Seasonality

[+Steve&GeoCarolyn]

My beloved keeps pointing out that most of the geocaching logs in this region cluster around the cooler months. (His ultimate goal is to convince me that geocaching in July and August in the local wetlands is too unpleasant even for dedicated geocachers and that I should plan other activities, preferably air-conditioned activities.)

 

Tzipora in another thread pointed out the advantages of geocaching in Alaska (no snakes). I suspect that if we were there my beloved would be pointing out the sparsity of geocaching logs in winter months.

 

Is there a geocaching season where you are? Or a geocaching heavy season and light season? Is there a season when you absolutely will not venture out to geocache? Or do you switch to urban hides in the difficult months? Or do you just gut it out no matter how deep the snow, or how hot, humid, and mosquito-filled the air is?

 

Carolyn

[+flask]

around here geocaching season runs from may to october and then again from november to june.

 

personally, may and october are the months when i cache most. i leave my house on may 1 and october 1 each year and stay out caching for the whole month. i also typically have a cache streak during the first week of july, labor day, and the second week of september. while i often go caching during ski season and bike season, i am mostly skiing or biking during those times.

[+sheppardnik]

Here in NW Florida we get a lot of new cachers during the summer months. So although we have to put up with the tourist traffic on the roads we also get lots of new tourist traffic to the caches - a good trade!

 

I'm on my second caching summer and I plan to drop the woods caches until after it gets cooler (probably mid-October). It's frustrating having to wait when there are so many good hides still waiting to be found, but the flying monkeys (mosquitos), heat-stroke, and mutant spiders just aren't worth battling!

[+bartrod]

I live in northeastern Wisconsin...God and Packer country:) I hate mosquito and tick season...and snow. But I've found ways to work around them...bug repellent and mosquito headnets for one. For the other, it's searching for caches with the little snowflake icons in the attributes.

[+ngrrfan]

I have no idea if there is a "season" in this area nor do I care.

 

I have a season that started in early May and will run til late April.

 

Basically, if the weather is nice..... I'll be out there.

[+BCandMsKitty]

We cche all year, but tend to keep the urban caches for the hot, buggy months and stay out of the woodlots as much as possible. Mosquitoes just get too bad around here, so we stay in town more.

[+bafl01]

well we have been caching less than a year but as soon as the temp hit 95+ the logs stopped coming ... slowed to a crawl ... but that is everything here in phoenix

[+Harry Dolphin]

Oregano, some garlic...

Spring and fall are the best times, though I find the most during the summer. Vacation, longer daylight hours, visiting relatives...

[+gmcpower98]

We prefer the in between months here in Michigan.

Spring and Fall, but, will cache all year round if it's

not either a blizzard or hot and humid!

[+skeezicks]

Here in Montana,I cache year round.I have had stretches where I have had to wait for the weather to break or more caches to come up in my area.It is definately harder to cache in the winter here because of large amounts of some we sometimes get.I still like to search for some in the snow,but it usually will depend on the cache size.It is possible to find an ammo can under a foot or more of snow,but a micro is usually out of the question...even though I have looked for and found some under as much as 3-4 feet.A lot of luck and the snow being powdery enough not to be very difficult to dig in helped me out a few times.

[+DatCrazyMongoose]

All of Spokane got snowed in from early December until mid-April. I had signed up just before the snow and only got a couple before it was too late. Once the snow melted, I got back into it and probably won't let up until I get snowed in again.

[+briansnat]

I see the most activity on my caches about 10 months out of the year. Things tend to slow down a bit in July and August. A deep snow pack can cut down on winter finds but that happens here maybe one out of every 3 or 4 years.

[+VirginiaGator]

We're year round geocachers, but we stay away from the woods in the summer. We used to not care. But after a few trips with stagnant, HOT air and the critters including ticks and snakes, we'll skip it until the fall and winter. We like urbans in the summer!

[+JediAshley]

I live in Tucson, AZ and I have no problem being out in the heat during the summer. I just make sure to have cold drinks with me and I'm fine. I'm still new to this but I'm sure it will really pick up in the fall and winter.

[+Wooden Cyclist]

I started Geocaching in February of this year. Now that we are building up to summer weather here I have realized that Geocaching in the cooler months is more enjoyable. There are fewer bugs and less sweat rolling off my forehead.

 

I will still cache year round, but my smiles will be bigger from Sept to April.

[Andronicus]

Up here in Western Canada, winter is slow. Not many logs, not many new hides. As I only started caching in early March (still tons on snow, and new snow falling), I did lots of caching during the winter. It was kind of frustrating though as most caches didn't have the winter attribute set or crossed out. Come wintertime around here, that attribute is of utmost importantce. I don't want to spend an hour searching around in 2 feet (or more) of snow for a 1 difficulty cache, only to post a DNF. Did that more than a few times. Even 1 or 2 inches of freash snow can make a 1 difficulty more like a 3 or 4.

Edited June 14, 2009 by Andronicus

[+todd300]

I live in northeastern Wisconsin...God and Packer country:) I hate mosquito and tick season...and snow. But I've found ways to work around them...bug repellent and mosquito headnets for one. For the other, it's searching for caches with the little snowflake icons in the attributes.

 

Yes, Bartrod is quite good at caching year round. One time he took advantage of the winter by getting a cache on a river that was supposed to be only accessed by boat in the spring, summer or fall. The terrain was rated a 5 mainly due to the boat ride to the cache. In the winter, Bartrod simply walked to it over the ice and got it. He wasn't the only one that got it in the winter like that. Others have too.

 

So it's funny how certain caches can have a higher difficulty level in one season, but be easier on other times.

 

Myself, I only started caching for less than two months so far (April 17 , 2009 was my first find.) So I have no idea what winter caching is like. But right now as the weather is getting much warmer here in Green Bay Packer country, the ticks are out in full force and the skeeters are coming out too. We'll see if I continue to go into the woods. The ticks don't really bother me. I just pluck them off when I get home and put some triple antibiotic on any bites. The skeeters are another matter. Even with bug dope, skeeters can swarm around me and they are big enough to have their own airports complete with control towers.

 

Even when it's 80 degrees outside, I wear a hoodie when I'm in the woods so that only my face and hands are exposed to limit ticks and skeeters on me. But I'm not gonna stop caching just because of a few bugs.

 

Many caches that I found when I first started out are now covered by foliage so they would be tougher to find now. I spotted many hides in the early spring from a distance when the foliage didn't grow yet. Those same hides are well covered now.

 

I'm looking forward to fall caching when the leaves turn colors. We have fall colors hikes in my area and I'll be able to do a little geocaching on the side and admire the fall colors.

 

One of my caching friends told me that fall is his favorite time of the season for caching too.

 

I guess seasonality is in the eye of the beholder

[+Massis87]

I live in Belgium, we don't have seaons over here, it's always cold and wet :-p

 

we do have seasons of course, but it rarely gets below -5°C and rarely over 30°C , and it rains as much in summer as it does during the winter, so we can basicly go geocaching all year round

[knowschad]

Spring and fall are by far my busiest caching seasons, but I cache in all months, even here in the Minnesota snow. No ticks or mosquitos here in January.

[+J-Way]

Spring and fall are by far my busiest caching seasons, but I cache in all months, even here in the Minnesota snow. No ticks or mosquitos here in January.

Ditto, except change "Minnesota" to "Tennessee". Actually, I live due east of the OP, but up in the mountains a bit.

 

And even though I was beaten to the punch line, some of my favorite caches were in southern California where the trail wound up a hillside covered in acres of sage bushes. Even with all the sweat my clothes smelled awesome at the end of the trek.

[Rocketsteve]

My beloved keeps pointing out that most of the geocaching logs in this region cluster around the cooler months. (His ultimate goal is to convince me that geocaching in July and August in the local wetlands is too unpleasant even for dedicated geocachers and that I should plan other activities, preferably air-conditioned activities.)

 

Is there a geocaching season where you are? Or a geocaching heavy season and light season? Is there a season when you absolutely will not venture out to geocache? Or do you switch to urban hides in the difficult months? Or do you just gut it out no matter how deep the snow, or how hot, humid, and mosquito-filled the air is?

 

Carolyn

 

In central Florida, the WORST time to geocache is:

 

1. When the outside temperature is hot enough to cook an egg on the sidewalk or scorch your eyeballs out of their sockets.

 

2. When ANY category of hurricane is getting ready to wipe you and and few million of your closest friends off the face of the map.

 

3. When you're looking pale, because a mosquito, with a hypodermic needle attached to it's face, is sucking blood directly from your carotid artery. (We grow them big here.)

 

4. When there are more Pygmy and Eastern Diamonback rattlesanakes in the palmetto stands than there are geocaches.

 

The moral of the story is: "The WORST time to geocache is probably the BEST time to go to the beach!"

 

Can somebody please pass me the suntan lotion?

Edited June 18, 2009 by rocketsteve

[+todd300]

Rocketsteve,

 

In my neck of the woods, the skeeters are big enough to have their own airports complete with a control tower.

 

The ticks are big enough that I attach to them..not the other way around.

[+Parabola]

Personally I'll cache in all season's. Just be prepard for the weather. I've got a camelpac for summer hiking, make sure you have plenty of water, even if your taking some back with you, it's better to have too much then not enough. I carry some bug wipes in my pack for the summer month's. Yeah I've had some tick's well alot of tick's but we just deal with them as they pop up.

 

I think I like caching in the winter myself the most. Maybe cause that's when I found my first cache and cross a frozen lake to an island on one heck of an adventure.

 

So far this summer I've been too busy to do much caching at all, but the weather isn't the reason. I'll cache in anything. And yup I've even cached in a snowstorm.