First Finds

[Sivartius]

I made my first find today. First I went out to Ashley's Cache. All the information said it should be a perfect start. 1.5 difficulty, 1.5 terrain, and rated as a beginner's cache, plus all the comments made it sound super easy. I climbed up and down, back and forth, over and around, and I COULD NOT FIND IT! I CITOd, went home and logged the DNF, but I wasn't going to let that end my day. I headed back out, to Play Ball 2, and after just the right amount of searching, I found it! I took a bottle cap made by RAYMONDH5499 and left a balloon animal kit. Then, as I was leaving, I worried that my trade might not have been equal, so I went back and added a harmonica and a cool adjustable measuring "shot glass" thing. (I also did it because it seemed that whoever had come before had left a bunch of those spider ring party favors and not much else.) I was tempted to take the "Good for one Geocache" token as well, but I remained strong . On the way up the canyon going home, I noticed that the gas gauge was on empty and decided I would have to put some gas in the next time I came down. But a mile up the road, I ran out of gas. But again, God was good. I had hardly walked a cache length when someone stopped and offered me a ride to the gas station. Then, on the way back, I only had to walk a mile before someone offered a ride. I am totally stoked and looking forward to going hunting tomorrow.

 

 

 

So now it's your turn , if I didn't bore you too much. Tell me about your first cache that you found. What kind was it? What happened? Was anyone with you? Tell Please!

[+popokiiti]

Welcome to both the forums and to geocaching! Thanks for sharing your first find adventure with us. Our first find was called "Bottoms Up" and that was the position one has to be in to grab the cache. We DNF'd another that day - as newbies back then, we didn't realise how much the tree cover affected the GPS or that our GZ wasn't necessarily the spot. It took a couple of return visits to snag that prize.

Most of our caching trips have some element of something we find funny sooner or later. Last time, a can of bear spray was dropped, and the darn spray came out the bottom of the canister. Sunroof was open and air was on....there was a bit of coughing, spluttering and eyes watering! We returned to grab the canister, but it was still slowly venting - no wild life near that cache site on that backwoods logging road for a while!

[+Team Pixos]

Our first was an Urban Oasis. Close enough to home the kids and I could walk to it. A nice green area in the city with thick brushes in the centre. I was in shorts and crocs; dd had long loose hair and a sundress, Ds in shorts and crocs. Not good for bush crawling at all. After what seemed forever with plenty of mosquitos; I spot it but can't get to it. I'm trying to tell DS go left, go right, when he doesn't know either direction. He was the only one that could fit in. So 2.5 hours later we had a medium size cache with nothing but a log book to sign. No swag for the kids at all. The next one was a DNF.

[+Max and 99]

Our first find (not the first that we looked for) was one of those caches that most people say "Yep! A typical noobie mistake. You live, you learn."

 

We took all three kids to the park for an "easy" cache, and watched the gps point directly in one direction about 1/10 mile. Oh my gosh, the bushwacking we made those kids do: thorns, logs on the ground to climb over, dense brush, you name it. It was really bad, and I pretty much decided then that this was not going to be an activity the kids would enjoy. We finally got to the cache location and saw the walking path about 25 feet away. Nooooooo! We went the way the gps told us to, not realizing that sometimes the direct path is NOT the best way to a cache. We learned an important lesson that day, and none too soon.

[+aka Momster]

Congratulations on your first find, Sivartius!

 

I was out with a hiking group. One of the hikers brought a few printed geocache sheets, hoping to find the caches along the way. No GPSr, just using the cache page information. No one in the group had ever found a cache before, but we tried to help him locate the first container. We didn't find it. At the next cache, only a few of us were interested in searching. I located the ammo can for that one. It was a nice hide for a first, high on a hill with a great view of the surrounding mountains.

 

After returning home, I searched Geocaching.com for the cache we had found. The previous year I had come across a mention about geocaching while searching for something else online, and remember telling my husband it sounded fun. But I didn't own a GPS, and nothing ever came of it. This time I dug deeper. That DNF bugged me. So I printed out the sheet and hiked alone to the area the next day to give it another try. This time I found it! So I set up a geocaching account using my hiking group name, logged my finds, and continued searching.

 

The person who had brought the geocaching sheets on the hike never logged a second find on their account.

[+niraD]

My first was at my church's annual men's retreat. We had Saturday afternoon free, and one of my friends introduced a group of us to geocaching.

 

Our first stop was at GCMAFG, which was a plastic footlocker hidden in a hollow redwood tree stump. The stump was on the downhill side of the trail, so its top was about even with the level of the trail. The container had been lowered into the hollow stump, and covered with branches. I made the find and got to pull the container up out of its hiding place.

 

We found 3 other caches that day, including a couple micros. One of the micros is still one of my favorites because of the location it takes you to. (And no, a larger container wouldn't have worked there.)

 

I had my wife's old GPSr that I never could get to work again. It had been sitting in a drawer for years, and it just couldn't get a lock. Later, it burned through a couple sets of fresh batteries with a clear view of the sky in all directions, and still couldn't get a lock. ("It's dead, Jim!") But that day, there were a couple other people with working GPSrs in the group, so I let them figure out where GZ was and just focused on searching for the caches.

[+Trucker Lee]

Welcome to the madness. My first find was a spice bottle in a crepe myrtle bush, but not knowing what I was looking for and with it blending in with the vertical trunks, I spent 15 minutes and walked around that thing several times before I spied it about head high. Still remembered, thanks Dogmac.

[+luvvinbird]

Just over one year ago, I found my first geocache. Everything was new to me then. My GPS receiver was a mystery which I needed to solve, thinking it should take me exactly to GZ was something I would have to deal with until I finally learned. Number one was a nano, too, so I was pretty hard on myself. Soon you'll be racing out the door looking for that elusive FTF. I really enjoy this activity and I know you will, too. Happy caching!

[+Team Batpony]

Our first find was a geocache just a walk from home. We were out there in the snow with the TomTom car GPS for at least an hour. We were so happy when we found it.