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Impromptu Run-ins with other geocachers


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Have you ever been geocaching and met another geocacher while "on the hunt?" I have twice, and coincidentally it was on the first two days I was geocaching...

 

OK, so I didn't realize this, but the first day I went geocaching was the day after GW5 ended, which was kinda in my area. I was finding my 3rd find, and I ran into these geocachers who live up in VA. We talked for a bit, and then went our separate ways.

 

The second time was on my second day of geocaching, which was two days after GW5. We were finding some local caches, and lo and behold, we meet some other geocachers who were visiting from TN! We looked for the cache for a while, and finally decided it wasn't there. But, we then proceeded to find the other geocaches in the area. I went on the geocaching website that night to log my finds and DNF's, and found that the first geocache had been archived only that morning! :unsure:

 

Anyways, post your stories here of meeting other geocachers while finding geocaches.

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I don't keep track, but I'll guess I've met thirty or forty geocachers while on the hunt. Some never logged the caches on-line.

What makes me wonder is when I'm in some out-of-my-usual geocaching area, and someone walks down the trail, and exclaims "It's Harry Dolphin!". Okay. I'm bad on faces and names. And, Prospect Park, Brooklyn is only thirty-five miles from the dolphinarium. But, there are ten or fifteen million people living between here and there! And the bridge and tunnel tolls will kill you! Needless to say, I don't go geocaching there very often. And I don't know anyone living in Brooklyn!!

So, we're working on a very interesting historic multicache, and a couple comes walking down the trail. "It's Harry Dolphin!" Very nice couple that we'd met once at an event in Central Park. They're from the Bronx. They're a bit off their home turf too. This is a bit disconcerting...

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Over the years I've probably run into about two dozen other cachers while on the hunt. It was more common in the beginning when there were fewer caches. I'd regularly meet cachers who lived 40- 50 miles away because they'd have to drive a long way for a cache.

 

I think if you are a FTF hound you are more likely to meet other cachers.

Edited by briansnat
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We've met quite a few cachers as well. One of our memorable run-ins was at a cache south of Twin Falls, ID near the Idaho/Nevada border. We arrived to find suspected muggles about 300 feet up the hillside. We thought they might be looking for geodes so we began looking around for the geocache and looking around like we were looking for geodes too. Pretty soon we hear "Hey! Are you looking for the geocache?"

 

Turns out they were looking for the geocache too but had the wrong coordinates. They were happy we came along to give them the correct coordinates.

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I've had my fair share of run-ins with other cachers, especially when I'm going after FTF on a newly published cache. I'm pretty sure about 50% of the cachers I've met while geocaching have been in pursuit of FTF. In Seattle, it's not uncommon to find at least 3 or four other cachers at GZ of a new cache. When this happens, we call it a "FTF Party" :D

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I've only met 2. I was trying to find a multi and found the first stage....I took it back to my car to study the text that would lead me to the next stage when I noticed some cachers holding up the string the container in my hands was attached to and looking heartbroken and walking back and forth searching for the container. Me being a REALLY shy person sat there in a semi-panic but immediately decided it would be really F'd up if I let them search and ruined their caching....so I went over there to show them and we all went to find the final stage together :D Then the cacher asked me if I found another local cache he'd found the previous day and we drove over and the cache owner of that cache helped me, and also I helped the first cachers find another cache by the same owner while he stood there and said "hot" "cold"...so yeah it was fun. But I'm sooooooo shy, and easily spooked when looking for caches....if a muggle appears way too curious, or I see a cop, or if anyone appears to come over and ask me anything I'm so outta there!! Meh. :D

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Yeah, it's happened a few times for me. First time, I was trying to find a cache I had previously DNF'd. I decided to hit it again the next day. While walking to GZ, I passed this one particular guy. I mingled around until he was a safe distance a way then ducked into the woods for the cache. I looked, and looked. I head foot steps and moved over behind a bush. Same guy as before. After he passed, I went back to searching. FINALLY found it. as I was signing the log I heard more footsteps. I looked up to see it was the same guy AGAIN, only now he turned in towards GZ. So I stood up and said "hi". Turned out to be the cache owner coming to check on his DNF'd cache.

 

Another time I was out gunning for a FTF in a nearby town. When I pulled up to GZ, I saw two people standing there talking. I decided to sit in my car and wait them out. After about 10 minutes, I saw one of the two had a GPS in his hand, so I got out and introduced myself. Turned out to be the CO and another cacher (who had just beaten me to FTF).

 

2 weeks ago I ran into another cacher for a FTF in Kuwait. I had looked for this cache 4 times in the previous 12 hours. I went back to try again and saw a man walking towards GZ staring at a GPS. So I walked up, held up my GPS, smiled and said "hi". Turns out he got the FTF on that one too. I never could find it before I had to fly out.

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Many times. I've run into caches trying for the FTF quite a few times and also run into caches multiple times when not after the FTF. I've run into them in my own area and in other states. I've even run into the same couple who live over 3.5 hours away twice - 2 years apart. It's one of the best parts of caching.

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I think I'm starting to see a trend here, with the join dates listed to the left of the posts corresponding with how many cachers they've had run-ins with. :laughing: Yes, a couple of dozen at least here. And I agree with what BrianSnat said, should you play that FTF game, you're much more likely to run into other cachers when going for FTF's.

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3 times for me,so far

 

i was looking for a FTF this one drizzley day, and i was at GZ no longer than 10 minutes when i heard a voice behind say "Find it yet?" The dude startled me, and found the cache 2 minutes later. Agreed on co-FTF

 

next time i was camping with my (then)girlfriend and some others in a great state park near me. we were going for a multi-cache called "Thirsty for that Healing Water". We were heading for what i thought was the first stage when we came across a pair of cachers(though i didn't know them yet) from our local forum. they told me that i was actually heading for the final. Told us to turn around and go the other way. After i had found the final, we met them again on the way out. chatted a bit, then went back to camp

 

last time i met a cacher in the wild, i was in a park that had at least 10 caches to find. I had just found one of our areas top cache placers (which i made quite adventurous for my self, a cache called Were O Were), i was on my way back to the trail when a guy came by with his dog playing Frisbee golf. I hid from him til he went past, then i got back to the trail. turns out that he had finished his course and was walking towards me. it turns out that it was the great local cache placer himself(i think hes got about 100 caches placed currently). he took me on a tour of the rest of the caches in the park, including a multi of his i DNF'd earlier that day

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Why not. 2 pairs of eyes are better than one, and you have the chance to talk to and get to know another geocacher.

 

Unless you are anti-social (not anything wrong, not everyone likes meeting new people), in which case, just wander on past like any other muggle and come back and make the find later.

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My first cache is in a park right near my house and my wife and I found that first one! But we hadn't been caching in a week or so cause I did'nt have nothing but the car gps. Well I couldn't take it anymore and went out to do some easy caches near roads. Found #2 and #3 and was headed for the #3 cache and pulled into the park where I had my first find. And there in the woods were 3 people with gps in hands walking around! I asked if they were caching and sure enough they were from out of town and looking for my first cache. They wanted some help with it and I didn't know if that was cool or not but one of them was coming up on 3000 caches and assured me it was ok, so I helped. I told them about another cache in the back of the park that I had been trying to find and that was where I was headed now. So we went and found that one. They invited me for the rest of the afternoon for a run of caches! We had a great time and I logged several caches that day. Blindreff also found his 3000 find that day! Was cool being there when he found it.

Wish I would run into more cachers around here but I am doing a lot of older caches that many of the cachers around here have already done. So I don't run into any one. Hope to meet some more people at a event here and get some running partners!

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I was coming back from class this afternoon, and I walked past the location of a cache that I had been trying to find for several weeks which hadn't been found, and I stopped to take a look at something that I thought might be the cache. I went around the corner to make sure some muggles did not see me looking for the cache, and low and behold, there was another cacher that I knew, looking for the same cache. We looked around for a while, then I went back to the spot he had been looking at, and I was able to find it. We got Co-FTF on it.

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I've run into a few local cachers on FTF hunts or after events, so those run-ins aren't all that exciting. However two encounters stick out in my mind as truly bizarre since neither myself nor the cachers I met were from the area.

1) April 2008 - I was in Omaha for an academic conference and had an afternoon to walk around downtown. I must have looked pretty obvious staring down at my GPS wandering around a park, when I heard someone say "did you find it yet?" Turns out it was another out-of-town cacher, visiting from South Dakota.

2) June 2008 - Driving across the country from Philadelphia to LA. I had time for one cache in Flagstaff AZ when I ran into a cacher from Phoenix.

Kinda makes me wonder how many caching encounters I might have had if I were a few minutes earlier or later.

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We were out caching in a local park one weekend and had just finished visiting a cache back in a field off the paved path. As we were walking back to the dirt bicycle path for the next cache, a dad and two boys rode up and the boys bailed and headed straight for the tree the cache was under.

 

Realizing we where there, they all sort of froze. I looked at dad and said, 'I know what you're looking for!' He told the boys it was ok to pull the cache out as we already knew it was there. I suspect it was the CO and offspring, but I'm not sure.

 

Kinda funny.

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We hadn't met too many cachers except for those at events until we were working on the last few counties of the Allegheny GeoTrail in PA. One day we met 3 different sets of cachers and almost met a 4th had he known we were cachers. We really enjoyed meeting cachers from other areas and learning about GeoTrails in their area.

 

As we pull in to an area, we often wonder if the person pulling out just finished finding the cache or if the person pulling in behind is doing the same thing.

 

What a great way to meet lots of new people and get out and about!!

 

N of JandN93

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The first two I ever met were both in really odd places. The first was on a weekday evening at the end of a dead end dirt road in the middle of the country in sparsely populated western Kansas. The second was in a park in the middle of a small town in northeast Kansas on a weeknight after dark. I walked up to the area where the virtual was and there's a guy up there shining a flashlight on the sign that I needed to read.

 

Neither of the cachers were from the immediate area. Both were from over 100 miles away.

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I've ran into a few cachers while out caching. It's always a little bit of an odd experience for me. The first time I ran into someone they were calling to me saying "Do you like my hat?" I was thinking that some weirdo was talking to me but when I looked closer he had on a geocaching hat. The second time I ran into a cacher we were in a park with lots of trails and we ran into each other right when I got to GZ. He said that he didn't have that one loaded into his GPS and continued on his way the cache he was going for! I thought that was a little odd, cause I had the coords and was more than willing to share. Maybe it was an ethical dilemma with him, I don't know. The third time was when I was giving up on a night cache and ran into a team that just started the hunt. We worked together up to where I got lost and then I said enough, left, and wished them good luck, went home and logged the DNF. Still havn't seen the other DNF or Find, huh.

 

I think that I've been training my self to be so inconspicuous that I don't even want to get caught by another cacher! I do really like to meet the people behind the name though.

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