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What is the longest Caching streak !

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Jamie Z

+Jamie Z

Posted
Posted

I'm only guessing, but I think my longest streak, as defined by you, would only be five or six days...

 

But regarding other streaks, I once had a streak of somewhere around 70 caches over two or three months by bicycle.

 

Dunno if they frequent the forums much any more, but Koneko and Kablooey both had year+ streaks of finding at least a cache a day.

 

Jamie

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nittany dave

+nittany dave

Posted
Posted

I know of at least one person who has found at least one cache every day for over 2 years!

 

I just looked. The person nittanydave mentions found a cache yesterday. 763 days in a row with a find. Dang.

 

Assuming I'm thinking of the same person as nittanydave ...

You probably are but there are 2 people with this streak going. I keep wondering which one will drop first.
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Lil Devil

+Lil Devil

Posted
Posted

frivlas has found at least one cache every day since a few days after she started caching in April, 2005. That puts her up to 1,443 days today.

 

(She hasn't logged the finds from a geocaching road trip at the beginning of March, so there is an online hole that still needs to be filled in, but I'm sure it will be soon.)

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fuzziebear3

+fuzziebear3

Posted
Posted
On 2/13/2021 at 12:25 PM, cerberus1 said:

Maybe it's just me, but I'd think that many "streaks" kinda got zapped at least a couple days once the virus hit, and lockdowns started...

 

Depends on where you are, your level of 'lockdown', and your level of risk.

 

Our parks were never closed, we were encouraged to get exercise.  So to me geocaching was fine during lockdown.   Just don't do it in a group.

 

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barefootjeff

+barefootjeff

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, fuzziebear3 said:

 

Depends on where you are, your level of 'lockdown', and your level of risk.

 

Our parks were never closed, we were encouraged to get exercise.  So to me geocaching was fine during lockdown.   Just don't do it in a group.

 

 

In the 6-week lockdown here last April-May, we were allowed outdoor exercise but only within our local area. Having found all the caches in that area, it was a 61-day slump for me although I was able to do routine checks on some of my hides and also suss out locations for new ones. At the time we were coming out of hard lockdown, a quirk of the rules banned travel for recreation but allowed it for the purposes of a picnic, so on my first cache outing with a small group of friends we made sure to have a picnic at the end of our hike.

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frostengel

+frostengel

Posted
Posted (edited)

I read about 5000+ days caching streaks. I can't imagine that to be fun all the time. It must be pure work most of the days. My longest streak was 111 days (for a challenge cache) and there were many times it was just hard but if your goal is 111 days and you have already gotton 50 days you can't stop - you have to....

 

We had cachers who posted about their streak in each of there logs. They said to have about a streak of 1000 days. Cachers told me when they were doing a series of caches one day they found some caches and those streak cachers had logged those with different (!) future (!) dates to have logs for the next days. That's a way I could do that too. So I suppose from these five records

 

On 2/13/2021 at 7:42 PM, Gome210 said:

DrJay; 5132

Night-Hawk; 5096

 Ranger Fox;5091

 Team Geo-Rangers;5038

 IMSpider;4957

 

at most (!) one of them has done it without cheating. But if I think about it more closely I'd say none of those streaks is a true streak. Sorry for my honesty. :-)

 

Jochen

Edited by frostengel
fixed two typos
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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, david&diana said:

I know Night-Hawk and Ranger Fox personally. We've been caching with each of them. Their streaks are real. They've gone to a lot of work and jumped through a lot of hoops to maintain their streaks.   -- Diana

 

"jumped through a lot of hoops"....what does that mean?  Is that similar to "gamed the system"?

 

Although setting a goal to find a cache "n" days in a row may be a good way to create a personal challenge,  if as many have described it becomes a chore, and simply finding a cache, any cache, becomes the focus I don't think it's good for the game.  It just supports the notion, that numbers, not quality is all that matters.  

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DreamMachine74

+DreamMachine74

Posted
Posted

I'm no good with streaks, although I don't drive nor do I care to cache consistently over a larger period of time. Last year I did a streak,  not very long, but it was 21 days.....from 2020-02-21 to 2020-03-12. I did much of that streak with a hand injury which made caching tougher...but in spite of that injury, I hid a 3/5 ammo can. 

 

My no caches streak is 917 days according to GC....but I don't know if thats actually the true number. My first 4 finds were all logged on one day...the day I created an account. But I found my first cache a full month and change before I created that account...so I don't know much about those first few caches in any way. (But I do have a photo of my first cache...I posted it online in April..thats how I know that*)

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MNTA

+MNTA

Posted
Posted (edited)
14 hours ago, david&diana said:

I know Night-Hawk and Ranger Fox personally. We've been caching with each of them. Their streaks are real. They've gone to a lot of work and jumped through a lot of hoops to maintain their streaks.   -- Diana

 

When you start a longer streak no one tells you how hard it truly is. You have to work it, save those easy one for when you have a 101 degree fever and need that easy LPC a mile from your home. Or have to venture out in an ice storm just to keep it alive. Both happened to me. Days you have more time drive as far away as you can and have a backup ready for that DNF. Oh and you can only find one specially if they are close by, got to save them for another day just in case. 

 

I'll add there is no cheating. The last thing you want is for your log to be deleted and all your hard work go poof. 

Edited by MNTA
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dprovan

+dprovan

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, MNTA said:

When you start a longer streak no one tells you how hard it truly is. You have to work it, save those easy one for when you have a 101 degree fever and need that easy LPC a mile from your home. Or have to venture out in an ice storm just to keep it alive. Both happened to me. Days you have more time drive as far away as you can and have a backup ready for that DNF. Oh and you can only find one specially if they are close by, got to save them for another day just in case. 

 

I'll add there is no cheating. The last thing you want is for your log to be deleted and all your hard work go poof. 

That's all true, so it can be tricky, but I didn't find it that hard when I cached for a year. Mainly it just meant planning out the week instead of just deciding when and where to go caching when I felt like it. OK, admittedly there are lots of caches in my area, so I never had to drive more than a half hour, and I didn't get get sick or face an ice storm. Since I cache mainly for the walks, one thing I did was save nearby trails, doing only the first cache and turning around the first day, then coming back for each further cache on other days. Another tip: do it early in your career while there are still plenty of unfound caches nearby.

 

To me, the hardest part was trips. Unfamiliar areas, unexpected hide styles, COs with unknown idiosyncrasies, caches in languages I didn't understand, but the biggest challenge was getting caches on either end of the flight to Europe.

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baer2006

+baer2006

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, MNTA said:

I'll add there is no cheating. The last thing you want is for your log to be deleted and all your hard work go poof. 

Outright fake logging is not the sort of "cheating" I see here (in Germany). Instead people do things like ...

  • ... log finds online not with the date when they found the cache. E.g. doing a short trail on the weekend (and signing all logbooks), but distributing the online find logs over the following week. Sometimes the pre-planned online logging date is even noted in the paper log.
  • ... logging containerless caches (Virtual, Earth) not with the date when they were on location, but with the date they send the required answers to the CO.
  • ... logging challenge caches, where they visited the cache some time ago, with an arbitrary date later (when the challenge is fulfilled).
  • ... have friends write their name in a cache logbook on days when they cannot find a cache (e.g. because of travel or illness).

None of this is outside the guidelines, but it's IMHO still questionable and turns "finding a cache every day" to "logging a cache find every day" - which is something entirely different, and much easier.

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TeamRabbitRun

+TeamRabbitRun

Posted
Posted (edited)
59 minutes ago, baer2006 said:

Outright fake logging is not the sort of "cheating" I see here (in Germany). Instead people do things like ...

  • ... log finds online not with the date when they found the cache. E.g. doing a short trail on the weekend (and signing all logbooks), but distributing the online find logs over the following week. Sometimes the pre-planned online logging date is even noted in the paper log.
  • ... logging containerless caches (Virtual, Earth) not with the date when they were on location, but with the date they send the required answers to the CO.
  • ... logging challenge caches, where they visited the cache some time ago, with an arbitrary date later (when the challenge is fulfilled).
  • ... have friends write their name in a cache logbook on days when they cannot find a cache (e.g. because of travel or illness).

None of this is outside the guidelines, but it's IMHO still questionable and turns "finding a cache every day" to "logging a cache find every day" - which is something entirely different, and much easier.

 

Wellll, I agree, except that I think 'outright fake logging', as you put it, IS cheating. People will always play the "exact text of the statute" game to justify things, but I think the concept is pretty clear to me, and that's the interpretation I'd impose and enforce on my caching activities.

 

"Find a cache every day" is clear to me. Find a cache every day. Why in the world would anyone set up a challenge (with a small "C") to make a find every day, with the thought that, "And, they could make it meaningless by finding seven on Sunday, and not have to go caching for a week! Awesome!"

 

Does that make ANY sense, original-intent-wise? 

 

So, I myself have argued pretty strongly in these fora that the noun "FIND" in geocaching isn't the same as the common English word "find" in that your "FIND" isn't complete until perhaps a few days later when you log it, but the "find" (the physical, hands-on part) happens on a certain day. 

 

If you don't agree  that THAT'S the event they mean when they say "every day", and you want to split hairs about definitions and waggle your finger at me about consistency in my own arguments, then we can play a round of 'apples&oranges', but we'd be wasting time; time we could be spending out FINDing tupperware in the woods. Today.

 

Edited by TeamRabbitRun
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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, baer2006 said:
  • ... have friends write their name in a cache logbook on days when they cannot find a cache (e.g. because of travel or illness).

None of this is outside the guidelines, but it's IMHO still questionable and turns "finding a cache every day" to "logging a cache find every day" - which is something entirely different, and much easier.

 

having a friend write their name in a cache logbook isn't cheating?  

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barefootjeff

+barefootjeff

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, baer2006 said:
  • ... have friends write their name in a cache logbook on days when they cannot find a cache (e.g. because of travel or illness).

None of this is outside the guidelines, but it's IMHO still questionable and turns "finding a cache every day" to "logging a cache find every day" - which is something entirely different, and much easier.

 

The guideline says "You can log caches online as "Found" after you visited the coordinates and signed the logbook." How do you satisfy the visited the coordinates bit if you're not there due to travel or illness?

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baer2006

+baer2006

Posted
Posted (edited)
25 minutes ago, TeamRabbitRun said:

 

Thanks for making me look twice, NYPC  - I didn't mean to imply that I don't consider his four bullet items cheating; I strongly do. 

And so do I ;) .

 

I only wanted to say, that it's not "cheating" in the sense that the cache owner is entitled to delete the find log. As a response to what MNTA said:

12 hours ago, MNTA said:

I'll add there is no cheating. The last thing you want is for your log to be deleted and all your hard work go poof. 

If I log an online find on day X, and the CO has 100% fool-proof evidence that I wasn't near his cache on day X, but my name is in the cache's logbook, they still cannot delete the find. Same for my other points - all are in a way "streak cheating", but are safe from log deletion by cache owners.

Edited by baer2006
misleading typo
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baer2006

+baer2006

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:
1 hour ago, baer2006 said:
  • ... have friends write their name in a cache logbook on days when they cannot find a cache (e.g. because of travel or illness).

None of this is outside the guidelines, but it's IMHO still questionable and turns "finding a cache every day" to "logging a cache find every day" - which is something entirely different, and much easier.

 

The guideline says "You can log caches online as "Found" after you visited the coordinates and signed the logbook." How do you satisfy the visited the coordinates bit if you're not there due to travel or illness?

Uh ... yes. You're right, and I was wrong. I somehow had in mind, that you signature (or stamp, or anything with your caching name on it) qualifies you for a find log. But that's obviously not true for the current guidelines (and maybe it never was).

 

Unfortunately, if push came to shove, I would expect that in a "log deletion battle", the fake logger would win (with GS locking their log against deletion) if they provide photographic evidence of their name in the logbook. So at least my point that it's "deletion-safe cheating" might still stand ;) .

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cerberus1

+cerberus1

Posted
Posted (edited)
25 minutes ago, baer2006 said:

 I somehow had in mind, that you signature (or stamp, or anything with your caching name on it) qualifies you for a find log. But that's obviously not true for the current guidelines (and maybe it never was).

Unfortunately, if push came to shove, I would expect that in a "log deletion battle", the fake logger would win (with GS locking their log against deletion) if they provide photographic evidence of their name in the logbook. So at least my point that it's "deletion-safe cheating" might still stand ;) .

 

I kinda agree.   No photo evidence required.  :)

I feel "...visited the coordinates and signed the logbook" is someone simply typing in more than needed to guidelines.

This is the site that won't allow you to ignore COs, or wouldn't allow a "not helpful" vote due to negativity on cache page logs.  ;)

 - So I feel it's assumed that you visited the cache to have your sig there. 

It'd be different if the cache was TD and removed a day or two before the claimed "find"...

We know there's someone who'd try their darndest to "prove" a fellow member didn't visit when their signature's in the book, but it seems silly.

Edited by cerberus1
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TeamRabbitRun

+TeamRabbitRun

Posted
Posted
35 minutes ago, baer2006 said:

And so do I ;) .

 

I only wanted to say, that it's not "cheating" in the sense that the cache owner is entitled to delete the find log. As a response to what MNTA said:

If I log an online find on day X, and the CO has 100% fool-proof evidence that I wasn't near his cache on day X, but my name is in the cache's logbook, they still cannot delete the find. Same for my other points - all are in a way "streak cheating", but are safe from log deletion by cache owners.

 

20 minutes ago, baer2006 said:

Uh ... yes. You're right, and I was wrong. I somehow had in mind, that you signature (or stamp, or anything with your caching name on it) qualifies you for a find log. But that's obviously not true for the current guidelines (and maybe it never was).

 

Unfortunately, if push came to shove, I would expect that in a "log deletion battle", the fake logger would win (with GS locking their log against deletion) if they provide photographic evidence of their name in the logbook. So at least my point that it's "deletion-safe cheating" might still stand ;) .

 

 

I wouldn't bet on losing that one.

If you visit a cache on Monday, and date your log on Friday, it's a fake log.  Does it matter in most cases? No, but it's not real. Many of these exist because for the most part, the exact date isn't important to most people.

 

If, as in your post, there's incontrovertible proof that you WERE there on Monday and NOT there on Friday, and I as a CO say that the exact date is important to me for some reason such as:

  • Being involved in a tracking effort for physical site traffic, or
  • The online log is dated when the container wasn't present - maybe you need to prove to a land manager that you're respecting his 'removal' wishes as a basis for establishing better relations with him in the future, etc.

Again, in 99.999% of the cases it doesn't matter, but I wouldn't be surprised if GS supported a CO who has a need for accurate dating. At the least, it would send a message that the fundamental rules do matter below the level where "everyone plays their own way".

 

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david&diana

+david&diana

Posted
Posted

Jumped through a lot of hoops does not mean gaming the system. It means going caching in rain, sleet, snow, and electrical storms. It means caching in the dark of night because you had to work all day. It means caching when you are sick and don't feel like getting out of bed but you do to keep the streak alive.

 

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baer2006

+baer2006

Posted
Posted
42 minutes ago, david&diana said:

It means caching when you are sick and don't feel like getting out of bed but you do to keep the streak alive.

... and that means you need a very stable basic health, and also a bit of luck. I've had a few days during my geocaching "career", where it was physically impossible for me to get out of bed (recovery from a surgery).

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david&diana

+david&diana

Posted
Posted

Agreed. It also means saving the 1.5/1.5 caches close to home until you really need them, knowing you run the risk of them being archived before you find them. I know a cacher that went out just after midnight of the day he was scheduled for minor surgery. The next day, he went out in the evening after he was released from the hospital, to find a cache.

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barefootjeff

+barefootjeff

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, david&diana said:

It also means saving the 1.5/1.5 caches close to home until you really need them, knowing you run the risk of them being archived before you find them.

 

And therein lies the problem as most 1.5/1.5 urban caches tend to have a fairly short lifespan, often just a few months. These are all the 1.5/1.5s in my local area, or at least the area I could have legally accessed during last year's six-week lockdown:

 

image.png.9038a8beb2e2d8e59e51f8c2dc65ba43.png

 

Not really enough to sustain much of a streak even for a newbie fresh out of muggledom. Just as well my caching interests lie elsewhere but I pity anyone else in this part of the world, or other places like it, who might have an urge for streaking.

Edited by barefootjeff
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dprovan

+dprovan

Posted
Posted
14 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

And therein lies the problem as most 1.5/1.5 urban caches tend to have a fairly short lifespan, often just a few months. These are all the 1.5/1.5s in my local area, or at least the area I could have legally accessed during last year's six-week lockdown:

In case you didn't realize this: that's not true of 1.5/1.5 urban caches in general. I don't know why your area has trouble with them. In my area, 1.5/1.5s last fine, and, what's at least as important, they are created more frequently than they're archived.

 

16 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

Not really enough to sustain much of a streak even for a newbie fresh out of muggledom. Just as well my caching interests lie elsewhere but I pity anyone else in this part of the world, or other places like it, who might have an urge for streaking.

Certainly one wouldn't expect to complete a streak in the middle of a pandemic during which you count yourself lucky to do any caching at all. But, ignoring that, there's no denying streaking isn't for everyone. One hopes streak challenges are rare or, at least, scaled down in an area like yours that can't support long streaks. What's the point of hiding a cache that no one will ever find?

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baer2006

+baer2006

Posted
Posted
26 minutes ago, dprovan said:

One hopes streak challenges are rare or, at least, scaled down in an area like yours that can't support long streaks.

There is a guideline, which says that a challenge must be attainable be enough local cachers (whatever "local" means in that context). So a 365-day-streak challenge somewhere far away from any cache-dense area should not be published.

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barefootjeff

+barefootjeff

Posted
Posted (edited)
11 hours ago, dprovan said:

In case you didn't realize this: that's not true of 1.5/1.5 urban caches in general. I don't know why your area has trouble with them. In my area, 1.5/1.5s last fine, and, what's at least as important, they are created more frequently than they're archived.

 

It's not just my local area, I've seen the same thing in the parts of Sydney I'd regularly visit pre-pandemic, namely the northern beaches and around Sydney Harbour (notably the Manly and Watsons Bay areas). In 2019 a bunch of new urban caches appeared around Manly and Fairlight but they didn't last long, usually muggled within weeks and ultimately archived. It looks like they've all gone now and their owner has lost interest. When I first started caching, there was a good number of caches along the Palm Beach peninsula but they've mostly disappeared and been archived, with only the higher terrain bushland hides surviving there.

 

One of my caching friends, who started in 2018, specialises in urban hides but has already had to archive 6 of them due to repeated mugglings and, of his remaining 9, most have had to be replaced at least once after muggles have made off with them. While there are exceptions of course, in my experience it's mostly only the very well camouflaged higher-D caches that seem to survive in urban environments. Of the 202 1.5/1.5 caches I've found in my 8 years of caching, almost half have since been archived and, of the remainder, most are roadside hides on rural roads rather than urban hides. But maybe it's different in the USA with your LPCs, as that's something muggles are unlikely to go fiddling with unless they've seen a cacher lifting a skirt.

 

Edit to add: By comparison, across all my finds 70% are still in play and that rises to 85% for caches T3 and higher.

Edited by barefootjeff
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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

Posted
Posted
On 2/17/2021 at 2:59 PM, baer2006 said:

And so do I ;) .

 

I only wanted to say, that it's not "cheating" in the sense that the cache owner is entitled to delete the find log. As a response to what MNTA said:

If I log an online find on day X, and the CO has 100% fool-proof evidence that I wasn't near his cache on day X, but my name is in the cache's logbook, they still cannot delete the find. Same for my other points - all are in a way "streak cheating", but are safe from log deletion by cache owners.

 

That sounds like an excuse, taking advantage of a loop hole to make a claim to have done something that was not really done.   The fact that one can get away with logging a find because their name is in the logbook, doesn't change the fact that the challenge is to find a cache every day.  Claiming that you've found a cache every day when if you haven't is dishonest and I can't believe how some condone dishonesty (e.g. it's not hurting anyone) in this game.

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baer2006

+baer2006

Posted
Posted
18 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

That sounds like an excuse, taking advantage of a loop hole to make a claim to have done something that was not really done.   The fact that one can get away with logging a find because their name is in the logbook, doesn't change the fact that the challenge is to find a cache every day.  Claiming that you've found a cache every day when if you haven't is dishonest and I can't believe how some condone dishonesty (e.g. it's not hurting anyone) in this game.

I know, and I'm not the one who is excusing dishonesty. But many "streakers" do, that's simply a fact.

I never even tried a streak which was worth the name. But if I did, I would definitely not resort to questionable logging practices or loop holes.

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