Jump to content

Fastest 81


Recommended Posts

As I limp along in the mid-50s on my D/T grid, I'm wondering:

 

What's the shortest period of time in which anyone claims to have done all 81 combinations?

 

Is there a trail somewhere designed just for this - from a back of a roadsign 1/1, to a solve a vigenere cipher in Sanskrit and abseil down a volcano 5/5, all within 8.1 (ish) miles? And if not, why not? :anitongue:

  • Love 1
Link to comment

As I limp along in the mid-50s on my D/T grid, I'm wondering:

 

What's the shortest period of time in which anyone claims to have done all 81 combinations?

 

Is there a trail somewhere designed just for this - from a back of a roadsign 1/1, to a solve a vigenere cipher in Sanskrit and abseil down a volcano 5/5, all within 8.1 (ish) miles? And if not, why not? :anitongue:

 

Fastest? No idea, but I'm going for slowest. 13 years of caching and I'm not close to having all.

 

As far as a such a trail, I doubt you can easily find any place that would have enough varied terrain for 9 caches of each difficulty level. I don't doubt that sooner or later we'll see an 81 cache PT with all possible D/T combinations regardless of the actual D/T.

Link to comment

I don't doubt that sooner or later we'll see an 81 cache PT with all possible D/T combinations regardless of the actual D/T.

 

I'd wager there's one already!

 

Since people have no problem listing an event as a 5 Diff / 1 Terr (at a restuarant) so that the event can be used for some silly Challenge, peopel will likely have no issues with making up D/T combos for the same reason.

Link to comment

I'd wager there's one already!

 

I seem to recall when the WRC/FC first came out, that there were a number of attempts to do this, or at least put out some of the unusual, hard to find D/T combinations. Seemed a bit contrived to me, but hey, folks were having fun with it.

 

Judging by the OP's Hides, I'd guess they're heading down that same path ;)

Link to comment

As I limp along in the mid-50s on my D/T grid, I'm wondering:

 

What's the shortest period of time in which anyone claims to have done all 81 combinations?

 

Is there a trail somewhere designed just for this - from a back of a roadsign 1/1, to a solve a vigenere cipher in Sanskrit and abseil down a volcano 5/5, all within 8.1 (ish) miles? And if not, why not? :anitongue:

 

Fastest? No idea, but I'm going for slowest. 13 years of caching and I'm not close to having all.

 

As far as a such a trail, I doubt you can easily find any place that would have enough varied terrain for 9 caches of each difficulty level. I don't doubt that sooner or later we'll see an 81 cache PT with all possible D/T combinations regardless of the actual D/T.

 

Around here that kinda terrain is everywhere but no one has done that yet.

Link to comment

As I limp along in the mid-50s on my D/T grid, I'm wondering:

 

What's the shortest period of time in which anyone claims to have done all 81 combinations?

 

Is there a trail somewhere designed just for this - from a back of a roadsign 1/1, to a solve a vigenere cipher in Sanskrit and abseil down a volcano 5/5, all within 8.1 (ish) miles? And if not, why not? :anitongue:

 

There is a series of caches near Dallas, but you can still get an FTF on the bonus (http://coord.info/GC4758H), so I don't know how short the period of time can be to find them all ;). Someone made a bookmark list for it: http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=4dd0c494-bd17-41c9-82d8-8aee729f9f2e

 

Good luck!

Link to comment

At some of the UK megas in the past I believe that the organisers have contrived to publish a series of 81 caches which allow people to complete the whole grid whilst attending. I'm sure some of the keener caches could do this in 24 hours if they set themselves to it. How appropriate the ratings are for those caches is another matter! I find grid filling more addictive than just going for numbers - currently on the 8th time round with 8 more to find. However, many of the higher terrain ones were over graded.

Link to comment

I was at a little over 600 finds when I first heard of the 81 matrix. I wastn't too far off, don't remember how many. I could have pulled it off around 700 total finds, easily, but purposefully found caches to make my 810th find the final cache I needed. Stinger GC2D47C in November of 2010. At the time, I was the only oklahoman to complete the challenge. i think it is a lot easier now. I drove many hundreds of miles and only found between 10-20 that day (too lazy to actually look it up) to locate the last few I needed. Not near as hard now.

Link to comment

There are a bunch of powertrail in the Mt Hood area that will help you with this.

 

There is a challenge trail in Oregon that will help you but then again, can't be your first 81 as you have to qualify first. Its quite obvious they were created to fill up a grid, not legitimately qualify for it though.

Link to comment

I'd wager there's one already!

 

Judging by the OP's Hides, I'd guess they're heading down that same path ;)

 

Haha - I'm proud not to have any caches where D=T, as I actually think about the ratings! Lots of tough puzzles / field puzzles; 2 up trees where, once you're up the tree you can't really fail to find the box. No agenda to put out rare combos.

 

If I ever put out a 1.5/1.5 film pot, feel free to beat me round the head with an ammo box / obsolete Garmin (you choose).

Link to comment

We have cached in 49 states so far. What one CO in east Texas designates a 2/4 would rate a 1.5/1.5 in the mountains. We need 2 more spaces on our D/T grid and will finish it someday, hopefully with older caches instead of ones someone put out recently with the intent of providing local cachers with ratings for their grids.

Link to comment

We have cached in 49 states so far. What one CO in east Texas designates a 2/4 would rate a 1.5/1.5 in the mountains. We need 2 more spaces on our D/T grid and will finish it someday, hopefully with older caches instead of ones someone put out recently with the intent of providing local cachers with ratings for their grids.

Yes it's a very subjective system, despite everything... as discussed elsewhere.

 

Different grid... I seem to remember someone on another thread claiming to have done 366/366 straight off in the 1st year of caching; found that a bit hard to believe, but if they say so! My longest slump is still 7 days between first two weekends of caching. I'm on 362 after 17 months - 3 days in Aug and then 29 Feb 2016, to go. So I'd venture getting to 365 in under 2 years is pretty good going but probably bettered many many times.

Link to comment

Here in Pennsylvania, the Lancaster Organizing for Seeking Tupperware (L.O.S.T.) has a nice series called LOST 81, covering all the difficulty/terrain combinations within their home area in south central PA. Click the link for their profile, where you can look at the group's hidden caches. So far as I know, the caches in that series are accurately rated. They're scattered around the area, not along a single trail.

 

I am only three caches short and have targeted the caches I want to find to get a complete set of 81 D/T combinations. Just need to plan the roadtrips.

Link to comment

My husband and I have been caching since 2009. We keep looking at our grid and getting a kick out of it when we cross off one more D/T combination. Our thoughts are that we'll get there some day, but it's not a primary objective. Though I've seen a few series dedicated to helping cachers fill out their D/T grids and some of them are pretty neat, like the L.O.S.T. group and there's also a series in a regional park in Washington County, PA that darn near nails all possible combos--and appears to do so without taking liberties with the D/T rating scale. So you could probably do it, reasonably, within a week if you plan it out in advance.

Link to comment

This was by far my most favorite challenge.

I started on this one when I had about 60 or so of the grid filled in.

With some collaboration from a few of my geo-pals we started this

in earnest. Tons of PQs from each of us and alot of research done off

we went each day to compete this one. Way too $ spent on fuel, ferries

ect but really worth it.

 

As the story goes I hit a few snags along the way but persevered to

the end. Lo and behold I went searching for the Final by myself but...

Yup, DNFd it. Ah crap.

 

Few days later went back and finally found it! Challenge complete.

And CO of Washington Fizzy gave me an 81 Coin to boot, cant beat that.

 

Challenges aren't to everyones liking but I Really enjoyed this one.

Link to comment

There is a series in the Ocala National Forest ("Coexist") that covers all 81 D/T combinations. It will probably take you at least 2 days to get the entire series as most caches are just various levels of heavy bushwhacking. From what I've heard most of the series should probably be around 2/4 (and certainly no 1/1 or 5/5) but the CO apparently felt otherwise.

Link to comment

Here in Pennsylvania, the Lancaster Organizing for Seeking Tupperware (L.O.S.T.) has a nice series called LOST 81, covering all the difficulty/terrain combinations within their home area in south central PA. Click the link for their profile, where you can look at the group's hidden caches. So far as I know, the caches in that series are accurately rated. They're scattered around the area, not along a single trail.

 

I am only three caches short and have targeted the caches I want to find to get a complete set of 81 D/T combinations. Just need to plan the roadtrips.

 

Yes!!! I live here in SE PA and am a part of the L.O.S.T group. AWESOME group of folks who are very dedicated & passionate about the hobby. Some of the folks in our group have 10,000 finds, 15,000 finds..... We have monthly dinner meetings, picnics, & events.

 

My husband and I haven't finished the L.O.S.T 81 series yet (have 6 left) but we have finished our D/T chart and filled in our calendar in 3 years.

 

In the last 2 years, our primary goals were to finish the calender and fill the D/T chart. It's been a lot of road trips and a lot of pre-planning. It's been challenging but we've had a blast and keeps us going. We haven't cached much this year due to various life events - but I'm excited to get out tomorrow with a group of folks to complete a 4/5 cache by L.O.S.T 81. Been eyeballing this one for a very long time!!

(It's that itch that we haven't been able to scratch!!)

Edited by Lieblweb
Link to comment

I saw a post somewhere that you can get all 81 in the vicinity of Hood River Oregon. I have not checked that area out yet but with all the caches on both sides of the Columbia river there I can see how it could be done. If there is a bookmark of the 81 in a small area that would be worth planning a vacation trip around it.

Link to comment

Since people have no problem listing an event as a 5 Diff / 1 Terr (at a restuarant) so that the event can be used for some silly Challenge, peopel will likely have no issues with making up D/T combos for the same reason.

This is no doubt why the original Well-Rounded Cacher/ Fizzy Challenge required all the qualifying finds to have been hidden before the challenge itself. Some of the mimics have maintained this rule, but by no means all. I don't know who was fastest to complete the grid. It took me almost 7 years, so I'm far from the first, but then I wasn't even going for it until the last year or so. I will say that even though I don't like most challenge caches because they are so arbitrary and pointless, I loved that one. It really is the first one that served to get the average cacher to expand his range, try different things he never thought he could, and team up with others he doesn't know well (e.g., 4WD owners, scuba divers) for particular "assaults". It helped that I did the final on the original WRC/FC with fizzymagic himself. It was a gorgeous day in beautiful scenic redwoods and we were all by ourselves on the trail. We almost DNFed the final!

Link to comment
On 6/5/2014 at 2:19 AM, Oxford Stone said:

No agenda to put out rare combos.

I confess, I do have an agenda to put out rare D/Ts, but they are accurately rated. Some

On 6/13/2014 at 5:34 PM, The Rat said:

people have no problem listing an event as a 5 Diff / 1 Terr (at a restuarant)

and that kinda ruins it. I've had an event that was elevated in the trees thanks to a set up of angles slacklines and a tree tent, and had a trail maintenance CITO with multiple miles covered with rugged terrain in the mountains. Those two events made sense with higher terrain ratings but many do not. 

 

My shameful agenda is to tailor my home county to have everything someone could want - all types, all D/Ts, gadget caches, teamwork caches, rock climbing... this only works if the caches match the description, so my rock climbing hides at terrain 5 literally require rappelling equipment.

It means my highly rated caches dont get much traffic at all but those who do find it get an absolute adventure. 

  • Funny 1
Link to comment
5 minutes ago, Bundyrumandcoke said:

Been caching since 2006. I still have 20 spaces to fill. I didnt even know this was a thing. Meah, Im not worried. 

Perfect. You totally shouldn't be worried and neither should anybody. There's so many aspects to the game, chart filling is just another side to it and some people never look at or think of it. I think that the diversely varied gameplay is part of the brilliance of geocaching; you find your niche and make it your own. 

Link to comment
16 minutes ago, Bundyrumandcoke said:

Been caching since 2006. I still have 20 spaces to fill. I didnt even know this was a thing. Meah, Im not worried. 

 

Yep, me too.    :)

I skip the caches that are fakers placed simply to fill a grid, just like the "on the way to" hides now heading to the original one (even they were headed to...) at the end. 

That was the other 2/3rds thing anyway...  

A little surprised that I have a low D, high T cache still open, but not in a hurry to fill it.

Most of the ones left seem to be high D along with high T. 

I'm more interested in the hike than playing games with finding/opening a container...

Link to comment
8 minutes ago, CheekyBrit said:

Perfect. You totally shouldn't be worried and neither should anybody. There's so many aspects to the game, chart filling is just another side to it and some people never look at or think of it. I think that the diversely varied gameplay is part of the brilliance of geocaching; you find your niche and make it your own. 

 

Been caching since 2007.  I have no idea how many spaces I need to fill but think it's probably closer to 30.

Link to comment
8 minutes ago, lee737 said:

We're 4200-odd finds, 6 years, have one spot to go..... we've been plugging away at them. Initially when the kids were younger the high-T finds were a hassle and took a while....

 

I've been caching a couple of years longer than Lee but have only gotten 1279 finds (not counting ALs) and still with plenty of empty holes in the bottom rows of my grid. I enjoy the higher terrain ones, although there are a fair few T4.5s that are beyond my reach, but I'm not much good at solving puzzles much tougher than a D3.

image.png.759dab3e3b49c02e339945973c539451.png

I doubt I'll ever fill my grid, as by the time I figure out enough of those D4.5 and D5 puzzles I'll be too old to get to the T4.5 ones.

  • Funny 1
Link to comment
On 6/5/2014 at 10:13 AM, The Leprechauns said:

Here in Pennsylvania, the Lancaster Organizing for Seeking Tupperware (L.O.S.T.) has a nice series called LOST 81, covering all the difficulty/terrain combinations within their home area in south central PA. Click the link for their profile, where you can look at the group's hidden caches. So far as I know, the caches in that series are accurately rated. They're scattered around the area, not along a single trail.

 

I am only three caches short and have targeted the caches I want to find to get a complete set of 81 D/T combinations. Just need to plan the roadtrips.

 

What a fun thread bump!  It took me 4804 days to finish my first Fizzy Grid.  Since then, I met my current caching partner, who is an even bigger fan of high terrain caches, and I've gotten hooked on challenge caches, which tend to have high difficulty ratings.  I've now completed six loops, and am two grid squares away from my seventh.  My shortest interval between loops was 42 days.  All of my "loop finishers" have been found with my partner, including my most recent one - which was part of the LOST 81 series that I posted about more than six years ago!

Link to comment
On 1/3/2021 at 5:56 PM, CheekyBrit said:

 

On 6/13/2014 at 6:34 PM, The Rat said:

people have no problem listing an event as a 5 Diff / 1 Terr (at a restuarant)

and that kinda ruins it. I've had an event that was elevated in the trees thanks to a set up of angles slacklines and a tree tent, and had a trail maintenance CITO with multiple miles covered with rugged terrain in the mountains. Those two events made sense with higher terrain ratings but many do not. 

 

Thank goodness, since the time of the original thread, the cache submission process now force-rates all event caches as Difficulty 1.  The abuse has been curbed.  I used to joke, what makes an event a difficulty 5?  Is everyone hiding so that I can't find them?

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
59 minutes ago, lee737 said:

I've enjoyed tracking down the various combos, it sets goals and takes you to places you wouldn't have diverted to otherwise....

 

I looked at the challenge and saw that I only needed one more 5T cache!  I'm not a kayaker, not a rock climber...  Searched the maps, and found one that I might be  able to walk to.  Walked through the swamp, and sat on a tree floating in the river.  And I got it!!  Completed my Fizzy Challenge.  I doubt that I'll ever get the double Fizzy.

Link to comment
2 hours ago, The Leprechauns said:

I used to joke, what makes an event a difficulty 5?  Is everyone hiding so that I can't find them?

I've attended events where it would have made sense to solve a D5 puzzle to get the coordinates, except Groundspeak doesn't allow that kind of thing. And I like the idea of holding an event in a private room that is accessed via a secret door, something that would be a significant challenge to find/open to access the event location.

Link to comment
2 hours ago, niraD said:

I've attended events where it would have made sense to solve a D5 puzzle to get the coordinates, except Groundspeak doesn't allow that kind of thing. And I like the idea of holding an event in a private room that is accessed via a secret door, something that would be a significant challenge to find/open to access the event location.

 

Interestingly, if we can have remote 5/5 traditionals where the cache itself is easy to find (like 1D if you're there) but they just max out the ratings because of the amount of work/terrain to get to (like a day paddle or camping or wilderness hike, etc), you'd think we could have 5/5 events too. But for events, the D seems to be much more ..relevant? Got to be a 1D, but 5T okay. And you could place a 5/5 Trad next to it. :P

Link to comment
13 hours ago, The Leprechauns said:

 

Thank goodness, since the time of the original thread, the cache submission process now force-rates all event caches as Difficulty 1.  The abuse has been curbed.  I used to joke, what makes an event a difficulty 5?  Is everyone hiding so that I can't find them?

 

An event at 3 o'clock in the night (to celebrate the end of DST) would definitely be D5'ish to me...

  • Funny 2
Link to comment

I've been caching for over 6 years and still need 9 spots filled...although this month I think I'll get one or two done. I'm only interested in getting more of my grid filled since there isnt much to do these days....lockdowns mean lots of geo-brainstorming or cache creating.

 

I've been hiding higher T caches for a while, though I don't have a ton of em...and they're all pretty sccurate, except one or two which were old ratings that are a bit soft on the T, or too high...but only by half a star. I recently hid a 4.5/3, but I made sure everything checked out....I just found another 4.5/3 today, a puzzle cache like my own 4.5/3, but in soem ways it's easier then my own cache, the terrain is a scotche high too.

 

Grid filling is fun, but yes,the journey is so so much more worthwhile to me. I'd rather walk 10 miles then climb a tree then just take a bus to fill a spot on my grid.

Link to comment

Grid filling these days can be a joke to some, with power trails placed near Mega events. I heard someone at GeoWoodstock in Ft. Worth 'bragging' that they had found two complete Fizzy loops that day - 162 caches with the falsely labeled D/T combos.  

  • Surprised 1
Link to comment
1 hour ago, K13 said:

Grid filling these days can be a joke to some, with power trails placed near Mega events. I heard someone at GeoWoodstock in Ft. Worth 'bragging' that they had found two complete Fizzy loops that day - 162 caches with the falsely labeled D/T combos.  

This forum really needs a "Sad" reaction...  :sad:

  • Upvote 1
  • Love 1
Link to comment

Nice to see my thread bumped!

https://project-gc.com/Statistics/TopNumDTInOneDay 

5 UK cachers have done all 81 in a day. I know one of the cachers and they said it was an event with power trail, in the Netherlands. 

My son filled his grid before his 10th birthday - a few high D puzzles where he was a passenger but the high Ts (tunnels, kayaking) he most definitely put in the hard work. I'm on 2 and 74/81, maybe some team days out when we can, to get the missing 7 for a 3rd loop but not a huge priority... though by definition these will be challenging and hopefully interesting caches.

Link to comment
On 1/12/2021 at 5:52 AM, Oxford Stone said:

it was an event with power trail, in the Netherlands

 

A country known for its dangerous and insurmountable terrain. :anibad: Just look at the formidable view from its highest park peak.

 

Three_Country_Point,_Vaalserberg,_April_

 

That said, I haven't seen the series in question, and given how popular tree climbing caches are in Europe, there's a decent chance that the ratings reflect reality.

 

As to the original question, apparently it took me 1330 days (4 March 2007 to 24 October 2010) to fill in our D/T grid. I recall it actually taking less time at first - but this was back before challenge caches had gotten popular, so every time cache owners changed D/T ratings on their hides, I had to go plug another hole, like the fabled Dutch boy at the leaky dike from Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. Without that, it would have taken at least a year less, as I thought I had it pretty much filled before we left Germany the first time in 2009. But that was a long time ago, so don't quote me.

Edited by hzoi
  • Upvote 1
  • Funny 1
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...