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"DNF" to "found it"


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Last week I found a cache that I had DNF'd about two years earlier. I got to wondering what was the longest time between a DNF log and a subsequent find. THEN I started wondering what was the oldest DNF that I might reasonably still find. Turns out it was a micro near a dumpster behind a grocery store that I wouldn't even look for once these days...

But a few months later I logged a DNF on a nice cache not far from where I work that I just never got around to going back for. So today I went and found it. 7 years and 4 months later!

What's your longest gap between DNF and Found It?

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Does it count if I didn't actually post a DNF log? (I have better habits now) I didn't find the fourth cache I ever looked for in May '05. I finally found it three months ago. Seven years, nine months.

 

As far as oldest DNF on available caches that I could go and find. I DNFed a multi in the mountains in 10/05 because a stage was missing. I DNFed a different multi on a different mountain in 02/06 because I was afraid of the poison oak at the final. Both are still available to be found.

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4 and half years between not finding the final of a boat cache series and getting back and finishing. That DNF was due to low tide, just couldn't get to it. Even tried getting out of of the gently grounded boat, thinking I might swim - but not enough water to float me, and bottomless muck under. Getting back into the boat was killer.

 

I just checked, if I cared, there are a couple of urban DNFs from march 2005 where those caches are still active. I'll even be near one of them getting to GWXI.

I doubt I make that effort though - it's not a cache I'd hunt today... still if that hide is around in 2015, I kind of like round number 10 years from dnf to find thing. Might do it then, assuming I remember

 

Thanks for asking.

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it's not a cache I'd hunt today... still if that hide is around in 2015, I kind of like round number 10 years from dnf to find thing. Might do it then, assuming I remember

 

Thanks for asking.

great idea! my dumpster dnf was 9/9/05. If it's still around in two years, maybe we'll revive this thread. If we remember! :huh:

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So I was looking at my DNF list again and discovered this old cache that I dnf'd 8 years and 10 months ago. It looked like a perfect cache hunt for a moderately warm day in June, and so it was! 2.5 mile round trip with this one and a "new" cache (placed in '07) as the only finds.

Anyone else found any old caches that they had previously dnf'd?

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I have a stupid question... is there a way to see your "DNF list" or is this just an informal thing you keep yourself?

You can see a listing of all your DNF's here. I've got 409, because I suck at geocaching. I celebrate it by keeping close track of my unresolved DNF's -- see the bookmark list linked in my signature line below.

 

I have some unresolved DNF's dating back to early 2005, but to clear them, I'd have to travel to Chicago or Jacksonville. I have a DNF about 100 miles from home that turns 9 years old on July 4th. Hmmmm, that's a thought.

 

Up until now, my longest interval between DNF and Find was six years and two months, at one of Dayspring's famous "Totally Tubular" caches in Seattle.

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I have a stupid question... is there a way to see your "DNF list" or is this just an informal thing you keep yourself?

You can see a listing of all your DNF's here. I've got 409, because I suck at geocaching. I celebrate it by keeping close track of my unresolved DNF's -- see the bookmark list linked in my signature line below.

 

I have some unresolved DNF's dating back to early 2005, but to clear them, I'd have to travel to Chicago or Jacksonville. I have a DNF about 100 miles from home that turns 9 years old on July 4th. Hmmmm, that's a thought.

 

Up until now, my longest interval between DNF and Find was six years and two months, at one of Dayspring's famous "Totally Tubular" caches in Seattle.

AWESOME! Thank you so much!

... oh, that darn woodchuck.... I will return....

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I have a stupid question... is there a way to see your "DNF list" or is this just an informal thing you keep yourself?

You can see a listing of all your DNF's here. I've got 409, because I suck at geocaching. I celebrate it by keeping close track of my unresolved DNF's -- see the bookmark list linked in my signature line below.

 

I have some unresolved DNF's dating back to early 2005, but to clear them, I'd have to travel to Chicago or Jacksonville. I have a DNF about 100 miles from home that turns 9 years old on July 4th. Hmmmm, that's a thought.

 

Up until now, my longest interval between DNF and Find was six years and two months, at one of Dayspring's famous "Totally Tubular" caches in Seattle.

 

479 DNFs. It took me over eight years to find the second, (maybe third), cache I ever looked for.

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I have a stupid question... is there a way to see your "DNF list" or is this just an informal thing you keep yourself?

You can see a listing of all your DNF's here. I've got 409, because I suck at geocaching. I celebrate it by keeping close track of my unresolved DNF's -- see the bookmark list linked in my signature line below.

 

I have some unresolved DNF's dating back to early 2005, but to clear them, I'd have to travel to Chicago or Jacksonville. I have a DNF about 100 miles from home that turns 9 years old on July 4th. Hmmmm, that's a thought.

 

Up until now, my longest interval between DNF and Find was six years and two months, at one of Dayspring's famous "Totally Tubular" caches in Seattle.

 

I DNF'd this cache GCWH80 on 9Aug07 and returned to find it on 18Mar09. Not a very long time but the cache is over 9,500 miles from my home coords! It is on the island of Pulau Ubin in the Straits of Johor.

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Last week I found a cache that I had DNF'd about two years earlier. I got to wondering what was the longest time between a DNF log and a subsequent find. THEN I started wondering what was the oldest DNF that I might reasonably still find. Turns out it was a micro near a dumpster behind a grocery store that I wouldn't even look for once these days...

But a few months later I logged a DNF on a nice cache not far from where I work that I just never got around to going back for. So today I went and found it. 7 years and 4 months later!

What's your longest gap between DNF and Found It?

 

One thing to consider is whether the cache is the same as it was 7+ years ago. Quite often a container is replaced (often with something inferior) or is moved from its original spot. Also, after that long and probably dozens or even hundreds of finds later, the logs may end up giving you more info the second time around. I haven't even been caching two years yet, but already I've cleared out a good many DNFs after subsequent logs help narrow it down further.

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The longest stretch I can think of in my history was two days shy of seven years on Powderface Preamble.

 

First DNF was June 10, 2007.

Second DNF was July 31, 2010.

Third DNF was September 4, 2011.

Finally found it June 8, 2014.

 

I'll have to see what old DNFs are out there that I might be able to use to break my personal record.

 

Edit to add:

 

I think I found one that will break my record: Two Steppin' To The Left

 

I DNF'ed it on August 20, 2005 so if I could get out there this summer and find it, it would be almost nine years to avenge the DNF.

Edited by DanOCan
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The longest stretch I can think of in my history was two days shy of seven years on Powderface Preamble.

 

First DNF was June 10, 2007.

Second DNF was July 31, 2010.

Third DNF was September 4, 2011.

Finally found it June 8, 2014.

 

I'll have to see what old DNFs are out there that I might be able to use to break my personal record.

 

Edit to add:

 

I think I found one that will break my record: Two Steppin' To The Left

 

I DNF'ed it on August 20, 2005 so if I could get out there this summer and find it, it would be almost nine years to avenge the DNF.

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Last week I found a cache that I had DNF'd about two years earlier. I got to wondering what was the longest time between a DNF log and a subsequent find. THEN I started wondering what was the oldest DNF that I might reasonably still find. Turns out it was a micro near a dumpster behind a grocery store that I wouldn't even look for once these days...

But a few months later I logged a DNF on a nice cache not far from where I work that I just never got around to going back for. So today I went and found it. 7 years and 4 months later!

What's your longest gap between DNF and Found It?

My longest time between a DNF and a subsequent find on the same cache was nine years, ten months. This was at cache Ball Three: Safeco Field in Seattle that I attempted but didn't find on July 25, 2004 during a visit to Seattle. I found this cache on May 30, 2014 several months after moving to the Puget Sound area and becoming a resident of the greater Seattle area.

 

Here is my log entry describing both geocache visits.

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I have a stupid question... is there a way to see your "DNF list" or is this just an informal thing you keep yourself?

You can see a listing of all your DNF's here. I've got 409, because I suck at geocaching. I celebrate it by keeping close track of my unresolved DNF's -- see the bookmark list linked in my signature line below.

 

I have some unresolved DNF's dating back to early 2005, but to clear them, I'd have to travel to Chicago or Jacksonville. I have a DNF about 100 miles from home that turns 9 years old on July 4th. Hmmmm, that's a thought.

 

Up until now, my longest interval between DNF and Find was six years and two months, at one of Dayspring's famous "Totally Tubular" caches in Seattle.

 

I DNF'd this cache GCWH80 on 9Aug07 and returned to find it on 18Mar09. Not a very long time but the cache is over 9,500 miles from my home coords! It is on the island of Pulau Ubin in the Straits of Johor.

 

I got close enough to see Pulau Ubin (the hotel I stayed in was just across the road from the ferry boats) but decided to take the train downtown instead.

 

 

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I've posted about this before, but I'll do it again. ;)

 

Probably my longest DNF to Find was on Natures Habitat. It's in a nature reserve that I regularly walk in, and I also own a multi cache in the reserve.

 

Unfortunately, I never have logged my DNF's on the cache, so I'm not exactly sure how long the time period was - but it was probably around 8 years.

 

The problem with the cache, is not that it's hard to actually find - I found it right away. It's a puzzle type container that just was ridiculous for me to be able to open.

 

So, I probably tried for that thing a couple times a year over 8 years. Who knows how many times I tried, because I never posted about it (which is weird because I normally log everything faithfully).

 

I finally found it because I was on a walk with a fellow cacher who figured it out within minutes (but he put it back together and made me do it myself). Poo. :rolleyes:

 

My find log

 

b3efbe2f-b8dc-4b70-9560-c273239c4e33.jpg

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I can't set any records because I've only cached for a couple of years. So what I did was looked at the earliest DNFs I have, and I see that I later found my second DNF. How much later? Coincidentally, exactly one year, one month, and one day later:

 

10-14-12 to 11-15-13 (1 yr., 1 mo., 1 day)(earliest DNF, my second, that I have since found)

 

My longest gap was 11-3-12 to 1-18-14.

 

My shortest gap was exactly two days, only a few days ago, on a cache placed by someone who at the recent placement of that cache had exactly 2,000 finds and exactly 1,000 caches placed.

Edited by wmpastor
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it's not a cache I'd hunt today... still if that hide is around in 2015, I kind of like round number 10 years from dnf to find thing. Might do it then, assuming I remember

 

Thanks for asking.

great idea! my dumpster dnf was 9/9/05. If it's still around in two years, maybe we'll revive this thread. If we remember! :huh:

...so I waited an extra year or so and went back for it today. it's been through some rough times but I believe the original container is still there,n now placed in a plastic bag. A recent finder did a nice job of cleaning it up. So, my new record is:

11 years and two months!

I'll have one more chance on a tough multi if I ever get up to Boston again.

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it's not a cache I'd hunt today... still if that hide is around in 2015, I kind of like round number 10 years from dnf to find thing. Might do it then, assuming I remember

 

Thanks for asking.

great idea! my dumpster dnf was 9/9/05. If it's still around in two years, maybe we'll revive this thread. If we remember! :huh:

...so I waited an extra year or so and went back for it today. it's been through some rough times but I believe the original container is still there,n now placed in a plastic bag. A recent finder did a nice job of cleaning it up. So, my new record is:

11 years and two months!

I'll have one more chance on a tough multi if I ever get up to Boston again.

Great job - I love pointless personal challenges! You've inspired me to check my own DNF stats. My oldest unresolved DNF on a cache that's still active was from January 1, 2005. That's nearly 12 years ago - all I need to do is go back to Chicago for the first time since then.

 

In the meantime, my favorite gap between a DNF and a find is 15 months. Why do I remember that? Because the cache was in Las Vegas, nearly 2000 miles from home.

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In the meantime, my favorite gap between a DNF and a find is 15 months. Why do I remember that? Because the cache was in Las Vegas, nearly 2000 miles from home.

I have a couple like that in LV. I get out there every couple of years and try to find previous dnf's.

on this one

I foolishly left a "needs archive" note as well. Then people kept finding it so when I went back two years later I looked again.

It was a very clever "regular" sized cache that still took me 20 minutes to find. That taught me a lesson!

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I have a stupid question... is there a way to see your "DNF list" or is this just an informal thing you keep yourself?

You can see a listing of all your DNF's here. I've got 409, because I suck at geocaching. I celebrate it by keeping close track of my unresolved DNF's -- see the bookmark list linked in my signature line below.

 

I have some unresolved DNF's dating back to early 2005, but to clear them, I'd have to travel to Chicago or Jacksonville. I have a DNF about 100 miles from home that turns 9 years old on July 4th. Hmmmm, that's a thought.

 

Up until now, my longest interval between DNF and Find was six years and two months, at one of Dayspring's famous "Totally Tubular" caches in Seattle.

An excellent bookmark, Leprechauns. I have a trackable I visit in each DNF. You'll see that my DNF philosophy is:

 

A single visit to ground zero, in which a hunt was attempted, always merits a "Fount it" or "Didn't find it" e-log.

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Turns out it was a micro near a dumpster behind a grocery store that I wouldn't even look for once these days...

Similar, most we've gone to when we started (when the other 2/3rds was a FTF madwoman), we wouldn't think of accessing today.

Like you I suppose, most from years earlier are now long-archived anyway. :)

I would like to return to some in other states (when we didn't bring climbing gear along mostly), but time won't allow extended trips just to cache.

Most DNFs I've returned/would return to are unfinished multis within the same year.

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7 years, 5 months, on 2 caches. With luck I'll add another 2 years and a month and find 3 that old next month. :)

 

I added the 2 years and a month to 2 of the 3 possibilities. The other one I DNFd yet again...only to go back there last Saturday and finally find it. It was 10 years to the day since I first looked for it and it's 625 miles from home as the crow flies: Jackson Five Micro-J.J.. :)

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7 years, 5 months, on 2 caches. With luck I'll add another 2 years and a month and find 3 that old next month. :)

 

Okay. Youse guys got me stoked! DNF 4/23/2006. Most of the old ones are either found or archived. This is the oldest one. About an hour drive to an area I don't geocache very often. But you got me stoked! Eleven years, one month! Next would be 9/13/2006. Wish me luck.

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10/21/2007  DNF (because of rain, I think)
01/01/2019 Found it! 

a simple cache along a paved bike trail -  it was the oldest DNF of mine on a cache that's still available.

 

There is one not too far from me that I first DNFed  April 2009, DNF again April 2014, five years later.  I really ought to try to find it April, 2019.

It was actually missing each of the times I DNFed it, but is being found now.

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Glad this thread got bumped.  Since we moved back in the area where we started caching after a 9-year absence, we have had a few opportunities to redeem ourselves on caches we DNF'd.

 

HONOUR of 333 - DNF on 6 April 2007 on one of my first caching road trips.  Found it on 10 October 2018 when I was on a similar road trip through the same area with my parents.  I hadn't even intended for this to be a redemption find, I just happened to check the app for nearby caches when we were making a pit stop.

Dem JeeperMTJ sein 500.ter Cache - DNF on 30 April 2007, I was looking for a container due to my inexperience (and failure to fully translate the cache description).  Found it on 9 December 2018.

MyLand II - apparently I never logged this as a DNF when I looked for it between 2007-2009, but I remembered looking for it when I went back out for it on 25 September 2018.

 

There aren't many old caches I DNF'd around here that I haven't either subsequently found or that have been archived, but my next redemption goals will be avenging my 23 March 2008 DNF on Brians Schabernack and my 20 November 2007 DNF on TB-Hotel Garmisch-Partenkirchen (I need to get back to this one when the snow melts, I think).

 

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OK, I just set a new record with GCGG22:  First DNF 1-28-2004, tried a second time 6-10-2004 and found 3-10-2019 = 15 years, 1 month, 10 days from original DNF.  I guess I mellowed with age, as I stated in the second DNF:  " So, that's it, without hints I'll probably not try again."  It took awhile for me to 'calm' down and try again... :P I'm amazed that the co-ords for the stages are still there 16 years (almost) later :o (back then sometimes they were written on objects :wacko:).

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5 hours ago, The Jester said:

First DNF 1-28-2004, tried a second time 6-10-2004 and found 3-10-2019 = 15 years, 1 month, 10 days from original DNF.

Congratulations!

... as amazing as your 15year+ dnf to  find is that a multi in a suburban park would survive this long, last time the owner logged anything to the cache was in 2006.

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