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Just out of reach!


wolfbait

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Hey everyone. This thread is to share your stories of when that cache has been frustratingly just out of reach.

 

This year I´m an exchange student in Paraguay. A few weeks ago I bought my very first GPS (I used to have to use my dads) so I decided to check out caches here in Paraguay. Turns out there are 7 caches in Paraguay, only 1 of which has been found in the last 2 years, and they´re all on the other side of Paraguay. So I did a Google Geocache Map search around my area and turns out there is a cache 16.7 miles from where i sit now... in Argentina. Unfortunately due to the rules I´m not allowed to go into Argentina...Oh well, don´t cry for me.

 

What are your out of reach stories?

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I used to travel the country A LOT for work. Finally managed to change positions where I didn't have to be on the go anymore. Found out about geocaching two months later.

 

Dang! Caching in all those locations would have been far better than hanging around the hotel bar talking to Ken Tarmac.

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My wife and I made a trip across Canada a couple of years ago. From coast to coast.

I had bought her a GPS for Christmas a year or so earlier with Geocaching in mind (we had read about it and thought it sounded cool).

 

Not too long after our trip we got into Geocaching.

 

I still kick myself when I read numerous posts about a Geocache being here... there and EVERYWHERE we were!

 

Some of them sound very cool and we may not ever return to those places.

 

Newfoundland is the place that killed me... we hiked all over that Provence and found out later that there were caches at almost every place we hiked to.

 

I DO plan on returning there.

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Yeah I though the same as Luckless. Caches placed up high by someone 6'2" when I'm only 5'2".

You need some of these

 

drywall%20stilts.JPG

 

Have you any idea how much drywall stilts cost!

 

Besides... I could claim I was 6'11" on my dating website profile but she's gonna notice those!

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When I first started caching there was a nearby virtual I couldn`t get - because it was at a winery where minors aren`t allowed and I wasn`t 21 yet.

 

A few months ago I did a maintenance visit to one of my more remote caches. In the hours I was gone, five new caches were published - along the trail I was on.

 

I once had a would-be FTF cache that was literally out of my reach. It was in a hole in a hollow wall, attached to a cord that used to pull it up. I tugged the cord and the cache was stuck, so I tugged a little harder and pop! The cord came off and the cache fell down inside the wall, never to be retrieved again. The owner replaced it quickly and invited me to change my note to a find, but I held off and finally logged a smiley when I went back almost three years later.

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I own a string of caches in a swampy area about 30 miles from my house. One of the finders hid a cache in the same area with a similar theme, which got published late at night. Being familiar with these woods, I thought I would head out to grab the FTF. I saw from the map that it was only about 6/10th of a mile from the road, so it should only take me a few hours to reach. I punched in the coords, grabbed my flashlight and CamelBak and hit the road. When I got to the general area, I fired up my GPSr, and it showed the cache as being several miles away. I had fumbled the numbers when I entered them into my device, and I couldn't be sure which number(s) needed changing. As to avoid wasting a drive, I grabbed an ammo can out of the back of my truck and hit the swamp, hiding a shiny new cache to mark the occasion.

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I own a string of caches in a swampy area about 30 miles from my house. One of the finders hid a cache in the same area with a similar theme, which got published late at night. Being familiar with these woods, I thought I would head out to grab the FTF. I saw from the map that it was only about 6/10th of a mile from the road, so it should only take me a few hours to reach. I punched in the coords, grabbed my flashlight and CamelBak and hit the road. When I got to the general area, I fired up my GPSr, and it showed the cache as being several miles away. I had fumbled the numbers when I entered them into my device, and I couldn't be sure which number(s) needed changing. As to avoid wasting a drive, I grabbed an ammo can out of the back of my truck and hit the swamp, hiding a shiny new cache to mark the occasion.

Dude...You need a smart phone (or a phone with WAP access anyway for wap.geocaching.com)!

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I had a just out of reach today. I was traveling from GC1XAD3 to GC1BTEG, following some jeep trails and my GPS, through a national forest in north central FL. I came to a "main" dirt road and low and behold, the forest service had piled a huge pile of clay to block the jeep trail. Now, the end I came in on wasn't blocked or marked in any way that would lead one to believe vehicles were prohibited but that end sure was. So 200 ft from the cache, I had to back my truck back up the trail and it took me 30 min to reroute to the cache. Now, I know I could have walked the 200ft but I still had to get my truck out somehow. Even though I did get to log the find, the frustration of sitting right across the street from the cache was pretty bad. Oh well... our tax dollars at work.

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Yeah I though the same as Luckless. Caches placed up high by someone 6'2" when I'm only 5'2".

 

I had the same issue today.

 

Placed in a cemetery, no way to reach it without climbing on a stone and I wasn't about to do that.

 

Did you log a DNF?

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Yeah I though the same as Luckless. Caches placed up high by someone 6'2" when I'm only 5'2".

You need some of these

 

drywall%20stilts.JPG

 

What a hilarious thing to do! I've almost found a cache but didn't log that I found it because it was about 6 inches from my grasp! I had even dragged some rocks over to where the cache was, stacked them on top of each other, climbed the rocks (hoping I wouldn't fall and break my neck) and just couldn't quite reach the cache. I think I'm going to add a step stool to carry around in the trunk of my car. Even though I didn't get a smiley face on the one just out of reach, I got a good laugh at myself. I must have looked pretty silly dragging rocks around out in the middle of nowhere. B)

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We found a cache that was hanging from a branch of a tree about 20 feet up. The knot on the rope holding the cache got caught on the caribiner that was tied to the branch and acting (or not!) as a pulley wheel. No matter what we did, we couldn't get it unstuck. Tried using a long branch, and even an old rusty folding ladder we found in the woods. The ladder collapsed when my husband reached the top of it, and he slid down hugging the tree. We ended coming back the following weekend armed with an extendable boat hook and a swimming pool skimmer and were able to get it unstuck.

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I had one this weekend that proved to be quite a ways out of reach. It was about 25' up a tree. I thoroughly enjoy climbing, so I had no worries heading to the cache, but because of my bum knee, I couldn't make it up to the second set of branches. Had I made it that far, the rest of the climb would've been easy. The log was passed down to me by a more able bodied cacher, and I signed it for posterity, but I logged it with a note instead of a find. If I ever return and make the ascent, I'll post a find.

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Did you log a DNF?

 

what for?...he found it just couldn't reach it :P

 

This tired old argument again?

If the log is not signed, NO SMILIE.

 

Part of the CO's hide is the effort it takes to reach the cache and retrieve it. I've seen caches in plain view but in the most awkward spots. The adventure is the retrieval, not he "oh, look, there it is."

One such cache is on an island in a shallow (3 foot) lake. You can see the ammo case from shore, but with no boat or waders, you ain't getting it. The water is freezing so nobody would swim.

 

Attempted but no retrieval = DNF.

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This weekend I was in a cabin 200m from a cache but stuck with my eyerolling DP and his 90 something Nan who we were helping see some places she didn't want to miss before she passes........ And well being the only person with a licence and it being nans trip it would have been too rude to go and search........ Hopefully oneday we can return he can do his thing and I can go caching

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Did you log a DNF?

 

what for?...he found it just couldn't reach it :P

 

This tired old argument again?

If the log is not signed, NO SMILIE.

 

Part of the CO's hide is the effort it takes to reach the cache and retrieve it. I've seen caches in plain view but in the most awkward spots. The adventure is the retrieval, not he "oh, look, there it is."

One such cache is on an island in a shallow (3 foot) lake. You can see the ammo case from shore, but with no boat or waders, you ain't getting it. The water is freezing so nobody would swim.

 

Attempted but no retrieval = DNF.

That's a discussion for many other topics, but not the situation that leads to the stories being shared here.

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