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moosehunter5

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WHY did you start geocaching?

WHAT keeps you geocaching today?

I first went geocaching when invited by friends of mine in May of 2014.  Actually got interested in the pastime in May of 2015. I had no rhyme or reason as to which geocaches I sought.  Today what drives me most often is a small number of caches with interesting descriptions in whatever area I think would be a good place for a day trip or two. Thus I have been may places, and down roads and trails I never would have dreamed of following otherwise. I just love it.

Happy Caching

Edited by moosehunter5
Last two sentences were dropped somehow. Operator error
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We started in 2008.  We purchased a GPSr for our son who was just starting to go fishing alone, and was looking for a way to learn the unit.  (BTW, he never did get that unit to use!).  We stumbled along, finding one cache at a time, til Mrs. 4h decided that on vacation we would attempt to find about 20 caches in one day.  That's when we were really hooked--finding caches in places we never knew existed in an area we had vacationed in for years!  We like finding unique caches, of course, but we regularly complete power trails and enjoy them, too.  Even a LPC is welcome on one of those days when you have a couple of DNFs!  Can't wait for Mr. 4h to retire so we can really cache like we want to!

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I found a geocache in 2009 while at a party with my parents. The host mentioned that she had been having trouble with people walking through her property to get to it. I asked if we could go find it, and we did. I recall that it was a large tupperware in plain sight. We didn't have coordinates or anything so it can't have been difficult. It wasn't until 4 years later that I somehow remembered that moment and got an account. I found about 2 dozen caches in the next few months and then found a grand total of 2 over the next 3 years. In 2016, I guess the fever caught me again and I haven't missed a week in 3 years. 

 

Nowadays, what really keeps me going is the numbers. I hit the power trails, guard rails, lamp post skirts. You name it. My biggest goal is to place a nano cache at every busy intersection within a 15-mile radius. I don't have time to maintain them of course as I'm always out on a new power trail. I've never logged a dnf. Probably because I just place my own cache whenever I can't find one. That way everyone can pump up their numbers. Nobody should have to suffer a loss at the hands of a geocache. 

 

Ok, no, I'm only kidding. I just can't stop. I love hiking, and I like having a goal in mind while doing so. Sometimes, that means reaching the top, and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, a geocache is always nice. I like seeing what people can create and like everyone, I can experience the joy of uncovering a cache that has taken a lot of effort to find, be it in the form of a tough puzzle, a strenuous search, or through physical effort. 

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I started geocaching to learn how to use my GPS, essentially bought for security on solo hiking trips, using it to challenge me to find places unknown to me or off the beaten track & find my way out again!

 

Once I realised that hunting for caches could lead me to some intriguing places down those interesting side tracks from my ususal walking routes I was hooked.  I plan walks then check for & download all caches along & close to the route & it makes for some extra fun along familiar tracks.  It has also lead me to hidden places that are not marked on any map (like a remote cave in Greece) that I had previously failed to locate.  Now with cache coordinates I can confidently hunt out these places.  It has also led me to re-visit some locations with happy childhood memories.

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I started geocaching when I found a Tupperware container in the park near where I was living at the time, in spring of 2014. I made an account soon after, and I completely messed up the found times....my first few cache finds are all incorrect as to when I found them haha. Anyways, I stopped geocaching after I became bored of it, and becoming frustrated by the applications which serves geocaching (most were knockoffs, the official was quite strange to me). I briefly geocached a bit a few months after….and stopped....and went back to it a few months later....and stopped, then got back into it just over a year ago, and haven't stopped geocaching since. I geocache for the fun of it, and because it can be such a unique and fun experience.

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WHY?  Why not?

WHAT?  3,000,000+ caches I haven't found ... yet.

 

In the late 90's I bought a GPSr for hiking/climbing.  In 2001 I saw a sidebar article in Backpacker (or Climbing) magazine that mentioned Letterboxing & Geocaching, and since there was a cache on a training hike I used (and the nearest LB was even harder to get to...) the next time I headed up that trail I found it.  Of course, I knew nothing about NAD27 vs. WGS84, and while I found it, I put it back in the wrong spot about 400 feet off (same setting but harder to get to, which at the time I puzzled over).  So I *had* to go back and put it in the right spot (back then visits were weeks apart).  I learned a whole lot about the GPSr while caching.  Every once in a while I'd run across something dealing with a cache and go "I read something like this in manual" and then learn the easier way of doing it.

 

In the last couple of years I've stopped caching as much around home, but since retiring we've done a lot of traveling around the country in our trailer (we've been twice around country in the last three years) and that's when we do more caching.  I get kind of picky with what caches we look for while traveling (if I'm using vacation time I'm looking for good caches/places to see), but there are still days I 'munch' - just grabbing a bunch of caches in an area no matter ratings or placement.  The more we see of this country (or any part of the world, for that matter) the more we realize there is to see of it, and we know we'll never see it all, but it's fun trying!

 

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I started caching because a friend showed me caching while hiking. I love to hike, so it seemed like a great add-on to hiking.

 

Now one of the main things that keeps me caching is life stress. When I get stressed I go out and cache. I think it's something about finding tupperware in the woods that tells the psyche that everything has got to be okay if I can spend time doing that.

It's amazing how well it works. When I get stressed now I crave caching. It works for me.

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I started geocaching in 2011 ostensibly to learn how to use a new GPSr that I had purchased. The reason I purchased the GPSr was because of a harrowing search and rescue mission that I took part in. Two girls narrowly avoided freezing to death while stranded on a desert tower/dome, and part of the reason that it took our teams so long to reach them was that a storm rolled in and covered the entire landscape in a thick snowy fog. If it weren't for my team member's GPS, we surely would not have been able to navigate the rough terrain. That experience made me realize the value in having a rugged GPS unit as a navigational aid. When I did get my own device, I somehow thought about geocaching as a way to elarn how to use it. I can't remember if I had heard about geocaching somewhere, or if there was a brochure that came with the Garmin 60Csx that I had bought. But I soon found myself exploring all over my neighborhood and the nearby mountain ranges looking for geocaches, and became hooked pretty quickly.

 

What keeps me going today is mostly the great excuse geocaching gives me to explore really remote areas. I am particularly motivated by 3rd party sites like www.lonelycacheproject.com, which highlight caches in your area (if you live in certain Western states) that are lonely and in remote spots. Finding lonely caches in hard to reach places really keeps me into this hobby. It helps that I enjoy most other aspects of the hobby, like cache ownership, meeting other geocachers, interesting puzzles and funny or creative hides.

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I cache since July this year. This is how I got hooked.

 

In early summer this year a tragic incident happened. A group of four cachers went into underground sewer system to seek a geocache. Unfortunately for them, a storm dropped substantial amount of rain on surrounding areas and they got swept by a flash flood. Two of them were saved from drowning in a river they were swept into, but two others didn't make it, body of one has never been recovered. This caused wave of publicity, which (I believe) led to national public radio station host to invite a prominent geocacher for an interview. By chance I happened to listen to that interview on my commute and that's where it started for me. I visited GC.com and saw there was a cache mere 90 meters from my home! So I created an account and logged that as my very first cache. Today I have 86 finds and my first cache box to be hidden is ready and waiting for the day D. So far, I am totally in love. If it were all up to me, I'd cache all the time. I love to go out and to new places, so caching is a perfect fit. So far, two things bother me about geocaching. First, full logbooks and unmaintained caches. Second, there seems to be lot of cheaters out there. Recently I did a D4 mystery cache that required highly specialized knowledge that I just happened to have, so I didn't have much trouble. But I read ton of log entries that are in the style "today we decided to sweep caches in this area, it was nice walk, got XX caches". No mention of solving the problem, just going out and picking up a cache that took me around 2 hours to solve while knowing what's it about? I am very doubtful these people actually solved anything and this devalues this kind of difficult caches.

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We were first introduced to geocaching when our daughter invited us to join her and our granddaughters to a community event as a sort of introduction to geocaching.  We tagged along and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves so a month later we bought a gps and registered as Ewe & Me.  

The thing that keeps me going is I dislike walking without a goal so searching for a geocache is the perfect way to stay active and enjoy the outdoors.  It takes us to areas that we would normally not get to and see some beautiful sights.  I regret that we did not learn about this great hobby years ago when we were still young and agile enough to jump ditches and climb trees!  

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I started geocaching in 2016. A friend had mentioned it on another forum I frequent and I thought it looked like a fun way to get some fitness up and a good excuse to get me out of the house for a while.

 

I really love the thrill of the hunt and the sense of pride and satisfaction you get when making a find. I also love seeing places and areas I wouldn't normally go, and finding new things. It's actually kinda fun being a tourist in your own town and seeing things with new eyes!

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I started because my young son liked geography and was interested in trying it.  We didn't have a GPS so we mapped the urban caches on Google Earth and found them that way!  We did it for a few months in 2009, and got about 20 caches, and then we stopped doing it.  Last summer, getting sick of waiting around to find someone to go caching with me, I finally started to take it up again alone.

 

What makes me keep caching today is that it takes me to so many places I would never have gotten to see without geocaching.  Not just the monuments and parks and "important" stuff, but also little towns nearby that I didn't even realize existed, neighborhoods with interesting houses, new stores and restaurants.  And each cache seems to have a little story attached.  This is where I almost got attacked by a dog.  This is where I slipped and ripped my coat.  This is where I saw that really cool car.  This is where I saw the grave of the 19-year-old woman and her unnamed infant son.  This is where I saw the fox.  This is where I saw that funny misspelled sign.  This is where I found the dead raccoon with a beer can under it.  It adds so much to my life in such a simple way.

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I started because I was reading a book by Stephen booth where they mentioned a geocache, I thought what’s that? Googled geocache and 8 years later I’m still going out looking. What keeps me caching, well where I live there are only 5 caches in the country that I haven’t found so it’s the events that our geocaching group hold, so I guess it’s friendship.

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On ‎11‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 7:50 AM, Fugads said:

What keeps me going today is mostly the great excuse geocaching gives me to explore really remote areas. I am particularly motivated by 3rd party sites like www.lonelycacheproject.com, which highlight caches in your area (if you live in certain Western states) that are lonely and in remote spots. Finding lonely caches in hard to reach places really keeps me into this hobby. It helps that I enjoy most other aspects of the hobby, like cache ownership, meeting other geocachers, interesting puzzles and funny or creative hides.

Thanks for mentioning LonelyCache!

 

I used to be an officer in my employer's camping club and a fellow colleague told me about Geocaching on one of our outings. Shortly after, I found a few with my family and we found some on a vacation. A few years later, a friend told me about the Deep Southwest Geocaching Project, or DGP, that scored caches and ranked cachers by the lonely caches they found. I really enjoyed that side of the game, finding hard to get to caches. That site went defunct in 2011, so I started LonelyCache. I don't geocache nearly as much as I used to, but I think that's what keeps me geocaching now.

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On 11/27/2018 at 1:54 PM, moosehunter5 said:

WHY did you start geocaching?

WHAT keeps you geocaching today?

 

A friend asked me if I had heard of geocaching. I said yes, having heard of it in passing at some point. He wanted to give it a try and I said sure. That was 9 years ago.

 

Geocaching still takes me interesting places.

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I read an article about geocaching. Couldn't afford a GPSr, so I just put it in the back of my mind. A couple of year later, my wife's business had accumulated enough points in a loyalty program for me to get a GPSr. An original yellow eTrex. I put the coordinates of a geocache into it, and found my first geocache. It was great!!! But, I put off finding another cache for over a year. Then I started in earnest. Back then, I would find anything. Later, I got more selective. Then, GeoTours came out, and I did a bunch of them. However, since Pokemon GO has come out, I've only found one cache in the prior 12 months.

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I honestly can't remember what started me geocaching.  Apparently I created my account in 2010, but I have no memory of how I heard of it or even of coming to the site.  I think eventually in 2012 I was on the Google Play store and the c:geo app showed up as a recommendation.  Now, I know I'm not supposed to talk about that, but in all fairness, it's THAT app that got me into geocaching.  So I was on a lunch break, sitting in a Chipotle and I downloaded the app, figured out how to log in to the account I'd created...and when I opened it up I saw that there was a marker pointing to a spot only about 200 from where I was sitting right then.  When I finished my lunch, I walked over and looked around for a bit and actually managed to find a very well concealed cache.  That hooked me.

 

 

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On ‎11‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 1:54 PM, moosehunter5 said:

WHY did you start geocaching?

WHAT keeps you geocaching today?

 

The other 2/3rds and I got a little lost in a game lands I've hunted for years, when it became overgrown with rhododendron.

Played with  a GPSr at a major sportsmen's expo in Harrisburg, and realized a map and directions to parking might be simpler with that gizmo.

Invested to two high-tech blue legend GPSrs.     ;)   Info on some hobby called "Geocaching" was in with other ad stuff.

Looked like fun, and we were hooked.  

 Kept the legends for spares (they work...),  but went to 60csx to actually be able to stand under tree canopy (or in the house) and still get signal.

She no longer caches.  A FTF nut,  got tired of being the beta-tester for people not even vested in the hobby (her last find was 400' off...).

No interest in stats, I realize that maybe I'll need to pass by a couple hundred nondescript hides to get to the one that I'm interested in.

 - But many do still bring me to unique areas or awesome views I haven't experienced yet.    :)

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WHY - we were out campaigning with our local MP (Member of Parliament  equivalent to Congressman for cachers from other countries), the kids were showing him a painted rock they'd found and he explained geocaching and how the kids might enjoy that so I looked into it when we got home and a few days later we gave it a go!

I had read about geocaching years before but was put off by the need for a GPS device, thankfully these days you just need a smartphone.

 

WHAT - we love it, admittedly only been caching for a smidge under a year, it gets everyone out walking, we often get off the beaten track and see places / things we wouldn't have otherwise. 

The kids love searching for them and trading items. 

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