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Ever find a geocache you were not looking for?


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Have you ever been hiking around and just happen on a geocache even though you were not looking for it? And if so what do you do? Do you sign the long and then look it up on Geocaching.com and sign that page? What if it was a tough mystery cache? Would you feel like you cheated?

 

This has never happened to me, yet. But I think I would try to solve the mystery or hunt down the other caches if it was a multi before I took credit for it. Not sure what the etiquette is for this situation though.

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Was in the local library with my son and killing time while he was looking up non-fiction books to take home.

 

Looked up and saw a book entitled 'Geocaching' by CacheEffect and, being that I was brand-new to the sport, figured I'd sign it out and learn some tips.

 

Opened it up to scan through it and it was a cache!

 

Totally blew me (and my son) away. The work that went into this "container" was absolutely fantastic. It really was an actual book, hollowed out 'spy style'.

 

Fantastic accidental find.

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A few times. Once I was walking by an abandoned amphitheater in the middle of the woods and thought it would be a good spot for a cache. I crawled underneath and spotted the perfect spot for an ammo can, and sure enough there was an ammo can. It was the final stage of a multi-cache that started about a mile away.

 

More recently I was looking to hide a few caches along a brand new trail system. I climbed the trail and it came to a nice overlook. I spotted a little "cave" and thought it would be perfect for a cache. I placed my cache and was moving leaves to cover it a bit better and uncovered a brand new cache. It wasn't even listed yet. So I signed the log and logged my find when the cache was published a few days later.

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A few times. Once I was walking by an abandoned amphitheater in the middle of the woods and thought it would be a good spot for a cache. I crawled underneath and spotted the perfect spot for an ammo can, and sure enough there was an ammo can. It was the final stage of a multi-cache that started about a mile away.

 

More recently I was looking to hide a few caches along a brand new trail system. I climbed the trail and it came to a nice overlook. I spotted a little "cave" and thought it would be perfect for a cache. I placed my cache and was moving leaves to cover it a bit better and uncovered a brand new cache. It wasn't even listed yet. So I signed the log and logged my find when the cache was published a few days later.

 

Now that is what I would call a FTF! I love CdnBulldog book story as well. I guess if it has happened to the three of you then it has likely happened to a lot of other people as well. So it sounds like you guys have no moral problem with just logging the find then.

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I have found six puzzle finals by chance. The most amazing accidental find was one I thought was an on-location type puzzle that this noobie believed to have solved as designed when logged. I went to the general area and found the micro right where I thought it should be. Later, the CO told me how it was supposed to be solved, using hidden code on the cache page. Whenever I pass that one I marvel at how my outside-the-box thinking connected the bogus onsite visual clues to the completely unrelated and nonexistent photo puzzle clues, and made them work! S :ph34r: mehow!

 

Two I went back and solved before claiming. No, taking coords at GZ was no help. Another I had already solved months earlier but neglected to check the map location for the final coordinates. The fifth puzzle I tried to retro-solve, but never managed to make it work, even after many hours of trying. The CO offered the solution, but I still hope to solve it myself someday. That one had been stumbled upon by more muggles and cachers that hadn't solved the puzzle than solving finders, I believe, so I didn't feel as though I had cheated the other finders by claiming that hide. And last one I found by suspecting it was at that location, and later, I went back and found all of the clue caches.

 

While I prefer to solve the puzzles, that most probably would not does not bother me. It is usually an uncommon chance thing--not on the level of PAF for the coords to my eye. If it feels right to go back and solve the puzzle, then you should do so microvision. For pride, satisfaction and all that stuff. :D

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Yepper, about three weeks ago was trying for a brand new cache. Located a cache opened it and all of the dates were 4+ years old ... HUH ... signed the log like I was fat dumb and happy, posted my curious find on our forum. One of the grizzled, cagey old veteran cachers remembered the cache and clued me in. Went back two days later, found the real cache about 15 feet away from the one I had located earlier, retrieved the old cache ( Geo litter ).

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IMO, a find is a find. If you found it and signed the log, theres no shame in logging it found. I've found a few like this.

 

I'm going after a couple tough puzzles tonight that I have no idea how to solve, but theres enough caches and hints around to narrow down the area and search "blind" for them.

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Also as a puzzle owner, I would have no problem with someone logging a find if they found one of my puzzle caches on "accident".

 

In fact, on a multi of mine, stage 1 is difficult but stage 2 is pretty easy. There are a number of pictures of the final cache and cache site so whenever I get a DNF where someone says "couldn't find stage 1" I think: "man, they shoulda looked at the pics and skipped stage 1"........I would have. :ph34r:

Edited by simpjkee
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I found a puzzle where the coords after solving the puzzle were wrong. I knew they were wrong and went to find the cache where i thought it should be. I was right and found it without the puzzle, then emailed the CO to tell them the puzzle was wrong. They fixed it and thanked me.

 

No wonder I got FTF on that one :ph34r: everyone else was looking on the wrong side of town :s

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We were traveling from Texas to Wisconsin and stopped in a welcome center in Oklahoma. I was standing at the counter talking to the lady and my wife was in the gift shop looking through the books. My wife brought a book about geocaching over and showed it to me, and the lady says "oh we have one of those here, would you like me to get it"? So she goes in the back room and brought out a 50 cal. ammo can.

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A few times. Once I was walking by an abandoned amphitheater in the middle of the woods and thought it would be a good spot for a cache. I crawled underneath and spotted the perfect spot for an ammo can, and sure enough there was an ammo can. It was the final stage of a multi-cache that started about a mile away.

 

More recently I was looking to hide a few caches along a brand new trail system. I climbed the trail and it came to a nice overlook. I spotted a little "cave" and thought it would be perfect for a cache. I placed my cache and was moving leaves to cover it a bit better and uncovered a brand new cache. It wasn't even listed yet. So I signed the log and logged my find when the cache was published a few days later.

 

Now that is what I would call a FTF! I love CdnBulldog book story as well. I guess if it has happened to the three of you then it has likely happened to a lot of other people as well. So it sounds like you guys have no moral problem with just logging the find then.

 

I found the cache. What am I going to log, a DNF?

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Wow, you guys have a lot of great accidental cache find stories! I thought that it might have happened a few times but not this many. I would think accidentally finding a cache must be as exciting to a geocacher as a hole in one is to a golfer.

And Brainsnat, if you say it is ok to sign them then that is good enough for me. Now I know what to do if I ever get that lucky.

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I was hiking in the Baylands on Sunday and came to a location between caches (yup, 528 feet away from nearest, must be something around here somewhere :tongue: ) and peeked and peered around until I found a big green nut jar. Opened it and it was certainly a geocache alright, so I signed the log and put it back, noting the location I found if I needed to solve a puzzle to honestly claim the find (who says you can't have dessert first?) When I got home I found it was a cache I expected to find at another location. How odd. The cache had instructions on the page to find from GZ to actual GZ, but was listed as a Traditional rather than a Multi or Puzzle.

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I was hiking in the Baylands on Sunday and came to a location between caches (yup, 528 feet away from nearest, must be something around here somewhere :tongue: ) and peeked and peered around until I found a big green nut jar. Opened it and it was certainly a geocache alright, so I signed the log and put it back, noting the location I found if I needed to solve a puzzle to honestly claim the find (who says you can't have dessert first?) When I got home I found it was a cache I expected to find at another location. How odd. The cache had instructions on the page to find from GZ to actual GZ, but was listed as a Traditional rather than a Multi or Puzzle.

 

That sounds like a good time to use an NA log -- and a good reason the NA log should have a different name. It really doesn't "need archived," but it does need to have the cache type changed, and only a Reviewer has the power to make that change.

 

(I recently adopted one like that, and I wasn't able to change the cache type but the reviewer did.)

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Last summer The Ramblers and others were out completing the Mugswell Meander series in Surrey, UK when we found the final resting place of a nearby puzzle cache. Just walking between two of the caches when Whitelaws stopped and pointed at a base of tree, with a hole in it and a rock inside it - so obviously out of place but only someone with a 'cachers eye' would spot it. We logged it as a find, admitting the circumstances of how we found it. It was a tough puzzle as well and I probably would not have done it as they are not my strong point!

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Wow, some great stories here about "accidental" finds. Like others have said, a Find is a Find. Like many cache information sheet say "You've found it! (Intentionally or not)". Even though this has not happened to me, I don't think I would mind logging it (or a person logging one of my hides because of this).

 

I have found Letterbox hides while searching for geocaches, but I know little about this activity and did not even tried to log it.

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I found a MooseMob cache at the Southern Nevada Veteran's Memorial Cemetery where I work.

 

(BTW, I haven't cached in years. This is actually targetdrone...I couldn't get in to my old account...HELP!!! I logged in using my wife's account name. If an Admin could change the address back to my name @cox.net I can get back to it.....Please :unsure: )

 

There's not supposed to be anything in this type of location on the grounds and I saw someone doing something there as I was leaving work and checked the area the next morning. Being a cacher, I knew what it was when I found it. I dried the wet log (no, I didn't sign it....yet. I will tomorrow) and put it back where it was, making sure it was oriented to not fill up with water again.

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This happened to me twice, sort of.

 

The first time was shortly after we had started caching. We got to the gz, and I found a cache with a stamp inside. I didn't remember it being a letterbox. When I got home, I read the logs on line before adding my own. Found a number of logs that said "...and I found the nearby letterbox cache, too". Ah ha! The 'real' cache was still out there, and we went back a few days later to get it.

 

The other time was when we had to revisit a cache because I forgot to write down the coords to the final mystery cache. The cache container was a giant tarantula tied to a tree. When we returned, we found that spidey had lost his head, so we started looking around for it. We didn't find it, but we did find a cache from 2005 that had a note in it that it was to be removed shortly after 2005 ~ but obviously hadn't!

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I've found a few this way including the most recent which was yesterday. I'd mentioned to my DW a few times as we drove past this nice area on the water that I think it's available for a cache. Yesterday I decided to take a peek to see if I could find a spot that appealed to me. Found a few likely candidates and just as I was wrapping up my search I spied a cedar tree with a hole in the bottom and a rock already in the hole. Hmmmm I wonder. Sure enough the rock was covering a small cache container. I opened the container expecting to find a new cache that hadn't yet been released or an old cache that had long since been archived.

 

Turns out the cache was for a multi that included diving & boating during the stages. Since I don't have diving equipment or the skills to free dive I'd long put the cache on my ignore list to keep it from cluttering up my screen. Not any more, I un-ignored the cache and logged the find.

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Wow, you guys have a lot of great accidental cache find stories! I thought that it might have happened a few times but not this many. I would think accidentally finding a cache must be as exciting to a geocacher as a hole in one is to a golfer.

And Brainsnat, if you say it is ok to sign them then that is good enough for me. Now I know what to do if I ever get that lucky.

Maybe to a really, really good golfer. I've been golfing for 30+ years and have witnessed several holes-in-one but have yet to make one.

 

On the other hand, I've found several caches and letterboxes by accident. One was an archived cache just a few yards from a new cache. I got FTF on the new one and the CO let me log the archived one. I got FTF on a letterbox while looking for a geocache, found another letterbox while trying to place a cache ("Man, that looks like a good spot -- oops, already taken!"). I got FTF on one cache because I happened upon the CO while he was hiding it. He had been placing caches in a series along a new trail, but had been placing them a day at a time. I got FTF on his latest, then wandered down the trail a bit and spotted him placing his daily cache. GOTCHA!!!

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Yes, 3. Two in the same urban forest. One was too close to my 'traditional' cache hide, one was about 15 feet from another COs 'traditional' hide. The third unexpected find was too close to one of my letterbox hides. I never published my letterbox on geocaching.com because it was about 140 meters from a traditional cache. I knew where the other cache was and figured my letterbox would safe because no other cache would be planted near it. Wrong. About a month later I get a report that someone planted a cache about 5 feet from my letterbox (mine was tucked away under a dark part under the boardwalk, so I'm sure the CO didn't see it). The cache of course was never published, because of proximity guidelines.

 

Which brings me to the topic of unpublished abandoned caches. The cache next to my letterbox eventually went missing about 6 months later along with my letterbox. I cito'd out the small plastic jar cache that was near the ammo can in the urban forest after it was there for about a year and people were signing the log thinking they had found the published ammo can cache. After about 3 months I decided I'd go CITO out the gladware cache that was near my hide but someone had used the container as a toilet. I left that one alone. Seems there are quite a few cachers out there that plant before checking the geocaching maps to see what's out there. And without hunting caches - guess some people just prefer to place caches. Makes me wonder how many unpublished abandoned "caches" there are outdoors.

Edited by Lone R
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2 finds eerily similar to briansnats. I mean really eerily similar.

 

1 find of a cache that had never been published - I recognized who hid it from the swag. It dated from a period when there was ban on caching in that preserve. I guess she never picked it up. I ended up leaving it, as some fierce ants with potent venom were calling it home.

 

1 find of a cache because I met a cacher leaving an area as I was entering. I KNEW he was would have left a cache or caches. And he did. Found one just by assuming it had to exist.

 

A hide-a-key on a tank (military armored vehicle)- I was looking to log it as a locationless find, got the traditional find too.

 

3 letterboxes, wasn't hunting any of them.

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We once laid out a multi in a park putting our final in a very large hollow tree. Our reviewer simply told us we had placed one or more of our stages within 0.1 of another multi cache and we would have to move ours. When we went back to retrieve it, we discovered that our final was practically sitting on top of the other one. (It really was a great place for a cache) We're sure our reviewer must have gotten a chuckle out of it. I know we did and we got a smiley.

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That's how I found my first one.

 

Just as you described.

 

It was the same for us.

 

I was hiking in Maine with a couple friends, one of whom kept talking about this 'Geocaching' thing. Well, the next day we were descending along a trail when I spotted this large tupperware box a few feet off the trail. At first, I thought it was some kind of first aid kit, but the writing on the cover told me different.

 

I yelled back to my buddy and said "Hey Dude, I think I found one of those geocache things"!

 

Turns out it was quite a distance from where it should have been. I guess somebody grabbed it, but got sick of carrying the thing down the mountain and just left it.

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I found a micro that I wasn't looking for, and I didn't even know it at the time.

 

In 2006, in a fit of temporary insanity, I decided to run a marathon. One day while training for the marathon, I was running on a local trail. I saw something hanging in plain sight with the word "Geocache" on it.

 

I wasn't an active cacher at the time. I had created an account in December 2001, found a half-dozen caches, and then my son broke my GPSr. So when I saw this object, I had not been geocaching in years and I had no idea that such a thing as a "micro" even existed. Since I was in the middle of a run, I didn't stop to investigate. I briefly wondered what that thing was, but I never got around to going back to check it out.

 

In fact, I forgot all about it until I was reading this thread. I just took a quick look at the map, and the micro that I spotted that day must have been http://coord.info/GCR2W3. I should go back and sign the log!

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I've had this happen twice -

 

The first one (about 3 years ago) was the cache that got me into geocaching, just happened to stumble upon it while hiking in the woods near my house. Once I researched what geocaching was about, I was hooked!

 

Interestingly enough, it happened again, only a few days ago. Same patch of woods near my house. I was scouting out some locations for a future cache placement when I found a good spot...on closer inspection, I spied a regular sized cache there that I was unfamiliar with (I have several caches placed already in these woods)...no intact log book but the cache lid had the name of the cache and coordinates. I had to look at old logs from the oldest cache nearby, figuring someone probably logged them both on the same day. Sure enough, I found it was an old (circa 2002 - GCAC97) cache that had been archived in early 2005...apparently it was never picked up by CO, so I was the first to find in 5 1/2 years...pretty cool!

Edited by forest_guy
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My son and I were on our way back from doing a few caches when I decided to do one more. I pulled up the closest one and off we went. On the way out my son says he knows of a very cool area he wants to show me. We get back in this awesome ravine location and I said that it would be a great place for a cache (forgetting about the one I knew was in the area). As I am marking coordinates I spot a piece of paper on the ground just as my son picks up what turned out to be the lid of the cache. The paper ended up being the log. We do not know if it had been muggled and smashed or if it just fell out of its elevated perch. We are waiting to get a response from the CO about replacing it.

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Oh, I've found a few letterboxes, but they don't count. And I've brute-forced a few caches. (And, yes, I will claim the find!)

I've found a couple of 'not listed' caches that were placed too close to the cache I was searching for. But! Once upon a time, we were searching for a cache. My sister said "Here it is!". I said "No. Here it is!" It was a (since archived) moving cache, placed about five feet from a traditional. Took us a while to figure out what it was. Had us confused. Come to think of it, once I found another moving cache inside another cache. That one was interesting because, for that one, the coords were never updated. You could only find it completely by accident!

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Yepper, about three weeks ago was trying for a brand new cache. Located a cache opened it and all of the dates were 4+ years old ... HUH ... signed the log like I was fat dumb and happy, posted my curious find on our forum. One of the grizzled, cagey old veteran cachers remembered the cache and clued me in. Went back two days later, found the real cache about 15 feet away from the one I had located earlier, retrieved the old cache ( Geo litter ).

 

I just found a location list this yesterday: old and new versions of the cache 15 feet apart. Makes me wonder why CO did not remove the old cache?

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I've had this happen twice -

 

The first one (about 3 years ago) was the cache that got me into geocaching, just happened to stumble upon it while hiking in the woods near my house. Once I researched what geocaching was about, I was hooked!

 

Interestingly enough, it happened again, only a few days ago. Same patch of woods near my house. I was scouting out some locations for a future cache placement when I found a good spot...on closer inspection, I spied a regular sized cache there that I was unfamiliar with (I have several caches placed already in these woods)...no intact log book but the cache lid had the name of the cache and coordinates. I had to look at old logs from the oldest cache nearby, figuring someone probably logged them both on the same day. Sure enough, I found it was an old (circa 2002 - GCAC97) cache that had been archived in early 2005...apparently it was never picked up by CO, so I was the first to find in 5 1/2 years...pretty cool!

 

I had one of these too: an old archived cache that I found after it was archived. I logged it as a find since I though it was a memorable adventure but for the purists out there: does this "count"?

 

Also, I think I have to go back and clean-up what is now a little pile of garbage. I did not do this at the time of finding the cache since I did not know it was archived. Anything wrong with cleaning it up? No one else will ever be looking for it again, I assume...

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I've had this happen twice -

 

The first one (about 3 years ago) was the cache that got me into geocaching, just happened to stumble upon it while hiking in the woods near my house. Once I researched what geocaching was about, I was hooked!

 

Interestingly enough, it happened again, only a few days ago. Same patch of woods near my house. I was scouting out some locations for a future cache placement when I found a good spot...on closer inspection, I spied a regular sized cache there that I was unfamiliar with (I have several caches placed already in these woods)...no intact log book but the cache lid had the name of the cache and coordinates. I had to look at old logs from the oldest cache nearby, figuring someone probably logged them both on the same day. Sure enough, I found it was an old (circa 2002 - GCAC97) cache that had been archived in early 2005...apparently it was never picked up by CO, so I was the first to find in 5 1/2 years...pretty cool!

 

I had one of these too: an old archived cache that I found after it was archived. I logged it as a find since I though it was a memorable adventure but for the purists out there: does this "count"?

 

Also, I think I have to go back and clean-up what is now a little pile of garbage. I did not do this at the time of finding the cache since I did not know it was archived. Anything wrong with cleaning it up? No one else will ever be looking for it again, I assume...

 

Some will say that the cache may be listed on another site, so leave it. Personally, I say chuck it. Geolitter gives the hobby a bad name. If a CO listed it on another site it would be smart to mention it in the cache description.

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Have you ever been hiking around and just happen on a geocache even though you were not looking for it? And if so what do you do? Do you sign the long and then look it up on Geocaching.com and sign that page? What if it was a tough mystery cache? Would you feel like you cheated?

 

This has never happened to me, yet. But I think I would try to solve the mystery or hunt down the other caches if it was a multi before I took credit for it. Not sure what the etiquette is for this situation though.

Years ago I got out of my truck to look for a cache that was 1000 feet away and I saw a film canister cache hanging in a tree next to my truck.

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Have you ever been hiking around and just happen on a geocache even though you were not looking for it? And if so what do you do? Do you sign the long and then look it up on Geocaching.com and sign that page? What if it was a tough mystery cache? Would you feel like you cheated?

 

This has never happened to me, yet. But I think I would try to solve the mystery or hunt down the other caches if it was a multi before I took credit for it. Not sure what the etiquette is for this situation though.

 

I'd worked on a puzzle cache for a couple weeks and believed I'd solved it. When I got to the coordinates, there was a boulder pile and I reached in the various holes until I found one with a cache stuck way back in there and around a corner. When I pulled it out it was a new cache that hadn't been activated yet. So I reached back down the hole and lo and behold, the puzzle cache was there as well. It was sitting right on top of the real, original cache.

 

I logged the puzzle and sent the owner of the new cache a note. It turns out that the GC reviewer had denied the listing and sent him a note that said "you've got to be kidding". I laughed about that one for a couple weeks. I never did see the cache pop up in a new location otherwise I would have found it again and logged it.

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I found one sorta on accident last week. It was a puzzle and I was beating my head on the computer trying to figure out what it ment. My friend and I took the kids to the park to do the rest of the ones there, when we were done, my friends little boy spotted a thing in a tree in the woods he wanted to check out. So we all walked over to it and my friend and I kinda looked around at the other trees and there was the puzzle cache. Kinda weird to find it right there out of the entire park! I still have no clue how to solve it, oh well LOL!

Edited by onthegomom
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I found one while "researching" possible locations for one of my own hides. I was able to make out the names of some of the finders, and used that to figure out which cache it was. It turned out that the owner had archived it after it had "gone missing" one too many times. Except that the cache was still there, just hidden differently (and more effectively) than the owner originally hid it.

 

I let the owner know what was up, he picked up the cache, and now someone else has a cache hidden within feet of that location.

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I've run across several caches accidentally. Two of them were placed within 100 feet of other caches. Another was the final to a puzzle cache that was placed before Groundspeak required CO's to post the final stage coordinates. That cache was less than 50 feet from a newer, traditional cache.

 

I found a couple of Letterboxes near caches. The closest was 6 inches away and had "NOT A GEOCACHE" written on the lid. :yikes:

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We were out last Sunday (caching of course) and recalled that there was a cache called "Oakey Pokey." By mistake (mine) it hadn't been selected. No coords, no hints, nothing. We saw some oak trees in three different spots, went to the closest and there was the cache. We were actually doing the first stage of an earthcache in a local park and were walking along the cliff top.

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