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2017 geocaching goals


hzoi

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It seems every year I forget about the previous year's list of goals or resolutions until someone bumps the last one. So my first goal is not to forget about starting this topic so I can return to it next December!

 

I may or may not get to all of these in 2017, but I'll put 'em in writing and see where I stand next year.

 

1. Finish and log the Virginia virtual, county, and city challenges

2. Get closer to completing the various Delorme and county challenges for Maryland and Delaware

3. Log at least one new US state and one new country

4. Return to Iceland, find our 8000th cache there, and leave with over 100 total Icelandic finds

5. Publish a Wherigo cache and host a CITO

6. Finally qualify for the Jasmer with a May 2000 find

Edited by hzoi
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Had a very slow year this past year (~150 caches), but did manage four new states from business travel GA, FL, SC in one trip, OH on another. So I am at 29 states. Ohio will loom larger for me this year for work, so I should be able to get Kentucky and PA as well. Plus given how small the counties are compared to out here in California, I should be able to run up some numbers here and there on that front. Unlikely to get out of the country, alas.

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Earlier this month, I placed a challenge that requires finding at least 100 Alberta traditional caches that are located at least 1,800 metres above sea level.

 

In 2017, I'd like to place a "100 x 2,000m Challenge," which means we need to find another 40 caches that are above 2,000 metres. (Assuming, of course, that Groundspeak doesn't end challenge caches in 2017.)

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1. To have fun.

 

2. See #1.

 

That is all.

Since you're in Sierra Vista, maybe you can add some earthcache finds. I know one or two near you that are not too hard. :anibad:

I "pass" under your earthcache everyday twice a day to and from work(Douglas BP). You're right, I should stop by one of these days. My only excuse is I'm in work transit mode and rarely am thinking about caching then. Nice communicating with you. We've seen your mark in quite a few caches down this way, although most of my finds are in Pima county as that's where the wife and I spend most of our days off together.

Edited by TheAuthorityFigures
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1. Find finally GC40. Living in Belgium and still having that one in the to do list ....

2. Add at least two new countries to the list (actual count at 31)

3. Do my first Wherigo cache (I'm quite sure I'll fail at that one)

4. Try to "finish" Germany (3 states to go)

5. Keep my caches well maintained

6. Publish a couple more travel-related Challenge caches

 

... and have fun :-)

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I have 3 goals that have been on my list for a couple of years:

 

1. May/July 2000 caches. Tried for those this year, but only was able to get the one for June. All 3 are in OR, so these last two are at the top of the list.

 

2. Complete the Delorme list for ID. Have two sections to go, can be done over two days.

 

3. Get the virtual cache (and traditionals) where ID/NV/OR meet.

 

I also should be able to add China to the list of countries, as we are planning a trip there in Oct.

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The Jasmer Challenge would be fun to complete, but the nearest for July and August 2000 seem to be Georgia or Michigan. And one month in either would require renting a boat. So I may give up on that.

Definitely finish the Pennsylvania County and DeLorme Challenges.

Other than that: Try to have fun, and keep busy.

Though, I do enjoy Blue Caches. Last year, I found two that hadn't been found in over four years, and five that hadn't been found in over three years.

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The Jasmer Challenge would be fun to complete, but the nearest for July and August 2000 seem to be Georgia or Michigan. And one month in either would require renting a boat. So I may give up on that.

Definitely finish the Pennsylvania County and DeLorme Challenges.

Other than that: Try to have fun, and keep busy.

Though, I do enjoy Blue Caches. Last year, I found two that hadn't been found in over four years, and five that hadn't been found in over three years.

 

I didn't need a boat to find the Aug2000 cache in Georgia.

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The Jasmer Challenge would be fun to complete, but the nearest for July and August 2000 seem to be Georgia or Michigan. And one month in either would require renting a boat. So I may give up on that.

Definitely finish the Pennsylvania County and DeLorme Challenges.

Other than that: Try to have fun, and keep busy.

Though, I do enjoy Blue Caches. Last year, I found two that hadn't been found in over four years, and five that hadn't been found in over three years.

 

I didn't need a boat to find the Aug2000 cache in Georgia.

 

Yes. But the nearby July 2000 cache does require a boat. I would want to get both on the same trip.

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If all goes according to plan, my last 2016 cache and first 2017 cache will be in London.

If I can get that done, I'll be happy and will have completed my goal for the year...and on Day One!

 

Done! At 6:30am local London time, I found my second UK cache, the first of the year. I found my last 2016 find by the Royal Albert Hall.

 

Mission accomplished.

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If all goes according to plan, my last 2016 cache and first 2017 cache will be in London.

If I can get that done, I'll be happy and will have completed my goal for the year...and on Day One!

 

Done! At 6:30am local London time, I found my second UK cache, the first of the year. I found my last 2016 find by the Royal Albert Hall.

 

Mission accomplished.

Worth trying both The Winchester Geese and Last Delivery whilst you're here. The British library one is also well worth a go if you have time for it.

 

They're probably my three favourite non-virtual caches in London. Last Delivery in particular.

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If all goes according to plan, my last 2016 cache and first 2017 cache will be in London.

If I can get that done, I'll be happy and will have completed my goal for the year...and on Day One!

 

Done! At 6:30am local London time, I found my second UK cache, the first of the year. I found my last 2016 find by the Royal Albert Hall.

 

Mission accomplished.

Worth trying both The Winchester Geese and Last Delivery whilst you're here. The British library one is also well worth a go if you have time for it.

 

They're probably my three favourite non-virtual caches in London. Last Delivery in particular.

 

Not enough time, unfortunately. I landed at 10 am on the 31st and left for the airport via the tube at 8 am. I was lucky to fit in the two that I got! I do hope to get back there someday. It's a great city, definitely worth another visit!

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I haven't thought too much about 2017 yet. But, it's my 15th year of caching, so that's exciting. Don't know what I'm going to do with that.

 

I have a cache that will be 15 years old this summer, with the original container and logbook. I think I'll visit it and take some pictures.

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I have not made very concrete plans for 2017, but a few more or less general goals that come to my mind are as follows:

 

Hide one or maybe two hiking multi cache(s) of length at least 10km.

 

Find at least one, preferably more caches on mountains above 2000m altitude. My highest cache found so far was at close to 2700 m. I will not be able to beat that but geocaching is not about competition for me, I just like caches higher up very much.

 

Give this cache a try https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC1PXNH_seven-summits-7-gipfel-im-weizer-bergland (around 33km and 1600m elevation change due to severals ups and downs) and finish it off on a single day. Most cachers visit the stages stage by stage. For me the cache is only attractive when done in one day.

 

Find as many nice hiking multi caches as possible.

 

Increase the amount of km covered during cache walks/hikes.

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Find at least one, preferably more caches on mountains above 2000m altitude. My highest cache found so far was at close to 2700 m. I will not be able to beat that but geocaching is not about competition for me, I just like caches higher up very much.

Plenty of caches around your area that would qualify. Pilatus has some nice ones, if you felt like heading over into Switzerland. I was lazy and took the cable car up, but then still had to hike down to find a few.

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Find at least one, preferably more caches on mountains above 2000m altitude. My highest cache found so far was at close to 2700 m. I will not be able to beat that but geocaching is not about competition for me, I just like caches higher up very much.

Plenty of caches around your area that would qualify. Pilatus has some nice ones, if you felt like heading over into Switzerland. I was lazy and took the cable car up, but then still had to hike down to find a few.

 

But not plenty where I manage to hike up (and in particular down). I'm not interested into driving up by car or by cable car and I prefer the atmosphere on mountains which are visited only by hikers.

 

BtW the higher mountains you probably have in mind are not really in my area (Maribor is much closer to me than Vienna and much, much closer than Tyrol for example), but that not's the real issue in the holiday season.

Mountains above 2000m are however reachable to me within day trips.

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BtW the higher mountains you probably have in mind are not really in my area (Maribor is much closer to me than Vienna and much, much closer than Tyrol for example), but that not's the real issue in the holiday season.

Mountains above 2000m are however reachable to me within day trips.

I have an American sense of space; Virginia, the state where I currently live, is bigger than Austria, but I've driven throughout it a few times just for geocaching. Your mileage may vary (and may in fact be kilometerage). :anibad:

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BtW the higher mountains you probably have in mind are not really in my area (Maribor is much closer to me than Vienna and much, much closer than Tyrol for example), but that not's the real issue in the holiday season.

Mountains above 2000m are however reachable to me within day trips.

I have an American sense of space; Virginia, the state where I currently live, is bigger than Austria, but I've driven throughout it a few times just for geocaching. Your mileage may vary (and may in fact be kilometerage). :anibad:

 

I'm aware of the fact that what is long is subjective and I did not say that those mountains are too far away anyway. I just do not regard this area as my area. That's rather a language thing I guess.

 

Anyway when I listed some goals I did not think about vacation plans (I have not yet thought about vacation at all), but only about things which fit into my regular caching.

 

What indeed is true that unlike you I would not travel such distances like through Virginia just for geocaching.

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BtW the higher mountains you probably have in mind are not really in my area (Maribor is much closer to me than Vienna and much, much closer than Tyrol for example), but that not's the real issue in the holiday season.

Mountains above 2000m are however reachable to me within day trips.

I have an American sense of space; Virginia, the state where I currently live, is bigger than Austria, but I've driven throughout it a few times just for geocaching. Your mileage may vary (and may in fact be kilometerage). :anibad:

 

I'm aware of the fact that what is long is subjective and I did not say that those mountains are too far away anyway. I just do not regard this area as my area. That's rather a language thing I guess.

 

Anyway when I listed some goals I did not think about vacation plans (I have not yet thought about vacation at all), but only about things which fit into my regular caching.

 

What indeed is true that unlike you I would not travel such distances like through Virginia just for geocaching.

 

The most mundane details are debated way too frequently here in the forums.. stop taking the bait from the trolls.

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My goal last year was to fill the last 3 spots on my DT grid. Didn't happen, but it's my goal again this year.

 

My biggest goal is not to waste any good weather days here in FL. Our winters have grown short and our summers long so I have to make the most of good caching weather. Especially since it looks to be a dry winter.

 

My spring trip is to the Outer Banks so I want to be sure to get caches in all the eastern NC counties on that trip.

 

My fall trip might be to OR and WA in which case I want to get the Groundspeak HQ cache, the Original Stash Tribute, and the early 2000 caches there. (I will probably skip the APE tribute, unless the unique cache & icon comes back, in which case it is a must do.)

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My 2017 geocaching goals aren't that different from my 2016 geocaching goals. Mainly, I want to keep having fun with geocaching.

 

I would like to get caught up logging all my field notes. The longer I wait, the harder it will be to get caught up.

 

I may make more progress on the Bay Area Quad Challenge, especially in the northern quadrangles. But that depends on other events, so it isn't really a goal for 2017.

 

And I may hide another geocache or two, perhaps turning some of the many concepts I've come up with into actual caches.

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Having just recently retired from full-time work, I'd thought geocaching would become a fairly big part of my life of leisure.

 

In April I'll be returning to Lord Howe Island for a few days, hoping to find the remaining four caches I didn't get on my visit last year. The final location of GC5KKQ8 may prove beyond my climbing abilities if past logs are anything to go by, but I'll still get to see some amazing scenery along the way so a smiley or not doesn't really matter with this one.

 

Beyond that, I'd been thinking of placing some more high-terrain multis and puzzles showcasing some of the less readily accessible beauty spots around here, but after running afoul of the "needs maintenance" bot on a recent T5 hide because not enough people had found it during its first weeks of life and then someone didn't, perhaps that's not such a good idea.

 

Likewise for the "Takes Time" challenge cache I'd been thinking of creating, which would have required a specified number of finds with the "takes more than an hour" attribute, as that probably wouldn't pass the "appeals to a reasonable number of cachers" requirement around here unless I set the bar so low it wouldn't be a challenge, and in any case, with the T4 takes-much-more-than-an-hour location I had in mind for GZ, it'd probably run afoul of the bot too.

 

I'd also contemplated hosting some more events in scenic locations around here but the recent change to the guidelines preventing rescheduling or relocating an event if the weather turns bad makes that problematic too.

 

So I guess I'll cast aside my CO hat and just focus on finding caches that appeal to me (a nice bush hike with some challenging terrain and good scenery). A caching friend has recently moved from Sydney to the Blue Mountains so I'll no doubt be visiting him and checking out some of those high-country hides. Then there's the highly recommended 131-cache Mid North Coast Wander series (GC3P19D et al) along the forest roads around Lansdowne so once the weather's a bit cooler I'll spend a few days up there wandering the mid north coast.

 

In February or March I'm hoping to visit friends in southern New South Wales and do a bit of exploring around the Snowy Mountains region, although looking at the map there aren't many caches down there outside the townships. Oh well.

 

Closer to home, I expect I'll continue to gradually expand my find radius north into the Hunter region and south into Sydney as well as grabbing any new ones that are published locally, and continue the routine maintenance runs of my hides until they start showing signs of aging at which point I'll archive them and let others use the locations. With the emphasis now on urban park-and-grabs, maybe it's time to start looking at alternative pastimes like orienteering, although the orienteering club here is a bit too gung-ho for my liking.

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Now that I'm sorta cleared for a light walk, I'd like to just GET OUT for a while.

Maybe some simpler caches that normally wouldn't be hit, after this week's storms.

 

Would like to actually finish one of the many uncompleted multis hit. :D

Missing stages, or simply ran outta time with higher terrain, now waiting for others close by to warrant the drive.

 

I've been missing out on a lotta 5 terrain caches, and probably gonna hit a bunch solo late Spring into Summer.

In Spring I supposedly get full use of this @^*# knee, and our 5s need a check for fakers, with a long paddle-to maybe getting a new stage replaced while there.

 

So nothing spectacular, just getting out a bit more. :)

Still considering finally placing a LBH with one of our custom stamps too.

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I don't have much of a list:

 

-Reach 200 caches this month hopefully!

-Have fun (someone said that already and I love it)

-Do more Earthcaches

-Participate in the KC Battleship caches in my area (I've seen them but haven't decided to do the challenge until now)

-Find someone else about my age who geocaches

-Get a premium membership from the website since I have the app that is going away.

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I don't usually have such overarching plans for my caching, but decided to give it a try for this year. There are some caches that I want to finally find this year, and some hikes that I hope to tackle this summer, since last summer was slowed by a foot injury.

 

MAPS -- New geographic areas might be tough, since we've already cached in most of the places that we travel to. Not sure if we'll be going anywhere new this year:

-- Add 10 WA DeLorme pages (38 thru 2016)

-- Add 5 US counties (68 thru 2016)

-- Add 1 US state (6 thru 2016)

 

GRIDS -- I don't usually look at dates/ratings when deciding what caches to attempt, but doing so might be a good way to select 'destination caches' when I have trouble choosing a place to go to cache:

-- Fill 5 more 2000/2001 cells in Jasmer grid (10 thru 2016)

-- Fill 30 more cells in Find Date grid (301 thru 2016)

-- Complete Fizzy and Hidden Date grids

 

NUMBERS:

-- At least 1000 finds

-- At least 3 hides

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After today, we have a goal for 2017 to never have 8 DNFs in a day again..... unless we find 100 in the process.... :)

That gives me an idea of another goal I should set for this year. There's a biking/walking trail with a string of caches on it. One day, I searched for 15 of the caches on that trail - Found 9, DNF'd 6. The 6 caches were there, found the day after my visit and regularly thereafter. Somehow, I just missed them.

 

I'm going to add a goal of revisiting that trail and avenging those DNF's. :huh:

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Not really a "goal" because it will happen anyway, cache in our 6th continent adding 2 countries. It will also give us new "Westernmost" founds.

FINALLY going after GC40 (only about 130 Km from home) on the way to Luxembourg (another new country).

 

It's not 100% confirmed but I should get my 5th continent this year when I visit Australia in June and that would probably entail a layover country where I've not found a cache. That would also give me a new furthest from home but it would only increase the distance from 9415 miles you around 9480 miles. Since the 6th continent would be South America it's probably only a matter of time before I get one there as well. Funny how finding a cache in the country next door can take much longer than finding them on the other side of the world. I still haven't logged a find in Canada and its only about a 3 hour drive from here.

 

Other than geocaching in new countries or states I have not yet visited I really don't have any other goals.

 

 

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