Highest scoring geocacher

[+3wise]

Can anyone tell me the highest number of caches found by a single member ?

I have found one claiming 51792, which seems an incredible number.

Are these numbers genuine finds or not ?

[+DerDiedler]

http://www.giyf.com/

 

put in "most geocaches found"

 

And no, these are most likely not all genuine finds according to the guidelines. This was discussed in several thread´s of this forum.

[+cerberus1]

4 hours ago, 3wise said:

Can anyone tell me the highest number of caches found by a single member ?

I have found one claiming 51792, which seems an incredible number.

Are these numbers genuine finds or not ?

 

IIRC it's now around 193,000.  

I don't like the "genuine" debate, but we know a couple of retired folks where caching is their only hobby. 

 We have seen how others came by them, so know there's a few fakers too.

[+K13]

There is no scoring in geocaching, just a claimed find count. I believe that these are the top two:

Alamogul

193,151 Caches Found

 

mondou2

186,507 Caches Found

 

 

[+dprovan]

6 hours ago, DerDiedler said:

And no, these are most likely not all genuine finds according to the guidelines. This was discussed in several thread´s of this forum.

I remember skepticism. I remember some claims of specific cheaters. But I don't remember any consensus that any significant number of the finds for top scorers were "not genuine". In fact, I find it hard to believe that there's any more not genuine finds for the top scorers that for anyone else.

[+Lynx Humble]

www.cacherstats.com is a great site for this kind of info and you can even filter by country/state

 

6 hours ago, 3wise said:

Are these numbers genuine finds or not ?

 

The game began 19 yrs ago and if you have LOT of free time and do mostly power trail with cache every 161m it's doable but you have to travel a hell lot.

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, Lynx Humble said:

The game began 19 yrs ago and if you have LOT of free time and do mostly power trail with cache every 161m it's doable but you have to travel a hell lot.

There aren't enough numbers trails for someone to rack up nearly 200k Finds. Yes, numbers trails can make up several thousand of those Finds, but ultimately, you would need a LOT of regular, everyday caches.

 

I've met Alamogul, but I've never geocached with him. But I know people who have geocached with him. Based on what they've said, it's hard to keep up with him. He moves quickly, he finds caches quickly, he signs them quickly and then he's moving again.

[+DerDiedler]

1 hour ago, dprovan said:

I remember skepticism. I remember some claims of specific cheaters. But I don't remember any consensus that any significant number of the finds for top scorers were "not genuine". In fact, I find it hard to believe that there's any more not genuine finds for the top scorers that for anyone else.

I´m not saying that these top players are armchair loggers. But I have Kola Boring deep doubts about that they never usesd team split up´s or loogbook swaping and/or other "found rate improving tactics", wich are in fact no genuine founds according to the guidelines.

 

[+Wacka]

I have cached with Alamogul. He  signs the cache and while you are signing he  is already heading back to the car or on to the next cache. His numbers are legit. It is really hard to keep up with him.   We were ar a local event where everyone got the info to   solve 35 puzzles at the same time.  People started looking near where we all were solving. He suggested our group of 4 (all in the same car) start at the other side of town and work our way back.  We  found all 35  in about 4-5 hours and got the FTF on 25 of them.

[+The A-Team]

4 hours ago, dprovan said:

I remember skepticism. I remember some claims of specific cheaters. But I don't remember any consensus that any significant number of the finds for top scorers were "not genuine". In fact, I find it hard to believe that there's any more not genuine finds for the top scorers that for anyone else.

 

I don't know about the top-most cachers, but I recently learned more about a cacher with over 30000 claimed finds. I don't have any hard numbers, but multiple anecdotal reports combined with some extrapolation based on empirical evidence could place this member's false-log rate at well over 50%. Based on a local sample, it could be as high as 80-90%. On top of that, they're reported as being arrogant, antagonistic, and they may have interfered with other cachers' hides. In short, they are not a shining example of geocaching or of humanity in general.

 

Unfortunately, when you have this many people playing the same game, you're bound to get a few people like that.

 

On the other hand, we have a local with over 60000 finds, and I have absolutely no doubt that they're all legitimate. He's a nice guy, too!

[+CAVinoGal]

9 hours ago, dprovan said:

I find it hard to believe that there's any more not genuine finds for the top scorers that for anyone else.

 

I know my finds are "genuine", humble as my numbers may be.  Personally, I am not in competition with anyone else (well, maybe hubby...) and how they rack up #'s doesn't affect how I tally my finds.  I've seen local evidence of throwdowns, inaccurate logs, false finds - and all that.  I know which of the local cachers whose numbers I can trust and whose are a bit, shall we say, inflated, for whatever reasons.  

 

In the end, this is a hobby.  I'm in it for the enjoyment I get in exploring new (and familiar) areas and "finding" things that I can log and share my experiences, and hide a few thing for others to find too.If some want to "cheat" and inflate their numbers, they can.  The "system" allows it and has no way to really verify if any one individual was physically at the cache site and signed the log.  Only the CO can verify signatures on the logsheet/book, and even then how do you verify actual physical presence of the "signer"?  

 

My profile/cache history/logs to me are a record of what I have done and seen through this hobby.  I prefer to keep it honest, and accurate.  I found it, I didn't find it, and I;m not out for numbers, although it is fun to watch as the # increases as time goes on!!

[+Alkhalikoi]

I've never cached with Alamogul but he's local (or was until recently) and bumped into him quite a bit.  Hard to talk to him on the trail since he's in a rush for the next one.  But he really is out there all the time and I have no problem accepting his on-going pace of 35-45/day for years on end.  

That said, I have no idea how the logistics of some of the cache runs I've seen where a group gets 8500 caches inside of two weeks.  600/day for a sustained period simply beggars belief.  One every minute for ten hours a day for two weeks?  I did the first 25 caches on the ET trail inside of 30 minutes and it was completely ridiculous.  That kind of pace for more than a day or two may be within the realm of human endurance, but I don't begin to understand it.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Alkhalikoi

[+lee737]

21 minutes ago, Alkhalikoi said:

  600/day for a sustained period simply beggars belief. 

 

600 on any one day beggars my belief....

[+Oxford Stone]

A significant chunk of my local cachers are recently retired and racking up the numbers (that said, only a few in 5 figures). I can think of at least 4 husband and wife teams where they do a lot of caching separately (in a few cases one doesn't work and mops up FTFs...) I can't think of any false logging going on in my area though.

[+ecanderson]

We know Bill here (mondou2).  No question about the numbers.  What is more amazing is the number he has placed, and how well he manages to maintain such an enormous list.  I swear he has a team of cache elves out there doing maintenance for him.  It's a rare thing that we have to report an issue with one of them, and if we do, whatever it was is addressed very promptly.

 

[+3wise]

Perhaps the answer could be partly in the statistics recording rather than in the claiming ?

For example, at the head of this forum question I am noted as having zero finds.

in-fact I have been caching on and off at a leisurely rate since 2005 and have recorded a humble 118 finds, so you can see I am personally not driven by a fabulous score. What I do, I do for the sheer enjoyment.

However, I have no reason whatsoever to criticise the excellent web site systems, and it is reassuring to see firsthand reports supporting the highest claimants and their dedication.

[+cerberus1]

3 minutes ago, 3wise said:

Perhaps the answer could be partly in the statistics recording rather than in the claiming ?

For example, at the head of this forum question I am noted as having zero finds.

in-fact I have been caching on and off at a leisurely rate since 2005 and have recorded a humble 118 finds, so you can see I am personally not driven by a fabulous score. What I do, I do for the sheer enjoyment.

However, I have no reason whatsoever to criticise the excellent web site systems, and it is reassuring to see firsthand reports supporting the highest claimants and their dedication.

 

This is the forums, not a cache page.  That isn't a find, it's a "vote", something brought over from all the social site carp.    

Here, I'll give you one for my agreeing with bolded.    

The one under it simply shows how many times you've posted here.

[+JL_HSTRE]

Has anyone ever done the entire ET Highway powertrail without leapfrogging, three cache monte, or simililar tactics? Has anyone with over 30,000 finds not done that powertrail?

 

However, while there are tactics to rack up numbers faster, high numbers for an obsessed/uber-competitive retiree are certainly possible. Based on my find rate on a vacation where I only sought caches I wanted rather than going for numbers, while caching solo and not using shenanigans, I saw how I could potentially rack up 4000-5000 caches in a year if I was a full time cacher who traveled extensively. If I was better at finding, did powertrails, etc I could see 15,000-20,000 finds as achievable.

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Has anyone ever done the entire ET Highway powertrail without leapfrogging, three cache monte, or simililar tactics?

I don't recall whether he did the entire ET Highway numbers trail, but I recall reading about someone doing several hundred caches from that numbers trail on a motorcycle, solo. So there was no three cache monte, and there was no leapfrogging or other divide-and-conquer techniques.

[+jellis]

niraD I was with him when he did the ET Highway along with Materus and cacher from Nevada. Took us 3 days to do it. Along with other type of caches. We didn't leapfrog or 3 cache monte.But  I mentioned this over years,  doing this is mind bending. At first it was fun until it became monotonous with asking "are we done yet?" To me the most enjoyable parts were finding baby lizards under stack of rocks.

As for the OP no offense, but if you just do it for the enjoyment why do you care what other cachers do?

[+niraD]

7 minutes ago, jellis said:

But  I mentioned this over years,  doing this is mind bending. At first it was fun until it became monotonous with asking "are we done yet?" 

Yeah, my "Best Day" was only 28, and even that seemed like a LOT of geocaches to me. The idea of doing hundreds in a day (let alone thousands over the course of a few days) is just mind-boggling to me.

[+GeoElmo6000]

I have 210,487 finds, but I'm so busy finding caches that I've only been able to log 1,169 of them.  I just use a bunch of tick marks in a note pad to keep track.  

[+thebruce0]

Doing high count days on a trail like the ET highway is certainly what I consider a marathon mindset. You have to be a group who is all on board equally; if one person gets bored or pulls the group down, you're done. It's certainly possible to do to the whole thing in a matter of days. But it is not easy, and takes endurance. It's a whole different level of geocaching. Whether or not you're swapping pre-signed logs.

That kind of experience is not for anyone who only values "finding the geocache". The value in an effort like that is the whole trip, and the time spent with (assumedly) your friends on the road. You have to value that more than the caches, or you will not care to do the whole thing. Many get bored after the few caches, and that's absolutely fine - it's not for everyone, not everything is. The caches are 98% mundane, repetitive, abysmal, low quality. There are some wonderful sights along the way, and some alternate caches to detour and grab.

 

So, I won't say "don't knock it until you try it", but I will say don't knock it just because you don't think you'd enjoy it You probably wouldn't, but there are many things many people don't like more than other things they do like, and that's just fine

 

[+barefootjeff]

3 hours ago, niraD said:

Yeah, my "Best Day" was only 28, and even that seemed like a LOT of geocaches to me. The idea of doing hundreds in a day (let alone thousands over the course of a few days) is just mind-boggling to me.

 

My "Best Day" is 22, done at the Oz Geomuster mega last Easter when I did a loop around a bunch of the geoart caches that had been placed as part of the event. That was fun, especially repeatedly bumping into the other cachers doing what I was doing, but by the time I'd completed the loop I think I'd seen enough caches for the day.

[+Z_Statman]

Go here

http://www.cacherstats.com/cgi-bin/RankingList.pl?Lang=EN&Loc=World&ROW=1

[+cerberus1]

3 hours ago, niraD said:

Yeah, my "Best Day" was only 28, and even that seemed like a LOT of geocaches to me.

3 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

My "Best Day" is 22, done at the Oz Geomuster mega last Easter when I did a loop around a bunch of the geoart caches that had been placed as part of the event. That was fun, especially repeatedly bumping into the other cachers doing what I was doing, but by the time I'd completed the loop I think I'd seen enough caches for the day.

 

Our "best day"  according to the site is 31.  2-4 terrain, we were beat.

 - We were already there, and one was named after me for my birthday (so I kinda felt obligated...).

Our actual best day was a single 5T that took us all of a day to do.

More power to these "500+ caches a day"  guys, but I feel it only means something to those who play similar.

For us, our best "numbers" day was four 5Ts in one day.

 

[+The A-Team]

6 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Has anyone ever done the entire ET Highway powertrail without leapfrogging, three cache monte, or simililar tactics?

 

Yep. There was a group of locals who went down there and did it all without any "questionable logging tactics". They collectively arrived at each cache at the same time (they were all in one minivan), signed the log in the container they found there, and rehid the container in the same spot they found it. They just aren't the kind of people who would even entertain the idea of using unethical tactics. Sure, it took longer, but at least what they were doing was geocaching.

[+JL_HSTRE]

6 hours ago, jellis said:

As for the OP no offense, but if you just do it for the enjoyment why do you care what other cachers do?

 

How most people play (re)defines what a game is "about" and what kind of people play the game.

[+thebruce0]

4 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

More power to these "500+ caches a day"  guys, but I feel it only means something to those who play similar.

 

Absolutely. "Best" is 100% subjective when it's not qualified. Obviously if quantity in a day is the context, the best is highest count. But remove that qualification, and even people with many hundreds in a day may easily say their "best day" had nothing to do with numbers. It's pointless to argue about what best is without any kind of clarification.

 

My best cache day is different than my best numbers day which is different than my best travel day which is different than my best friends day... yadda yadda.  When I see someone's "best day" on their stats page, I don't think "this was their favourite day ever!" I think it's their best statistical day. That's it.

 

It's the same as arguing who "legitimately" found the highest number of geocaches in one day. 24 hours? midnight/midnight? Solo? 5 people? 1 car? 3 cars? Bike? I mean, all these debates - arguments - ar pointless without a context.

 

Best day... of what? And let's not make it a competition unless you really want to opt in to the competition.  It's not a competition... It just is what it is

[+Viajero Perdido]

Hear hear.

 

I have a few "best days" that I will recall with a smile on my death bed.  Those days were all between 0 and 1 finds each.

 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Viajero Perdido
Spelling while drunk

[+MNTA]

I can not fathom 100 caches in a day let alone 500 or 1000. Usually cache solo or with another person. The though exhausts me, I did 7 Sunday completing the Carnival souvenir with a fair bit of driving between high favorite caches and after a few hours I was spent. Found some great caches got a little bit of exercise and some much needed sunshine. In my game of one I won!

[+The_Incredibles_]

On 3/28/2019 at 1:45 PM, The A-Team said:

On the other hand, we have a local with over 60000 finds, and I have absolutely no doubt that they're all legitimate. He's a nice guy, too!

 

Sadly, even this guy has admitted to not finding them all. He was top in Canada for a while.

 

He did a series once with a group (did leapfrogging, I think) because it would have "taken too long" to find them all. That was the only one he told me about it, there might have been others.

Edited April 2, 2019 by The_Incredibles_

[+NYPaddleCacher]

20 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Has anyone ever done the entire ET Highway powertrail without leapfrogging, three cache monte, or simililar tactics? Has anyone with over 30,000 finds not done that powertrail?

 

However, while there are tactics to rack up numbers faster, high numbers for an obsessed/uber-competitive retiree are certainly possible. Based on my find rate on a vacation where I only sought caches I wanted rather than going for numbers, while caching solo and not using shenanigans, I saw how I could potentially rack up 4000-5000 caches in a year if I was a full time cacher who traveled extensively. If I was better at finding, did powertrails, etc I could see 15,000-20,000 finds as achievable.

 

As niraD mentioned, I also recall seeing logs form someone that did at least a portion of the ET trail using a motorcycle.  Awhile back I came across some caches logs from someone that claimed over 22,000 finds in a month.  I suspect there may have been some shenanigans involved.  

[+NYPaddleCacher]

18 hours ago, jellis said:

 

As for the OP no offense, but if you just do it for the enjoyment why do you care what other cachers do?

 

I'm not answering for the OP but I care because when others aren't honest about how they're playing the game it taints the integrity of the game.   If I am going to call myself a geocacher then, by association, I am playing a game in which a lack of honesty and personal integrity is an acceptable way to play the game. 

[+Oxford Stone]

1 hour ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

 

I'm not answering for the OP but I care because when others aren't honest about how they're playing the game it taints the integrity of the game.   If I am going to call myself a geocacher then, by association, I am playing a game in which a lack of honesty and personal integrity is an acceptable way to play the game. 

According to the Journal of Deviant Behaviour (don't ask - I just know, OK?):

The deviant, intrusive nature of the act of finding and logging the cache and the after “find” exultation resembles the behavior and emotional process of burglars and thieves, and links the pastime to other constructions of “transgressively agonistic” deviance.

[+DerDiedler]

23 minutes ago, Oxford Stone said:

According to the Journal of Deviant Behaviour (don't ask - I just know, OK?):

The deviant, intrusive nature of the act of finding and logging the cache and the after “find” exultation resembles the behavior and emotional process of burglars and thieves, and links the pastime to other constructions of “transgressively agonistic” deviance.

wow, I thougt my english is allright, but it seems I´m badly wrong now.

For me it´s like:

The something, something nature of the act of finding and logging the cache and the after “find” something resembles the behavior and emotional process of burglars and thieves, and links the something to other constructions of “something something” something.

[+Oxford Stone]

36 minutes ago, DerDiedler said:

wow, I thougt my english is allright, but it seems I´m badly wrong now.

For me it´s like:

The something, something nature of the act of finding and logging the cache and the after “find” something resembles the behavior and emotional process of burglars and thieves, and links the something to other constructions of “something something” something.

Welcome to the wonderful world of academic journals ( I sell them...)

[+Mudfrog]

On ‎3‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 3:45 PM, The A-Team said:

On the other hand, we have a local with over 60000 finds, and I have absolutely no doubt that they're all legitimate. He's a nice guy, too!

 

6 hours ago, The_Incredibles_ said:

 

Sadly, even this guy has admitted to not finding them all. He was top in Canada for a while.

 

He did a series once with a group (did leapfrogging, I think) because it would have "taken too long" to find them all. That was the only one he told me about it, there might have been others.

 

I have no idea about the guy The A Team is talking about. There's a good chance all his finds are "legitimate" but at the same time,, would anyone besides him really know? Almost everyone has skeletons in their closet. How many times has praise been given to someone, maybe something like,, "I'd stake my life on it, he would never do something like that", but then come to find out, HE DID IT! We all form opinions about people around us but unless we're around those people 24/7, we can never be absolutely sure..

 

More on topic, for the OP and others, you have to take geocaching statistics with a  grain of salt. Besides the fact there are unscrupulous cachers that flat out cheat, there's also the wide variety of thoughts on what constitutes a find. Some won't find anything so then throw down a container and log find. Some find a piece of Velcro or a container top and call it a find. With no clear definition and all the diverse thinking, there can never be reliable statistics.

[+J Grouchy]

On 3/28/2019 at 12:15 PM, dprovan said:

I remember skepticism. I remember some claims of specific cheaters. But I don't remember any consensus that any significant number of the finds for top scorers were "not genuine". In fact, I find it hard to believe that there's any more not genuine finds for the top scorers that for anyone else.

 

Having personally witnessed the result of a mondou2 pass through my area and how this person left throwdowns on several easy-to-find caches then claimed finds on them...I feel confident that there are high-number cachers that have at least a not-insignificant percentage of questionable finds.  I don't know what that percentage might be...but even 0.25% on 186,000 is 4650...more than probably most cachers have total.  Even if you are using a higher percentage, though, it would still probably be a ranking in the top five.  So while I don't feel they are all completely honest, they still can more than likely claim an extraordinarily high number of legitimate finds.

[+CAVinoGal]

1 hour ago, Mudfrog said:

<snip>...You have to take geocaching statistics with a  grain of salt. Besides the fact there are unscrupulous cachers that flat out cheat, there's also the wide variety of thoughts on what constitutes a find. Some won't find anything so then throw down a container and log find. Some find a piece of Velcro or a container top and call it a find. With no clear definition and all the diverse thinking, there can never be reliable statistics.

 

While I agree, in general, with the above, I do have to state there IS a clear definition of a "find" - but people interpret it differently.  From the Help Center: "You can log caches online as "Found" after you visited the coordinates and signed the logbook."

Are all MY finds "legitimate" (modest as my numbers may be)?  Probably not technically - one cache in particular comes to mind from my first few months in the hobby.  My son had placed a few puzzle caches in our area, a variety of solving techiniques, and I was determined to solve them all, and then find them.  He had married, and moved out of the area, so we needed to check on them for him anyway.  We reached GZ for this one, and the tree it had been hidden in had been "trimmed", to put it mildly.  We took pics, and got on the phone with our son, and he confimed it was long gone.  We logged a find before he archived it, but we didn't sign the now missing logbook.  We DID do the work of solving the puzzle and finding the correct GZ.

 

Another one of his puzzles - we haven't logged one way or the other yet - it may still be in the tree, but the tree has grown around it.  We need a ladder now, as our son says - "The tree's a lot bigger than when I put it there!"  It took me a LOT longer to solve this one of his puzzles, and I'm more judicious in what I want to log as a find.  We haven;t confirmed if it's still there or not.

 

My early days I was a little more willing to log it if the CO said I could (after logging NM for a broken container, or a DNF), even without signing a log.  SInce then, I've seen too many throwdowns and multiple containers, and others' bogus logs.  If I don't find it, I'll log a DNF, and wait for it to be replaced to find and sign it.

[+dprovan]

5 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

I'm not answering for the OP but I care because when others aren't honest about how they're playing the game it taints the integrity of the game.   If I am going to call myself a geocacher then, by association, I am playing a game in which a lack of honesty and personal integrity is an acceptable way to play the game. 

I make sure to sign every log I claim, but I don't do it because it's honest, I just do it because that strikes me as the fun way to play the game. If someone else thinks it would be more fun to do three card monty or some other approach on a series that allows it, I think they're making a mistake, but I don't have any reason to think they're being dishonest or lack integrity. Even if they keep quiet about it to the point of hiding it, I'd assume it's just so they don't have to listen to people like you, not because they want to fool anyone about what they're doing.

[+Wet Pancake Touring Club]

Back in the day, one could log a cache multiple times. I also discovered that some of the cachers mentioned in this topic have done just that. So, I take all claims of the total number of caches found with a grain of salt. I'm not saying that anyone did this deliberately, it could easily have been an accidental mistake. Especially if they used automated logging tools. I know that I have double logged caches, and spent some time finding and deleting duplicate logs. But others might not want to take the time to clean up clerical errors.

 

While I understand that some like to look at "leaderboards" to speculate, extrapolate, and compare, to me the most important "score" is how enjoyable is the activity to me. Right now, it is not as enjoyable as participating in another GPS based, highly popular, augmented reality game that has me chasing around for looking for certain patterns of pixels on my phone, executing some finger based patterns on the touch screen, and hopefully getting to store a few meaningless bits on a server someplace. If the weather gets better, if I ever finish the diesel swap on my 4x4, if there is another GeoTour nearby that is located in State Parks, if someone publishes an Adventure Lab nearby, if..., then my enjoyability score may change, and I may become a more active geocacher.

[+The_Incredibles_]

4 hours ago, Mudfrog said:

 

 

I have no idea about the guy The A Team is talking about. There's a good chance all his finds are "legitimate" but at the same time,, would anyone besides him really know?

 

Read my post again. I know because he *told* me. He did a series and logged them all but did not find them all.

[+cerberus1]

5 hours ago, J Grouchy said:

I feel confident that there are high-number cachers that have at least a not-insignificant percentage of questionable finds.  I don't know what that percentage might be...but even 0.25% on 186,000 is 4650...more than probably most cachers have total.  Even if you are using a higher percentage, though, it would still probably be a ranking in the top five.  So while I don't feel they are all completely honest, they still can more than likely claim an extraordinarily high number of legitimate finds.

 

Yep.   Harmless really.  Maybe one who plays similar might feel they're being "cheated" in some way ... 

 - If there's ever prizes though ...  look out.  

We'd sometimes bump into one who'd access caches in an area with us part of the way, before they'd head off to another location. 

Friendly person, chatting, a lot in common with the other 2/3rds on tech stuff

The film cans (some alongside a cache) we'd find later, that had only their signature on them just seemed odd to us.  

 - Add in a few logging their own caches when doing maintenance, and multiple finds on the same cache, and totals pile up.

But those were legit (at the time).

[+Rustynails]

On ‎3‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 9:55 AM, K13 said:

There is no scoring in geocaching, just a claimed find count. I believe that these are the top two:

Alamogul

193,151 Caches Found

 

mondou2

186,507 Caches Found

 

 

As I've heard it they sometimes use the divide and conquer method to achieve large numbers.

[+icezebra11]

7 hours ago, J Grouchy said:

 

Having personally witnessed the result of a mondou2 pass through my area and how this person left throwdowns on several easy-to-find caches then claimed finds on them...I feel confident that there are high-number cachers that have at least a not-insignificant percentage of questionable finds.  I don't know what that percentage might be...but even 0.25% on 186,000 is 4650...more than probably most cachers have total.  Even if you are using a higher percentage, though, it would still probably be a ranking in the top five.  So while I don't feel they are all completely honest, they still can more than likely claim an extraordinarily high number of legitimate finds.

 

Your math is off by a factor of 10. That said, if your example is anywhere near accurate, 465 is still a bunch and still more than many cachers' total finds.  

[+NYPaddleCacher]

19 hours ago, CAVinoGal said:

20 hours ago, Mudfrog said:

<snip>...You have to take geocaching statistics with a  grain of salt. Besides the fact there are unscrupulous cachers that flat out cheat, there's also the wide variety of thoughts on what constitutes a find. Some won't find anything so then throw down a container and log find. Some find a piece of Velcro or a container top and call it a find. With no clear definition and all the diverse thinking, there can never be reliable statistics.

 

While I agree, in general, with the above, I do have to state there IS a clear definition of a "find" - but people interpret it differently.  From the Help Center: "You can log caches online as "Found" after you visited the coordinates and signed the logbook."

 

Unfortunately that's still not definitive.   It does not say that one can *only* log caches online if, and only if, after you have visited the coordinates and signed the logbook.  

 

That said, It should be pretty obvious that if you look for a hidden container, can't find it, then put down a different container, then go "look, there it is", you haven't really found the container that was hidden.   Similarly, if you are looking for a container and only find a piece of of velcro or string that may have been used to tether a container to a location, you haven't yet found the container.

 

These aren't a variety of thoughts on what constitutes a find.  They're lies someone is telling themselves so they can feel justified counting a cache as a find.  

[+ecanderson]

23 hours ago, J Grouchy said:

 

Having personally witnessed the result of a mondou2 pass through my area and how this person left throwdowns on several easy-to-find caches then claimed finds on them...I feel confident that there are high-number cachers that have at least a not-insignificant percentage of questionable finds.

That's odd.  I note the occasion of his DNFs here in Colorado with as much regularity as any other experienced cacher, and while I've sometimes followed behind him by a day or two and found one he missed, it's more often the case that if he didn't find it, we were unsuccessful as well.  We've probably crossed paths on 10,000 or so caches, and I do not recall any experiences of  throwdowns, just DNFs where they occurred for him.  In fact, while I'm sure he must have had an FTF or two, I can't recall when I've ever seen his stamp at the top of a log.

 

Am surprised you have experienced something to the contrary.

 

[+JL_HSTRE]

On 4/2/2019 at 1:47 AM, MNTA said:

I can not fathom 100 caches in a day let alone 500 or 1000.

 

There is a bike trail in Florida that is flat, level, and paved with a large number of caches on it. 100 in a day there, even by yourself, is very feasible. And that's on a bike, not a car.

[+niraD]

41 minutes ago, JL_HSTRE said:

There is a bike trail in Florida that is flat, level, and paved with a large number of caches on it. 100 in a day there, even by yourself, is very feasible. And that's on a bike, not a car.

That would still require a determined, sustained effort, of course.

 

If you average 6 mph while cycling, each mile takes 10 minutes of cycling. If there are 10 caches spaced 0.1 mile apart in that mile, and if you spend 5 minutes finding, retrieving, signing, and replacing each cache, then that's 50 minutes of handling the caches. So each hour, you would find 10 caches, and in 10 hours, you would find 100 caches. Plus however much time you spend eating lunch or taking breaks.

 

It's certainly feasible, but it requires focus and a lot of work.