Three guys from Oregon 695 caches in 24 hours.

[+Crow-T-Robot]

I'd be impressed if there were even two unique logs out of all the finds. But then, the caches would have to warrant that.

I didn't log any of the 312 caches that we found on that run, nor most of the other 400+ we found during the rest of the week before GW5.

 

Kinda took the wind out of the sails of those who insisted that we did it for the numbers!

 

We did it for fun, and it was a blast.

 

I've said it before. I think going on a huge cache run with a group of friends sounds like a lot of fun and would be a blast to do, but I couldn't do it for 24 hours. My personal philosophy is that I would never rush past something interesting just to find a cache but I would rush past a cache just to find something interesting I think it's great that people enjoy doing this but still don't understand the need to start a thread just to pat themselves on the back.

 

As someone who has been power trail caching on a microscopic scale compared to the late trail of the God's (i.e. 41 smalls and regulars averaging .15 miles apart on a rural bike trail), I can tell you it is totally freaking impossible to remember them all. Despite having them all marked as found in order in the GPS. With the help of aerial photography, cell phone pics I snapped, and the very rare unique log from people that just stopped by for a few of them, I was able to positively remember about 30 of them. But the other 10 or 11, I was just winging it. I did write unique logs for all 41 though. Even if you don't remember any of them, change up the text a little, people!! I only did about 1/2 of this "power trail", placed in late 2009 and early 2010, and I'd say 95% of the logs on it are copy and paste.

 

I wouldn't expect anyone to write 695 or 1000 unique logs when they do these insane power runs. Even a 10% unique log rate would be nice. Heck, let's shoot for 1% See, when I see what AR posted, I admire that. It makes me believe that it was more about having a day of fun with your group than it was about numbers. Seeing hundreds of cut-n-paste logs makes me believe it was only about making sure you log every last cache so that you get all the smileys. It is a World Record, after all.

 

Unlike some of the other posters here, I wish you luck.

 

Same here. I hope you enjoy the moments and carry those memories with you wherever you go. Have fun!

[+humboldt flier]

I'd be impressed if there were even two unique logs out of all the finds. But then, the caches would have to warrant that.

Hmmmmmmm, as a veteran of the TOTG with a paltry 300 caches each of my logs were unique. Thanks to a cache I ran into in the Cheektowaga / Buffalo area. Which challenged cachers to forego " lame logs ".

 

Yes I will get to the E.T. Power Trail ... will I do unique logs? Hmmmmmm Let me evaluate my carpal tunnel insurance coverage before I commit.

[+WhoDis]

A movie about finding 1000 lame caches in a row? Where do I buy my ticket?

[+Team Geo-Rangers]

A movie about finding 1000 lame caches in a row? Where do I buy my ticket?

 

Not interested either in watching a movie and it won't prove what they hope to accomplish in December. Whoever decides that it is a record would be the one to contact to have them ride along for 24 hours and independently validate your claim.

 

While in some cases it is a marathon track meet to get to the cache and back, you still need experience in finding caches to avoid wasting time, because they are all not the same. There were stretches along the ET trail when I found two UNDER a minute and maintained that pace. Peas kept track of the time.

 

Any record set there will be broken in the future. We came to that conclusion before doing it, and so split the trail into two days of caching to ensure we could attend the Friday night social and the Saturday morning events. It took us a little over 14 hours to find the 1022. We did it for the challenge and are quite satisfied with only a sense of accomplishment upon completing it. That is all the reward we sought - to challenge ourselves and have fun. Greeting other geocachers in the field was icing on the cake! Took many pictures at the Alien Inn and along the trail to document our journey. It was nice to get a good night's sleep after finding almost 600 the first day (we started at noon).

 

The TOTG series was much harder given the terrain and so it did not enable us to use our best and fastest method, like on the ET Highway. We did experience flat tires on both trails and managed to not hit a cow on the ET Highway, something those that follow better worry about when caching ET at night.

 

So to those sitting back waiting to do it and set a really high personal best, go for it. Go ahead and come into the forums and talk about it. Power caching trails are not for everyone, so expect some critical feedback. However, they have generated a lot of passion, pro and con, and so may be helping to promote the game we all love to play. There are extreme sports and extreme caches that people can die attempting. Marathon caching like this just stresses a different aspect of the game.

 

Hide it and they will come ... we all just need at least 1500 on a course that is set up like the ET Highway!

[+humboldt flier]

Incidentally,

 

For those who think a power trail is a piece of cake, it is not. it is darned hard work and that does not even address the logistics involved in working a trail.

[+gob gob250]

Friday April 16th. Rain or Shine, zsteve and myself (legoboyjj) cached for 24 hours straight to try to break the unofficial world records that had been set the two weeks prior to our trip. We were freaking out when these caches were archived one day before we were to leave. A quick email confirmation that the caches were still in place we hit the road. We left Eugene Oregon at 4pm on Wednesday and drove all night caching all day Thursday. We got five hours of sleep on Thursday evening and were ready to go at midnight. We started on the flats to the west of the mine road. Think we only dnfed 5 caches all day but did find two cache containers at four different cache sites which were "replacement" caches. I took some video of our crazy trip to show everyone what it was like to run the "Trail of the Gods". Will post video to YouTube later. We finished the TotGs, the presidents and the Phobia series by 6:00pm which was way ahead of our expectations. After that we scrambled to find what we could which dropped our cache average significantly. We had a single hour cache record of 51 finds on the stretch heading into Primm. We rallied in my 96' Toyota Forunner with 175k miles on it and a set of new tires. Happy to say she held up and did great. We are all pretty tired but had a blast. Our numbers keeping was the one thing that failed us as if we had known we were only 5 away from 700 we wouldn't have stopped early. We are almost home and have found a total of 902 caches in the four days.

Our hour counts were:

Hr1-48

Hr2-47

Hr3-25

Hr4-27

Hr5-31

Hr6-31

Hr7-40

Hr8-43

Hr9-35

Hr10-16 --gas

Hr11-36

Hr12-39

Hr13-42

Hr14-21

Hr15-27

Hr16-51

Hr17-30

Hr18-43

Hr19-17

Hr20-16

Hr21-14

Hr22-5

Hr23-9

Hr24-2

total: 695

i dont believe that you would have to find 1 every 2 minutes 7 seconds

[+roziecakes]

i dont believe that you would have to find 1 every 2 minutes 7 seconds

 

On a power trail, it's possible. When we were on the ET power trail, we were averaging a cache every minute to minute and a half and we were slow compared to some!

[I!]

I suppose a really dedicated record-chaser could do the job in two passes:

• Days 1-2: locate caches, loosen lids, position log sheet for easy extraction and stamping.
  
• Day 3: go for the record.
  

[+niraD]

I suppose a really dedicated record-chaser could do the job in two passes:

• Days 1-2: locate caches, loosen lids, position log sheet for easy extraction and stamping.
  
• Day 3: go for the record.
  

"Pre-finding" caches is generally frowned upon for numbers runs. Finding 1-star difficulty caches that you "know" where they are as you approach GZ is okay. Grabbing caches that you found previously (but "neglected" to sign) is not.

[AZcachemeister]

So what?

BFD