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In the dark


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Given that the dark evenings are upon us, it's now only possible to cache in daylight at weekends, as it's dark by the time I finish work. Last winter I didn't do very well when I tried caching in the dark and my find rate was very low. As I'm more experienced now, I hope I'll manage better this time, but I'd value any hints or tips for night-time caching, and recommendations for good ones to find in the dark.

 

I'm not thinking specifically of night caches, just ones you can find fairly easily with a torch, without the risk of falling in holes, off cliffs etc. I'm in London and will happily travel to Home Counties locations for a good find, so point out the good-to-do-in-the-dark ones you've enjoyed.

 

Lee

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I do a lot of night caching, and I find two main problems (and many advantages) with it. One is getting on site. The footpath sign is a bit vague and in the dark, you can't see the stile on the far side of the field. Solution; a really powerful torch that can throw a tight beam. The other problem is hunting in the dark, which needs a slightly different approach. Some people swear by a head torch, which you can take off to aim the light in from an angle, hoping to get the shadows to tell you something extra. Add in a woolly hat, gloves and a walking pole to help balance on rough surfaces in the dark and you're all set. The main upside of night caching is far fewer muggles but the ones you might meet are often armed. That's how it's been for me, anyway! In terms of targets, there's a night-specific series called D2D (Dusk to Dawn) off the M40, not far from London. It links up with two other rings, giving almost 60 caches in about 20 miles of walking.

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I've done a fair bit of caching at night and would definately recommend a decent headtorch, it leaves your hands free for operating your GPSr, using trekking poles, rummaging around etc, and can be taken off to shine in hard to reach places.

 

One thing night caching/walking does do is it makes you rely on navigation more, using GPS and/or maps as you can't navigate by sight so much as Paul mentioned.

 

I did the Snow White & 7 Dwarfs series on Box Hill in Surrey at night and really enjoyed the atmosphere of the woods at night, muggles were few, in fact we only met 2 trail runners, one with a wrist mounted Garmin yet they still needed to ask us for directions!

 

Have fun!

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I do a lot of night caching, and I find two main problems (and many advantages) with it. One is getting on site. The footpath sign is a bit vague and in the dark, you can't see the stile on the far side of the field. Solution; a really powerful torch that can throw a tight beam. The other problem is hunting in the dark, which needs a slightly different approach. Some people swear by a head torch, which you can take off to aim the light in from an angle, hoping to get the shadows to tell you something extra. Add in a woolly hat, gloves and a walking pole to help balance on rough surfaces in the dark and you're all set. The main upside of night caching is far fewer muggles but the ones you might meet are often armed. That's how it's been for me, anyway! In terms of targets, there's a night-specific series called D2D (Dusk to Dawn) off the M40, not far from London. It links up with two other rings, giving almost 60 caches in about 20 miles of walking.

 

Thanks a lot for the pointers. A couple of my first attempts fell flat because I couldn't scan the landscape easily, and nearly bumped into a horse in the dark on one occasion! There's potential for getting lost more easily, and struggling to stick to paths. However, in the past I've only had a Geko 201 for navigation - I now have Memory Map on my phone, and this will hopefully make finding paths in the dark a lot easier.

 

Lee

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I did the Snow White & 7 Dwarfs series on Box Hill in Surrey at night and really enjoyed the atmosphere of the woods at night, muggles were few, in fact we only met 2 trail runners, one with a wrist mounted Garmin yet they still needed to ask us for directions!

 

Have fun!

 

Aha - there's a good idea for some night caching. I've only found one of these thus far and would like to do the rest. It's easy for me to get there and it's an easy walk from the station, so an evening out in that neck of the woods could be a lot of fun.

 

Lee

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I did the Snow White & 7 Dwarfs series on Box Hill in Surrey at night and really enjoyed the atmosphere of the woods at night, muggles were few, in fact we only met 2 trail runners, one with a wrist mounted Garmin yet they still needed to ask us for directions!

 

Have fun!

 

Aha - there's a good idea for some night caching. I've only found one of these thus far and would like to do the rest. It's easy for me to get there and it's an easy walk from the station, so an evening out in that neck of the woods could be a lot of fun.

 

Lee

 

If you want company on any night trips, then its well worth getting on to the South east forum HERE where you'll find lots of very friendly locals who are happy to go night caching! A trip to the seven dwarfs may attract a number of people!

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If you want company on any night trips, then its well worth getting on to the South east forum HERE where you'll find lots of very friendly locals who are happy to go night caching! A trip to the seven dwarfs may attract a number of people!

I have done a lot of night caching and I would recommend that you do pair up with someone. last thing you want is to have an accident and not be found until the morning. Chances of freezing to death are quite high!!

 

A head torch is a good suggestion, but keep another torch handy. 1. If your head torch fails you have a back up. 2. Head torches aren't great for searching at GZ, but for the walk in the are good.

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If you want company on any night trips, then its well worth getting on to the South east forum HERE where you'll find lots of very friendly locals who are happy to go night caching! A trip to the seven dwarfs may attract a number of people!

I have done a lot of night caching and I would recommend that you do pair up with someone. last thing you want is to have an accident and not be found until the morning. Chances of freezing to death are quite high!!

 

A head torch is a good suggestion, but keep another torch handy. 1. If your head torch fails you have a back up. 2. Head torches aren't great for searching at GZ, but for the walk in the are good.

 

I'm not normally worried about going out alone on caching trips, but I can see that there's sense in partnership at night. The likelihood of slips, trips and falls increases in the dark, and certainly at this time of year it gets VERY cold VERY fast once the sun sets. Worth thinking about.

 

I'd certainly not consider going out at night with only one torch - a back up would be essential. Also, I'd take 2 GPSr's. The one on my phone - with Memory Map - is hugely useful for getting around, but it's prone to sudden lock-ups and battery life is short. A back up is, again, of vital importance. As soon as you can't see distant landmarks, it gets much harder to find your way around.

 

Lee

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As soon as you can't see distant landmarks, it gets much harder to find your way around.

When I am going off the main beaten track and going more than just a couple of hundred metres I still take a map with me and map read my way to the cache. I use the GPS as confirmation, back up and to find the cache once in the vicinity.

I'm fortunate that I have experience of map reading in the dark without the use of GPS or any light, but I still like to practice my skills and keep myself up to scratch when I get the chance.

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I did the Snow White & 7 Dwarfs series on Box Hill in Surrey at night

 

Wow. Maximum respeck. You did well, it took us all day and we still DNF'd one of the dwarves.

 

Mind you in typical Team Sieni style we extended the walk to a ridiculous extent, and also spent a lot of time hunting fungi and not caches!

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A torch or two of some description would be an excellent idea, as I found out on Wednesday. B) That was only a couple of hundred yards walking though, so no real danger. The problem I had was that I couldn't get night vision due to the car lights from the nearby road or looking at my PDA screen. The screen gave just enough light for me to see where I was putting my feet.

 

Could the next visitor check what I actually signed! :D

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A torch or two of some description would be an excellent idea, as I found out on Wednesday. :grin: That was only a couple of hundred yards walking though, so no real danger. The problem I had was that I couldn't get night vision due to the car lights from the nearby road or looking at my PDA screen. The screen gave just enough light for me to see where I was putting my feet.

 

Could the next visitor check what I actually signed! :)

 

Definitely get a decent LED torch.. I have a 2d cell Maglite with the 3 watt LED conversion, fitted with 10,000mah Ni-Mh rechargeables, and I also carry a 3 watt Mini-Maglite fitted with 2,900mah Ni-Mh batts.

I find the quality of light from LED torches to be better than filament bulbs, some will say different, but each to their own.

One useful item is a red filter for your torch.. Stops you losing your night vision sensitivity..

 

Don't do what I did, and drive to the cache site, only to find the GPSr was still at home.... DOH!!!

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One useful item is a red filter for your torch.. Stops you losing your night vision sensitivity..

 

Unless of course Mr. Farmer is out hunting Foxes! I had a rather too close encounter with a Farmer a few months back when he zero'd in on my red head lamp as according to him "it looked exactly the same as a Foxes eye does when illuminated by his vehicle mounted Infra Red Illuminator!!!" I've not used the red filter since!

 

J

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One useful item is a red filter for your torch.. Stops you losing your night vision sensitivity..

 

Unless of course Mr. Farmer is out hunting Foxes! I had a rather too close encounter with a Farmer a few months back when he zero'd in on my red head lamp as according to him "it looked exactly the same as a Foxes eye does when illuminated by his vehicle mounted Infra Red Illuminator!!!" I've not used the red filter since!

 

J

I Don't know a lot about Infra Red, but I have used it, and he should have been able to see you as if he was shining an ordinary torch at you. Also I do believe that a red torch would look the same as a white torch through Infra Red?

 

This point is open to debate but I'm unlikely to argue with another answer :)

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I Don't know a lot about Infra Red, but I have used it, and he should have been able to see you as if he was shining an ordinary torch at you. Also I do believe that a red torch would look the same as a white torch through Infra Red?

The farmer was over three quarters of a mile away when I first saw him at the bottom of the valley. I looked because I caught sight of his red IR illuminator on the roof of his 4x4 sweeping the fields. I guess from down there my red head lamp looked like a reflection of his IR light to him. Needless to say it was enough for him to make the journey up to where I was to see what it was.

 

J

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1. Head torch with a 3w LED, for walking and searching. Spare batteries.

2. Hand torch with a 3w LED and a long parabolic reflector for looking to the opposite side of a field for waymarks, also for searching

3. Walking pole, for prevention of falling over

4. Flying helmet, so when you bang your head on a branch, it hurts less; also keeps your head and ears warm.

5. Gloves, or you hands get cold.

6. Mobile phone, so if you fall into a rabbit hole and hurt your leg, you can call and tell your spouse you'll be a few hours late because you have to crawl back to the car.

7. Flask of coffee in car, for forming a mental picture of when you get cold and miserable.

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I cache quite a lot in the dark, often by bike. My no. 1 tip is to always waymark the spot if I have to abandon the bike and go on on foot.

 

Like others have said, head torches are really useful and having several backup light sources is handy too. I prefer LED lamps, as they last for ages. Bike lights do the trick: white lamp for searching, red to avoid spoiling night vision (and taking them with me means anyone coming across the parked bike can't nick them). That said, I've found that I get on better walking in the dark without a light and only switching on when I start searching. With a torch, you can only see what's in the beam, but once my eyes have adjusted, I can see further and wider by starlight (or the light pollution from Bristol...). Closing one eye when I check my PDA screen also helps preserve my night vision.

 

In the countryside especially, it's also worth thinking about dressing in something bright / reflective if you're going to be near roads, to avoid getting run over.

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In the countryside especially, it's also worth thinking about dressing in something bright / reflective if you're going to be near roads, to avoid getting run over.

 

On the rear of my head torch, I have a blinking red LED plus reflector mounted. I don't care what they think I look like, as long as tey give me a wide berth as they shoot past at 50 mph.

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I'd love to go caching in the dark but I don't know anyone who'd come with me (and going alone would be a very bad idea since I'm the clumsiest person ever. Seriously, I don't know how I've lived this long).

 

Besides, I'm bad enough at finding caches in broad daylight when they're staring at me!

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