The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.

[+Totem Clan]

OK, time for an angst break.

 

We've all had those caching days that you will never forget. Be it a great day or a traumatic event, they are imprinted in your neural banks forever.

 

Tell us what your most memorable day of caching was. It could be one good, or bad cache, or maybe just a day long cache run with friends.

 

What geocaching experience(s) will you never forget?

[+BlueDeuce]

Last year caching on my birthday. Cool, sunny and just going to nature reserve after nature reserve.

[+Team GeoBlast]

OK, time for an angst break.

 

We've all had those caching days that you will never forget. Be it a great day or a traumatic event, they are imprinted in your neural banks forever.

 

Tell us what your most memorable day of caching was. It could be one good, or bad cache, or maybe just a day long cache run with friends.

 

What geocaching experience(s) will you never forget?

 

I'll bite.

 

Last night I brought a group of brand new cachers to seek my night cache Sacred Moonrise and The Case of the Twisted Kitty. They loved it! With every clue they would yell things like "I love this game!" This is great! How did I not know about this?" I am certain that they will all own a GPS in the near future and will enjoying it on a regular basis as I do. This whole experience just warmed my heart and made me remember what a WOW geocaching was when I first started. After spending an inordinate amount of time in the past three days in these forums, it was close to a rebirth for me. I am refocused.

Edited February 14, 2007 by Team GeoBlast

[+txoilgas]

Having hiked 5 miles with a rise of 1,500 feet over 6 hours and then another 8 hours getting back to find out that after 3 years 8 months and 21 days someone had beat me there, using a different route, by 16 hours. Fortunately this was a virtual. If there had been a log book there that showed someone was there the evening before........... the hike back would have been MUCH longer.

 

Panther Canyon Abode

 

[+Harriet the Spy]

I will always remeber hiking Ebey Bluffs . The views are beautiful (you can't take a bad picture there) the cache is perfect and in the perfect spot to take in the views. We went with some really good friends of ours the BabyBackPackers so we had wonderful fellowship on the trail. I was very proud of my niece and nephew who had just barely come to live with us. They were apartment dwelling kids barely getting out of the house to a park much less a trail. They trooped along with us like it was nothing! Of coures they had cached with us a little and knew a box of Mcdonald toys were waiting for them. You know your in for a great time when you see a cache has 26 bookmarks declaring this cache to be a favorite and has 23 watchers!

Party of Eleven 4 adults 7 kids

Edited February 14, 2007 by Harriet the Spy

[+StarBrand]

I'll pick 2.

 

One was the day we got 15 caches and drove about 420 miles. All were great caches with beautiful scenery. Logged another 4 DNF on the day. Started at 9am and ended at about 10pm. I took a lot of pictures and my family was with me the whole time and helped to make it extra extra special.

 

Another was the day I hiked over 7 miles to get just one cache and about 1/2 of that was bushwaking up and over the hills and around a seriously deep ravine. I was tired, cold and wet from rain - but had a great time doing it.

[+BBWolf+3Pigs]

 

I'll bite.

 

Last night I brought a group of brand new cachers to seek my night cache Sacred Moonrise and The Case of the Twisted Kitty. They loved it!

 

My trip to this cache was also one of my most memorable cache experiences (Thanks TGB!). Came with the owner and other locals, and really enjoyed the trip up, and the conversation over drinks afterward.

 

My all time memorable adventure was Triple Dog Dare You (I think you remember that one, TGB, right?). A terrific hike and great company. A cache I felt proud of being able to accomplish.

Edited February 14, 2007 by BBWolf+3Pigs

[Treasure Pirate]

My best day caching was last week, in my driveway, just making caches. My daughter really loves geocaching with me, and enjoys the hype of it, creating the cache and planning the hiding place. She finds that to be more enjoyable than the actual finding. We're still new to this game, but really hype it whenever we can. We made about a dozen caches that day, most of them really quality containers with good logbooks, some of them camoed with paint, and some of them flimsey cardboard containers that won't actually find their way to the field. It was a great time.

 

Had a few bad times whacking around thistles and bees. We don't like those kind of caches.

[+Totem Clan]

The one day I'll never forget was a day right before we moved from Alaska. The whole family went out all around Anchorage. I think we found 18 caches that day. It wasn't the number of caches that made it memorable. It was the wonderful weather for one. It was mid April. Spring was in the air. It was one of those clear blue days where the sky seems to go on forever. I only remember one or two of the specific caches we did that day, but I will always remember that day. We had a chance to spend one last day outdoors together in Alaska.

I remember watching a moose walk her two calves across the road. The waterbirds were all returning and the ponds and rivers were all alive with birds. All the little animals were starting to get out about also. There was a lot of action in the woods and glens. The whole world seems to be more alive that day.

Other than our waitress at dinner that night, I don't remember any of the people we saw that day. It was almost like Alaska was there just for us. As if it were saying, "I'll see you again. Don't forget me."

 

That was one day I'll remember from now on. I only hope my first day caching in Alaska again will be that good.

[+Jhwk]

The Good: (although, in truth, is there really such a thing as a bad day of caching?)

 

In my quest to try a more difficult cache, last year I searched Missouri for only 4.5/4.5 or higher caches. I wanted to challenge myself and my newly found skills and see if I was up to the task. At that time, there was only one 5/5 cache in the entire state. That being Myotis 100 Irish Wilderness Cache. I would recommend clicking on the linky and reading about this unique treasure.

 

Much to my dismay, the cache had gone missing a few months earlier, and myotis was looking for help restoring the cache. In fact, there were rumblings on the cache page about archiving the only 5/5 in MO. So I took on the task of verifying all of the locations, headings, and such that you see on the cache page, as well as taking as many new pictures as possible.

 

To keep it short, let me just say that 20 miles of trail, without ever seeing another soul, made for my number one caching experience. I got to do my 5/5, I got to reestablish a classic cache, and I got to help out a fellow cacher in need.

 

a good day in my book.

[+bilbad]

WOW! Great stories! Makes me want to plan for some of these caches. My own most memorable was before I was a cacher. I went with some friends and they let me lead the way through some really tall grass. Of course I did not see the 6' deep diversion ditch and went in head first. Nobody got hurt and was a funny thing too see, I imagine. I happened to be the one who found it and was hooked ever since. I in turn got my GF involved and "Our" favorite was a multi on a preserve near our house. We had never been there and the way it worked you did a full tour of the preserve to find the cache. Was a very fun time for us and I still remeber the excitment on finding the cache.

[+simplyred]

I'll mention 2, a great and a not so great

 

the not so great;

Took my wife and 2 dogs with me, trying to get the wife into geocaching, well we find the cache and it is near some falls, so I diceide to get some pictures. Well I have the big dog and she has the small one,and as we are going close to falls/rapids I tell my wife to follow me. I walk out on some rocks and hear "help me" from behind. My little dogs is in the water (it's a calm pool of water on the side), and my wife is sitting/sliding on the rock into the water. I turn and tell her to not move. Had camera,GPS and my big dog all in my hands. place the camera and gps on the rocks and let the dog go and run for the wife. pulled her out and then pulled the little dog out. Well needless to say, my wife didn't have fun.

 

Mind over matter:

Me and my son head out on quads on this cache that I had been wanting to do for awhile. Well it's -10 out and the cache is gonna be a 53km ride/hike. Going there we were getting cold because of the opened trails. We even contemplated turning around. Closer to the cache the trails were in thicker woods so it wasn't as cold. We didn't manage to find the trail in, so we ended up getting on the lake which was frozen.Follwowed the lake to the bottom of the hill which the cache was on top. we were pretty warm when we got to the cache. The funny thng is on the way home the sun was going down and it got much colder, but we were so excited that we made this accomplishment, that the cold on the ride home didn't bother either of us. Had a great ride home. All totalled 106 kms and 8 hrs

[+Kit Fox]

I have many memories of great caching expeditions, with great company.

 

I spent almost a month solving The Dragonfly Scroll and got share my 800th find with two great cachers, Blig, and Pacholic. One the same trip, we found many caches that had gone without finds for quite some time.

Spy ring Hadn't been found for over two years.

 

Operation "Fenceline Cache" Hadn't been found for over two years.

 

Holy PilgrimageHadn't been found for almost a year.

 

We were officially finders #2, #3, and #4 onViper's Hummingbird Mysterywhich was hidden on 11/26/04

 

Only one caches was good, bad, and ugly, all in the same day. Return to Scab Island, which was my 900th find was all three. I happened to pick the hottest day in July to find this cache. The Heat Index was about 120 degrees F. The hike down to the cache was spectacular, the company was great, but the heat was almost unbearable. Physical exertion in a hot, and dry canyon sapped our energy reserves, and all five of us ran out of water, about two miles from our vehicles. I got to experience heat cramps for the first time. The walk back was ugly, but we all survived.

 

My favorite was my 1000th find, which I shared exclusively with my wife. Are You Experienced? GCG2V8

 

I was officially the sixth finder in almost five years. I'll let you read my two part "found it" log

Edited February 14, 2007 by Kit Fox

[+NorthWes]

Wow - I'm doing the Palms to Pines cache run on Saturday... wonder if I can interest my partners in following in Kit Fox' footsteps at 'Are You Experienced' - now that's a cache in a class all its own!

 

I've had several grand highlights caching - two with my wife and one solo w/Aero the faithful and trusty geo-hound.

 

Courtesy of my wife's work, we visit Las Vegas every 12-18 months (yeah!) We've learned to love hiking in the desert because of Lake Mead Cache #1: Anniversary Mine which leads you through an 'unknown but to cachers' slot canyon in an area studded with 'lost mines' from Nevada's early days. It's a relatively easy hike, but it opened our eyes to the desert in a way the more-visited Red Rock area didn't provide. A year later we hiked the West Fork Trail in Oak Creek Canyon (north of Sedona AZ) to find GC1C9A and GC4787 - they were great caches, but the journey cemented our decision to purchase a home in the Prescott AZ area (retirement? snowbirds?).

 

We enjoyed a boating jaunt in western Prince William Sound, running our 18' skiff out of Whittier Alaska into fabulous Blackstone Bay to be second to find at the Wild on Willard cache. It's our only 5-star terrain cache to date - amidst glaciers rising over 2000' from tidewater and sea otter escorts - all alone in the vastness of our home state's coastal waters.

 

While those two finds were memorable, I can attest that geocaching is indeed sometimes a genuine treasure hunt based on 'my' find at The gold mine cache, in the Talkeetna Mountains north of Palmer Alaska. Actually - all the credit for finding a 'wild-release' Moun10Bike coin goes to Aero's ability to sniff out a cache in a driving windy rainstorm amidst the scree and boulders on a rocky mountainside at late dusk. It's the only cache where I've sat down and cried for joy at what was found - not just one of geocaching's acknowledged top 'finds', but a companion who enjoys the journey in search of the cache more than I do!

[+Blue Power Ranger]

My most memorable caching outing this far was over a period of just a couple of days while on a road trip hitting caches in seven western states...

 

Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Oregon (states are big here out west )

 

We were actually on a trip to attend a wedding but managed a few huge detours to pick up some specific caches we had wanted to visit in person.

 

We started in Tacoma, WA hit all the Washington State Delorme pages we could as we made our way across the state, cached rather than sleep as we drove through the night through Idaho and Montana. By early morning, we were crossing Teton Pass into Jackson, Wyoming and Grand Teton National Park and from there headed south into Utah where we attended the wedding. We were exhausted in the end but it was well worth it.

 

Following the ceremony, we headed west across the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah and into Nevada where we then headed north back into Idaho, west into Oregon and then back North into Washington as we hit more Delorme pages making our way home. All told, I believe we drove like 2400 miles or something like that.

 

If I could, I would hop in a car and do it again right this second! The drive to Salt Lake City and back was one we had done many times pre-caching but this was so fun because we actually stopped the car at places we had never dreamed of stopping before, we took roads we never knew existed and saw things we never would have seen otherwise.

 

The number of finds became secondary to the overall experience which was just to have fun!

[woolsox]

I have not really had a bad time caching, others who have gone with me will probably not agree. My most memorable cache was a DNF. It was one a series of thirteen (should have been a clue) in the Huron-Metro Parks hidden in 2005. We had already completed the first eleven of the series and when to Wolcott Mill for number twelve. We parked near the farm-learning center and headed in the direction of the cache. We followed a trail for about a half mile before it ended. Nevertheless, being the expect cachers we are and having dressed appropriately we headed into the brush. After another half mile, we run into a wide creek and the GPS says we are still 35 ft away. We decrypt the clue and now both GPS and clue confirm that we are indeed on the wrong side. I say we go back to the car and find a road and path on the other side. My wife says there is no one around take off your pants and wade across the creek. So of course, I protest that it is too deep, fast, buggy, rocky, etc. Therefore, when I get to the other side the GPS is bouncing around and point in the direction that I just came from. I am climbing up and down the banks over, under fallen trees, find an old farmhouse, and of course hikers found whom I must hide. I did not find the cache, but after later reading the logs I am sure I walked around the location several times. Still we had great time on the quest.

[+BlueDeuce]

uh-oh, I just noticed a cacher named GoodBad&Ugly surfing the forum.

[+nameless301]

Well kind of a bad but good story.

 

Went hiking in Mission Trails Regional Park last summer? It is in San Diego, along every trail I think there is another cache every .1 miles away, it is crazy.

 

Hot as anything that day, went with my girlfriend. Found about 14 caches that day I think, we were out about 8 hours or so, thought we had plenty of water, but we found it the hard way what dehydration gets like. We hiked to the top of the mountain and it isn't a switchback trail, they are just straight up, we decided to turn around once we got up there and went back down, ran out of water about an hour hike left. My girlfriend was feeling it really bad.

 

She was having severe signs of dehydration and she is also diabetic and didn't eat much while hiking either so it wasn't to good for, finally we made it to the end, I had to almost carry her last hour hike back. It was bad, but once we got to the car it was this huge relief, it was great.

[+Snoogans]

Said it before and I'll say it again, GWIII4WD!

 

 

 

 

Nearly 40 caches mostly in 3, 4, and 5 star terrain, in 10 hours, in the Oceola Swamp, with Clan Barron leading, TDJ Volks bringing up the rear, and a great group from the NEFGA Jeep club between.

 

 

I hear the natives have 418 different words for palmetto.

[+Kit Fox]

Wow - I'm doing the Palms to Pines cache run on Saturday... wonder if I can interest my partners in following in Kit Fox' footsteps at 'Are You Experienced' - now that's a cache in a class all its own!

 

 

That P2P series is nuts! Getting back on Hwy 74 is a life risking affair

 

Here is a pic of the hiding area, but don't bring your dog, there is cactus everywhere.

 

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y144/sgbo...Experienced.jpg

 

An image of many 2.5 or higher terrain caches in the GPS area.

 

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y144/sgbo...vent-Caches.jpg

Edited February 14, 2007 by Kit Fox

[+Arndtwe]

i have two. the first is my first find ever!!! the second is the day i got twelve in one day with no DNF's. thats it.

[+The Jester]

My best:

 

In 2005 we took a 6400 mile, 10 state cache trip (181 finds, 17 DNF's) so I could hit #1000 at Mingo (the oldest existant cache). One of the best caches along that trip was TMA-1.

 

My worst:

 

Last Thursdays I ended a short cache run with a DNF.

[+Juicepig]

The Good: 2 days of hiking, canoeing and portaging to the base of a mountain, then climbing the mountain into a thunderstorm. The mountain itself was made of white quartz, and the lightning was all around us. We clung low to the rocks, grabbed the cache, and scuttled back down the mountain. Great trip!

The Bad: Fall down the niagra escarpment (think Niagra falls without the water.. and a little less steep), 2 broken ribs and a stick through my leg. Still managed to find it before heading back and seeking medical attention!

 

The Ugly: Came across a human body while night caching. For a while I thought it was just someone passed out until the cops showed up (a jogger had found him earlier and left the scene to go call police). There I was 200 km from home, under a bridge in the middle of the night.. yikes, that was fun to explain!

[+DanOCan]

Good: Finding Heart Mountain Cache with Red90, CBMocha, XRN95 and ScouterHerb. Round trip was around 12km (7.5 miles) with a total ascent of about 1300m (4265 feet) I was so exhausted on the way back to the cars I wanted to head off into a bush and puke. Great cache -- just check out how many pictures we posted.

 

Bad: Hunting for The Hideout and not realizing I left the door of the car open so when we returned from the cache we thought someone had broken into it. (See our log from December 20, 2006). Fun now but at the time we were freaked...

 

Ugly: Can't really think of anything...just pick any cache in a litter-strewn area.

[+Rathergohiking]

"1346 Muskrat View" found on December 23, 2006 by rathergohiking

 

This was definitely the most memorable cache we have ever done! When we got to the cache site, there were goose feathers and blood everywhere. Other body parts that appeared to belong to an unfortunate goose were scattered about on the boardwalk. We kicked them into the water. That’s the first part of the story. The second part in much more entertaining:

 

The cache was partially submerged, but dry. It was found quickly by my son, TheWaypointKid. In his eagerness to get the cache, he inadvertently kicked my Garmin 60CS into the water under the board walk. Having a $500+ GPS lost in a swamp a thousand miles away from home was not my idea of fun. We tried to reach over the boardwalk and retrieve my GPS, but the water depth was about a foot more than we could reach. The water was very cold and murky. My brother, whom I will refer to as Dr. Guts (a Gastroentrologist in his muggle life) mentioned going back to his house and getting something to fish it out with. It was getting late. I figured the by the time we did that, it would be in the dark.

 

So, I did the next best thing and took off my pants, shoes and socks and jumped in the thigh high muck to find the GPS. After feeling around a bit, I dished something out that felt like a GPS. It was not my GPS. It was a rock that was shaped like a GPS. Possibly a decoy put there as a bad joke? I quickly deduced that the GPS had to be further under the boardwalk and was possibly floating away just off the bottom, which meant one thing. I was going to be wet to at least my waist, or more, and needed to do it quickly. The water was not getting any warmer either.

 

The thought of spending $500+ again motivated me to reach further under the boardwalk. So I groped around some more, until finally I found my GPS floating upright just off the bottom. I immediately grabbed it and jumped back on the boardwalk. The GPS was still on and “no satellite reception” was glaring at me. I pushed a button, and everything went upside down on the screen. The supposedly waterproof Garmin 60CS was not waterproof in a real life field test! Hopefully, it will work again after it is dried out.

 

After I was shivering on the boardwalk, Dr. Guts took pity on me and literally gave me the shirt off his back, which I used for a towel. Since there was nobody around, I quickly put my jeans on “cowboy style” before Dr. Guts could give me a free rectal exam. We then signed/stamped the logs for the geocache and letterbox, left nothing, grabbed a hand warmer out of the cache and took my wet underwear with us.

 

Thanks for the memorable cache!!

 

Rathergohiking & TheWaypointKid

Traverse City, Michigan

 

 

NOTE: 12/31/06: After drying out for about a week my GPS came back to life today!!

[+Lucky46]

That would have to be today for me. Haven't been at it long so not a lot to compare with, but today I took my best friend out and introduced him. Only got 4 today, but all four were spectacular and Mr. T (my friend) actually found one. 4000' in the northern Sierras and on dusty roads in our shirt sleeves. 50 miles to get these special caches. Real nice day all around, thank you very much.

[+CENT5]

Unquestionably the highlight of my brief Geocaching participation.

 

A 2+ day trip to Alaska with 8 other cachers in Sept. '05. The Alaska folks rolled out the red carpet at Great Alaska Cache'N'Dash Meet'N'Greet Dinner and we had a ball.

 

 

From L-R Lowrider71, SonTrekker, globalgirl,CENT5, Moun10Bike, Prying Pandora, Reino, Linda Lu, El Santo

 

We returned in Dec '06 for 24hrs to a fabulous event 2nd Annual Anchorage Holiday GeoFest '06 and some over the top Night Caching:

 

[+michigansnorkelers]

Broke my leg (fibula) and used a tree branch as a crutch to hobble two hours back to my van.

[+Team Webguy]

OK, wind the wayback clock back to 2004, we had only been caching for a few months, and I bit off more than I could chew... (Both stories are quite long)

 

http://geocaching.diveoz.com.au/stories/fearless-1.asp

 

After that little adventure, I gave up, but that cache was to become my nemesis until late 2006...

 

http://geocaching.diveoz.com.au/stories/fearless-2.asp

 

That is sure as hell the hardest terrain I have done, the longest would have to be this one...

 

http://geocaching.diveoz.com.au/stories/wilddogs.asp

 

As I said, the stories are long, but I hope you enjoy them.

[+R.O.B]

The most memorable was the cache run I put together for GW4. I took a group to one of my favorite areas to geocache and to hike. I was stressing big time beforehand, thinking nobody was going to show up. In the end 18 people came along. We ended up walking about 8.5 miles, found 17 caches, got a group FTF, and a cacher got their 1000th cache.

[+Team LaLonde]

The following is our Good, Bad and Ugly all rolled into one. GCY7AT - Treasures of the McCormick. I've linked this before but I'll share it for the newcomers. The September 17 log was our most memorable caching experience ever.

 

The short version is that you NEVER EVER EVER go into the woods without a flashlight for a 'quick grab'. Since there was heavy tree cover, we wandered for a few hours in the pitch black using our GPS as a light, not a navigational tool. The only thing that kept us from spending the night outside is our dog, who led us to the Jeep we were test driving. So far we are still the only finders.

 

Here is a link for McCormick Wilderness info: Backpacker's Link to the McCormick Wilderness

 

This is from the webpage - NOTE: There are only two maintained trails into this remote area. The Bentley trail is not maintained. Backpacking or hiking to the many waterfalls and interior lakes must be done by hiking through the woods and navigating with a compass or GPS. These navigating skills are essential if you plan to venture off trail within the McCormick Tract.

[GPS-Hermit]

The BAD- I was caching to late in the afternoon to start with and too boot I entered the co-ordinates incorrectly in the GPS. I had a map and knew a road circled the mountain I was on below me. I followed a trail some distance and then went off trail and encountered more briars than a person should seen in a life time. The GPS took me to the top of a round mountain and I didn't see any place suitable to hide a cache at all. Now! I knew I had the wrong numbers. I didn;t want to back thru the briars so I went down the mountain knowing I would hit the road and follow it back to the car. As I went down the bush became unpassable. So I sent back up and try a differnet side of the mountain and got the same results. Back up agin and tried a third way - same results. Still not wanting to return thru the briars I looked at my map page and could see where I left the trail. So I let Map Page guide me back another way to the Trail. That worked. I got back to the car just as it got dark. I didn't have a flash light or warm clothes and the Temperature dropped to 26 that night. Close call I do not want to repeat. I was by myself, noone knew where I was and I was ill prepared to stay in the woods that night. After that I changed forever the way I think and I double and triple check the co-ordinates.