

We will look until it stops being fun.

 

Then we leave...

[+adjensen]

Generally, if we haven't found it in fifteen minutes or so, we check the clue. If there's no clue (or the ever useful encrypted "You don't need a clue"), we curse the hider for a short while, then, clue or no clue, ten or fifteen minutes more, and we've had enough.

 

Depends on the circumstances, though. If it's forty below or raining or we've someplace to be, a DNF may result from a ten minute search. If I know it's a hard find, I'll go under optimal conditions, and devote an hour or more.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

I spent 4+ hours on multi in a single day, only to DNF it, when I was in Tokoyo (GCNQKZ). I guess I should have brushed up on my kanji. The wife was none too pleased. I only gave up cause I had to catch the Shinkansen back to Nagoya.

 

Yeah- what he said!

 

I think that will be my next excuse... I had to catch the Shinkansen back to Nagoya!

 

Ed

[+BigHank]

I spent close to three hours on a search one day.... just didn't want to give up. Finally found it, too. Another time I searched for a total of about six hours, spread out over 8 months and many trips, before finding the cache. They were both good caches, worth doing, and I enjoyed the searching, even with the frustrations...especially since on the one that took 8 months, others found it during that time.

 

My general "rule" is that I will spend whatever time it takes if the cache seems interesting, if the area is great, if there is a good reason to be there. I won't spend more than ten minutes on a "generic" micro or a cache that is just "blah" to me. It has to have something that grabs my interest and enthusiasm to keep me looking.

[Neos2]

I use my gut instincts, too. If the spot is nice and the cache is supposed to be relatively hard to find, I'll search longer than if the cache is supposed to be easy or the spot is not very interesting.

 

I have spent an hour looking for a cache. In fact, I've been to that particular cache several times and not found it. It isn't supposed to be a hard one. The first day, we looked for forty minutes and then took a break for lunch and came back for another half hour or so. The second time we spent an hour looking, and the third day we spent 20 minutes looking in all the same places we had already looked. I suppose I'll find it one day--probably in one of the place I already looked.

 

Usually, after about twenty minutes on a cache rated less than a 2, I get run out of ideas on where to look next and head to the next cache.

[+Enspyer]

I used to give it a lot longer, now after maybe 15 minutes I will be ready to move on. It's all about the walk and getting to the area to me now.

[+Confucius' Cat]

Some get a minute or two, some get multiple trips over several days, weeks, months...

 

There are some that I just MUST find, others I get to the GZ and simply ask myself "WHY?"

 

It is not always an easy (or correct) decision.

 

There was one notable "obsession" hunt I had that was a micro located in a flood plain of a local stream that had a covered bridge nearby but otherwise no redeeming value. But it had gone MONTHS without a FTF.

 

I finally gave up and dropped it off my watch list after about a year or so of DNF logs. Then I missed the owner's log that it was checked and still there and went back and found it after a fellow cacher emailed me he had FTFd it.

 

<edit- forgot to say>

After finding it, it was one of those "wow" caches.

</edit>

 

As I have gotten more and more cachhes, I tend to spend less and less time on attempts. I have had my share, but the "obssession caches" are far fewer for me of late.

Edited September 25, 2006 by Confucius' Cat

[+GreyingJay]

Just a little bit longer after it stops being fun.

 

How's that for vague

[+CraigInCT]

One hunt, last year, took a while. I got to stage two (a hikers hut) and searched for a couple hours. I found a letterbox nearby, but no cache. I took a lunch break and returned. A couple more hours later, just as I was spent, a couple other hunters appeared. One of them discovered the stage. Hidden in the framework of the hut. We found the final together. I learned what under-rated means that day.

[+sbell111]

I quit when it stops being fun, usually within thirty minutes or so.

[+StarBrand]

45 minutes to an hour per trip. Most on any cache was 5 trips times 45 minutes each times 2 because my wife was searching as well. Finally found it.

[+lacey38655]

I've spent over an hour and a half looking for a 1.5/1 that apparently a five year old found without any difficulties.

 

In total... over 8 different trips I probably spent about 6 hours. Never did find the darn thing.

 

I went after a 1.5/2 thirteen (13) different times. I was so new at geocaching, I had no clue that it wasn' t there. I kept logging DNF again. Finally I contacted the owner and asked for clue 1, then clue 2. he later contacted me to say that it truly wasn't there. And being the good sport, he even threw in an extra clue. So total trips 13, with total time probably 6 full lunch breaks, 2 midnite runs (20 minutes each) and at least 1 one hour and half trip. Man what a newby I was. You do the math. Now micro 20 minutes tops tradional 45 minutes to 1 hour.

[+Clothahump]

My normal rule of thumb is 20-30 minutes. If I haven't found it by then, I probably won't that day.

 

My longest perseverance cache was nearly a year. Repeated trips to find stage 1, which I finally located pretty much right out in the open . The second leg took me 15 minutes to walk to.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

I have spent some considerable time strategizing the hunt for, and the actual find of, some 5/5 caches, largely due to terrain challenges and the gear needed to tackle such challenges. And, Sue and I were part of a 3-person team which scored a find on the famous 5/5 Blood & Guts in Virginia cache; it took us a couple of hours a day for most of 19 days to finish that one! By the way, I recommend that cache strongly!

 

However, one of the most maximal efforts of which I have ever heard was expended by a team of eight local cachers (from a 2-state area) who band together at times to form a team which they call Team Psycho. They scored the FTF find a few days ago on my new Psycho Urban Cache #13 -- Impossible! Give Up Now! cache, a truly esoteric 5/5 cache. Counting the time which they spent in evaluating the site, strategizing, purchasing and organizing gear, making one long (5 hour) unsucessful attempt a week earlier, and finally, a successful attempt on Saturday, 9/23/06, I estimate that each of the eight team members spent at least 13 hours apiece on this effort. So, that is 13 hours multiplied by eight persons; that yields a grand total of about 104 hours which they spent to pull off a nearly-impossible engineering task. BTW, the particular enginering feat which they accomplished required at least seven or eight persons working at it full-time to make it work, and thus the logic of my mathematics makes sense.

[+phreakmonkey]

Spent four hours looking for a difficulty 4 micro- and we didn't find it. There was a margarita patio restaurant at the site though, so we consumed quite a few margaritas looking. Next time my friend and I travel back to that area we're going to repeat that search, it was fun!

[+Squarepegs]

For me it depends on where i am at. My longest was about an hour. The cache was over 100 miles away in the middle of the mojave desert. It has 11 finds since Jan. 2003. For the ones closer to home I just leave and get my wife. She will usually see what i can't in about 5 minutes.

[+James Lobb]

an hour is the max i spend, unless i am searching overseas (yet to happen, but it will) in which case i WILL find the cache. unless it has been muggled