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How many caches can you find in one day?


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39 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

The 22 I found at the 2018 mega took me a bit over an hour of driving around the loop from Morisset along Wangi Road and back along Freemans Drive, and those caches are a lot further apart than the minimum 161 metres. I was alone and parked at each one, found the cache, signed the log, put it all back and drove on to the next one. At that rate, on a proper power trail I reckon I could easily do a hundred in half a day if I survived the tedium.

I've logged 50 alone at a Mega, and that only took up a small part of the day, so I could have found 100 alone, or even more, if like you I could survive the tedium. I have also logged 78 (I think that was the number) in an afternoon by myself. Gets very boring though. It's much quicker with another person.

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I can honestly say, it would never have occurred to me to pick up a cache, drive with it while signing the log, then drop it in the spot of the next one while picking that one up and keep driving. I can understand jumping out with a stamp or something to reduce the logging time, but not travelling with the cache. Guess that's why I'm not the type of person who gets hundreds of logs in a day! 

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On 9/10/2020 at 6:03 PM, grateful_tomato said:

What is the record for the number of finds per day for one person?

 

It's not about the numbers. It's about the fun.

Why should you find 1.000 caches doing the E.T. highway, driving the whole day, doing this swapping thing, see the same country side the whole day, get stressed...... just why?

 

I have found many caches in my life - but it has taken even more time to do so and it were good times. I am an absolute fan of multi caches with more than 2.000 caches of this type found so far. Obviously I could have found many more caches if I would have found traditionals - but why? That's not what I see as fun so if I am out doing 10 multi caches in 10 hours that's better - for me! - than finding 200 traditional caches of the simples kind (powertrail). Should I stop doing the multi caches because of higher numbers?

 

I own a long and hard terrain 5 night cache and I regularly visit teams doing it, climb a little bit myself, have fun in the nights (I'll do this evening :-)) - and do not get a single "point" that day. I don't care - geocaching is fun and not - never, never, never - a numbers game.

 

If others think so - let them do. But don't let the fun come over the statistics and very important: don't let their statistics spoil your fun!

 

Jochen

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1 hour ago, frostengel said:

 

It's not about the numbers. It's about the fun.

Why should you find 1.000 caches doing the E.T. highway, driving the whole day, doing this swapping thing, see the same country side the whole day, get stressed...... just why?

 

I have found many caches in my life - but it has taken even more time to do so and it were good times. I am an absolute fan of multi caches with more than 2.000 caches of this type found so far. Obviously I could have found many more caches if I would have found traditionals - but why? That's not what I see as fun so if I am out doing 10 multi caches in 10 hours that's better - for me! - than finding 200 traditional caches of the simples kind (powertrail). Should I stop doing the multi caches because of higher numbers?

 

I own a long and hard terrain 5 night cache and I regularly visit teams doing it, climb a little bit myself, have fun in the nights (I'll do this evening :-)) - and do not get a single "point" that day. I don't care - geocaching is fun and not - never, never, never - a numbers game.

 

If others think so - let them do. But don't let the fun come over the statistics and very important: don't let their statistics spoil your fun!

 

Jochen

 

Just had a look at your cache listings. Have to say that your powertrail does look tempting, but I kind of have the feeling that it's too hard for me. I'm just not tall enough and don't have enough power (plus a habit of being stuck on high structures and not managing to come down anymore). *sigh* no powertrail for me then. Bugger.

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5 hours ago, Unit473L said:

I can honestly say, it would never have occurred to me to pick up a cache, drive with it while signing the log, then drop it in the spot of the next one while picking that one up and keep driving. I can understand jumping out with a stamp or something to reduce the logging time, but not travelling with the cache. Guess that's why I'm not the type of person who gets hundreds of logs in a day! 

To be clear, it is possible to get hundreds of caches a day without using the three cache monte, with having someone in your group stamp each cache log and return each cache to its hiding spot.

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27 minutes ago, niraD said:

To be clear, it is possible to get hundreds of caches a day without using the three cache monte, with having someone in your group stamp each cache log and return each cache to its hiding spot.

We did 122 caches in one day along the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County Pa in one day the old fashioned way... Hiking, while hauling a dog along, with binoculars to spot the eagles nesting near the trail.  Each of us signed it, put it back, and onto the next cache, dragging the dog, who was overly interested in the local wildlife.

 

The caching was extremely boring, but the view of the constantly changing river plus all of the wildlife was wonderful, and made the trip worth it.  Dog loved it too.  Plus there were people rock climbing along part of the trail to watch.

 

Hand entering logs later (no smart phone at the time) was awful.

 

So, the caching was so so, but the location was/is very special.

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6 hours ago, frostengel said:

 

It's not about the numbers. It's about the fun.

Why should you find 1.000 caches doing the E.T. highway, driving the whole day, doing this swapping thing, see the same country side the whole day, get stressed...... just why?

I've been along the ET highway and the country side is constantly changing - we weren't caching the PT (well, we did three on it just before getting XKD-380 just we can say we've done part) - so it's not boring.  I've often thought it might be fun to do run on it - not for the numbers (I might log them with sock puppet) but see how well we could do with the right team.  More for the experience of working together and being with friends then the caches.

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11 minutes ago, The Jester said:

but see how well we could do with the right team.  More for the experience of working together and being with friends then the caches.

 

If you did this by bicycle - that would be something. Let's see how far we can go by our own force. But I don't see any good in driving from cache to cache which I assume you have done as the others do.  That's more of a environmental pollution thing....

 

That's why I like to watch "tour de France" but not "formula 1". ;-)

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4 hours ago, frostengel said:

 

If you did this by bicycle - that would be something. Let's see how far we can go by our own force. But I don't see any good in driving from cache to cache which I assume you have done as the others do.  That's more of a environmental pollution thing....

 

That's why I like to watch "tour de France" but not "formula 1". ;-)

I've done caching by bike, but find it kills the knee's to be stopping and starting that much,  I'd rather ride 60 miles then 20 miles stopping/starting every 1/2 mile.  Besides it pretty tough to tow an Aliner trailer with a bicycle! :D Which is how we've found caches throughout the Lower 48.

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275 is our best effort for one day, in reality it was about 9 hrs. I drove to, got out, found, signed and replaced, every one of those caches. My wife would have simply brought the next one up on the GPS. I remember that, back in October 2006, I held the record, for a brief time, of the most amount of caches found in a 24 hr period in my state. A grand total of 62. That was a huge effort back then. No paperless caching, no phone app, I dont even think I had GSAK. That was all paper based, each cache page printed out, and the coordinates for the next cache hand entered into the GPS60. 

Edited by Bundyrumandcoke
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8 hours ago, Unit473L said:

This thread shows to me just how many different ways there are to play this game. Love the variety! And that people can be competitive in different ways or just be casual and still all be in the same activity. :smile:

Quite right. I'll add another. My wife and I once scored 30 finds (+ a couple of DNFs) in one day by canal boat! This was on the Macclesfield canal, East Midlands UK. If one is not familiar with canal boats (narrowboats) they travel at about walking pace. We had to allow time for passing through locks, pub lunch, and giving way to oncoming boats because the caches were all on the port side of the canal relative to our direction of travel.

The best we did on one day by car was 111 (North Coast Wander) over 100+ kilometres including sealed and unsealed forest roads. Every cache signed and replaced as found. A variety of cache sizes and hides.

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1 hour ago, colleda said:

My wife and I once scored 30 finds (+ a couple of DNFs) in one day by canal boat!
...
they travel at about walking pace.

I've done a few (maybe 5-6 in a day) caches while cruising and it's a great way to travel.  One advantage to the speed is I managed to find the caches without stopping, we swing the boat close to the towpath and I jump off, the missus then carries on in the boat and once I've found the cache I jog up the towpath to catch up and jump back on. There are also the occasional high T caches slung under bridges which are easily reached from the boat.

We're going up to  the Llangollen canal next weekend and will be grabbing a few caches - looking forward to it.

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41 minutes ago, MartyBartfast said:

I've done a few (maybe 5-6 in a day) caches while cruising and it's a great way to travel.  One advantage to the speed is I managed to find the caches without stopping, we swing the boat close to the towpath and I jump off, the missus then carries on in the boat and once I've found the cache I jog up the towpath to catch up and jump back on. There are also the occasional high T caches slung under bridges which are easily reached from the boat.

We're going up to  the Llangollen canal next weekend and will be grabbing a few caches - looking forward to it.

On visits to the UK, I loved caching beside the canals. Lovely walks, with the canal boats passing. One of my best days was when I was caching along a canal near Braunston, and I could hear church bells ringing, so I left the canal path and walked across the field to the church. I was seen watching the bell-ringers though the window, so they invited me, along with another woman, who was also watching, upstairs to ring a bell. Then to tea and home-made cake with them. I think I would have joined that friendly group, if I were local. The other woman was from a canal boat and she was invited to join the bell-ringing when her boat was passing on the local canal, as she said she did regularly.

I found a number of caches along the nearby canal, but it appears they are now archived.

Oxford Canal 2.jpg

Edited by Goldenwattle
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On 9/12/2020 at 6:46 AM, frostengel said:

It's not about the numbers. It's about the fun.

Why should you find 1.000 caches doing the E.T. highway, driving the whole day, doing this swapping thing, see the same country side the whole day, get stressed...... just why?

 

Because...

On 9/12/2020 at 6:46 AM, frostengel said:

It's about the fun.

 

(just a different kind of fun that you wouldn't necessarily consider fun)

I'm sure most everyone who's done that experience will say that they had an absolutely fantastic time with friends and had a bunch of other experiences throughout that trip that made it all worthwhile. I think most would agree - if you try to do something like the ET series, you have to be with people on the same plain. If someone gets bored or wants to go home, then it's not fun. But oh man can it be an amazing experience! *(YMMV)

 

On 9/12/2020 at 6:46 AM, frostengel said:

I own a long and hard terrain 5 night cache and I regularly visit teams doing it, climb a little bit myself, have fun in the nights (I'll do this evening :-)) - and do not get a single "point" that day. I don't care - geocaching is fun and not - never, never, never - a numbers game.

 

If others think so - let them do. But don't let the fun come over the statistics and very important: don't let their statistics spoil your fun!

 

And likewise, try not to let other people's fun ruin your fun ;) (of course within bounds of the game) or alternatively, don't let your idea of what's fun ruin someone else's fun. It's very much a two-way street. The golden rule is well applied in this hobby. That doesn't mean to just let everything go and shrug off anything that bugs you - there are rules and guidelines for a reason - but if it's just a matter of preference and differences of opinion about what's 'fun'? People enjoy different aspects to the hobby. That's why it's such a great hobby and accessible to so many people! :)

Not everyone likes the ET series, or even the idea of the ET series. And that's, just, fine. ;)

 

 

Love the idea of a 5 terrain night cache. We had a yearly all-nighter event for extremely creative, sometimes high tech, night caching. It was a lot of work every year, so it's taken a "hiatus" but intended to come back this year... which has for obvious reasons extended that hiatus for another year.  One night cache owners likes to do what you describe - follow along people doing it; sometimes he hides and 'observes', but mainly keep available in case there are issues or questions or PAFs, heh.  Anyway that's a whole other topic.

 

 

On 9/12/2020 at 10:10 AM, Clancy's Crew said:

The caching was extremely boring, but the view of the constantly changing river plus all of the wildlife was wonderful, and made the trip worth it.  Dog loved it too.  Plus there were people rock climbing along part of the trail to watch.

 

Yep, in my experience quite often power trails aren't about the individual caches (some people don't get or don't like that) but rather the sights and experiences and people all along the way. To many that's the draw, more than even the numbers.

 

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In Ontario we typically have a handful of 'float' days, where people gather to tube float along our many rivers, where there are caches placed as a form of powertrail. Those can often reach upwards of 100+ finds in a day.  Recently kayaks and canoes have become much more popular, and are great for the larger, deeper rivers, ponds and lakes. This year especially people who have been out almost every weekend finding (and placing) boat-required geocaches. Daily find count averages I'm confident have been increasing a lot this year.  It's quite relaxing and desirable for many to have a full day out on the water filled with geocache finds.

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41 minutes ago, colleda said:

In our early days we thought 16 was a lot in one day.

 

I still think 16 in one day is a lot. My highest in one day this year is 12 when I was catching up on some of the Watagan Mountains geoart caches from the 2018 mega, and I have to go right back to the mega itself in March 2018 when I got my all-time high of 22 to beat that.

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On 9/13/2020 at 2:14 AM, colleda said:

Quite right. I'll add another. My wife and I once scored 30 finds (+ a couple of DNFs) in one day by canal boat! This was on the Macclesfield canal, East Midlands UK. If one is not familiar with canal boats (narrowboats) they travel at about walking pace. We had to allow time for passing through locks, pub lunch, and giving way to oncoming boats because the caches were all on the port side of the canal relative to our direction of travel.

The best we did on one day by car was 111 (North Coast Wander) over 100+ kilometres including sealed and unsealed forest roads. Every cache signed and replaced as found. A variety of cache sizes and hides.

 

I've often thought that traveling by canal boat would be a great way to geocache, but more as a way to travel from village to village where one could stop to find a few caches.  There are actually canal boats that can be rented in New York State along the barge canal that runs from Buffalo, NY to the Hudson river.   The most I've ever found was 33.  After a couple of days of meetings at Google I had a late flight (around 11pm) out of SFO the next day.  I spend most of the day driving from Mountain View to SFO finding caches along the way.  Normally, that would take about a half an hour, depending on traffic.  

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3 hours ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

 

We know every inch of the way

From Albany to Buffalo...

 

I have only kayaked sections of it.  The closest section was developed over an old meandering river so there are several places where the old river branches off the can then merges further downstream.  Those are the most interesting sections of the canal.

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1 minute ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

 

I have only kayaked sections of it.  The closest section was developed over an old meandering river so there are several places where the old river branches off the can then merges further downstream.  Those are the most interesting sections of the canal.

 

Sorry, I was quoting the "Erie Canal" song which we used to sing in elementary school chorus class.

 

Quote

I've got a mule and her name is Sal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
She's a good old worker and a good old pal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal

 

We haul'd some barges in our day
Filled with lumber, coal, and hay
We know every inch of the way
From Albany to Buffalo

 

Low bridge, everybody down
Low bridge, yeah we're coming to a town
And you'll always know your neighbor
And you'll always know your pal
If ya ever navigated on the Erie Canal

 

"The Erie Canal" Pete Seeger

 

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1 hour ago, HunterandSamuel said:
On 9/11/2020 at 9:33 PM, The Jester said:

You need to change your opinion. 

I stand by what I said. 

 

Restoring the context of what HunterandSamuel said...

On 9/11/2020 at 6:48 PM, HunterandSamuel said:

I think the most we have found was 6 in one day and we were thrilled! lol In my opinion, people who find 100 in a day are working in groups who separate and then log the groups finds. We do not do that. 

 

I know people who have found 100 in a day. Yes, they were working in a group, but they were not separating (using leapfrogging or any other divide-and-conquer technique). Everyone in the group was there for all the caches the group found.

 

One group even found more than 100 puzzle caches in a day, and then had dinner with the owner of many of those puzzle caches. They didn't take any questionable shortcuts (unless you think that geocaching in a group is by definition a questionable shortcut).

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2 minutes ago, niraD said:

 

Restoring the context of what HunterandSamuel said...

 

I know people who have found 100 in a day. Yes, they were working in a group, but they were not separating (using leapfrogging or any other divide-and-conquer technique). Everyone in the group was there for all the caches the group found.

 

One group even found more than 100 puzzle caches in a day, and then had dinner with the owner of many of those puzzle caches. They didn't take any questionable shortcuts (unless you think that geocaching in a group is by definition a questionable shortcut).

 

 

I can''t even imagine. I still think it's impossible. 

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18 minutes ago, HunterandSamuel said:

I can''t even imagine. I still think it's impossible. 

Even if you take 10 minutes per cache (finding, signing, replacing, and traveling to the next one), that's 6 finds per hour. If you keep up the pace for 17 hours, that's 102 finds. If you cut it down to 6 minutes per cache, that's 10 finds per hour. After only 10 hours, you've got 100 finds.

 

Not at all impossible for someone motivated to do a numbers run. You do have to choose the caches and plan your route in advance, of course.

 

These aren't challenging caches. For the post part, they're quick park-and-grab caches with low difficulty and terrain ratings, and they're close to parking. In the case of the puzzle cache numbers run, the hard work for all the caches was solving the puzzle, and they solved them all in advance.

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43 minutes ago, niraD said:

 

Restoring the context of what HunterandSamuel said...

 

I know people who have found 100 in a day. Yes, they were working in a group, but they were not separating (using leapfrogging or any other divide-and-conquer technique). Everyone in the group was there for all the caches the group found.

 

One group even found more than 100 puzzle caches in a day, and then had dinner with the owner of many of those puzzle caches. They didn't take any questionable shortcuts (unless you think that geocaching in a group is by definition a questionable shortcut).

 

"Even if you take 10 minutes per cache (finding, signing, replacing, and traveling to the next one), that's 6 finds per hour. If you keep up the pace for 17 hours, that's 102 finds." Especially remarkable considering that the whole group had to stay together and keep up this pace for 17 hours. 

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4 minutes ago, niraD said:

Even if you take 10 minutes per cache (finding, signing, replacing, and traveling to the next one), that's 6 finds per hour. If you keep up the pace for 17 hours, that's 102 finds. If you cut it down to 6 minutes per cache, that's 10 finds per hour. After only 10 hours, you've got 100 finds.

When we did 139 we started at 7:58 and ended at 17:17 UTC (9:58-19:17 local)

I use a timestamp in my logs:

1 of 139 today. Logged at 7:58:00 AM UTC
2 of 139 today. Logged at 8:04:00 AM UTC
3 of 139 today. Logged at 8:08:00 AM UTC
4 of 139 today. Logged at 8:12:00 AM UTC
5 of 139 today. Logged at 8:15:00 AM UTC
6 of 139 today. Logged at 8:18:00 AM UTC
7 of 139 today. Logged at 8:21:00 AM UTC
8 of 139 today. Logged at 8:24:00 AM UTC
9 of 139 today. Logged at 8:27:00 AM UTC
10 of 139 today. Logged at 8:30:00 AM UTC
11 of 139 today. Logged at 8:34:00 AM UTC
12 of 139 today. Logged at 8:36:00 AM UTC
13 of 139 today. Logged at 8:40:00 AM UTC
14 of 139 today. Logged at 8:42:00 AM UTC
15 of 139 today. Logged at 8:45:00 AM UTC
16 of 139 today. Logged at 8:48:00 AM UTC
17 of 139 today. Logged at 8:50:00 AM UTC
18 of 139 today. Logged at 8:56:00 AM UTC
......
135 of 139 today. Logged at 5:00:00 PM UTC
136 of 139 today. Logged at 5:03:00 PM UTC
137 of 139 today. Logged at 5:06:00 PM UTC
138 of 139 today. Logged at 5:09:00 PM UTC
139 of 139 today. Logged at 5:17:00 PM UTC

We did 60Km in 9h 20min on our bikes on that tour and even lost some time looking for a place to get a drink (found just one but it was closed).

 

The first hour we found 18 but during the day we had a few with 5-10minute intervals.

 

Later a challenge cache was placed where you needed 138 founds in a day and most people that logged that one had found that series (we had one extra find that was near that series.

 

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5 hours ago, HunterandSamuel said:

 

I can''t even imagine. I still think it's impossible. 

 

You have several people here telling their stories of doing exactly that. It clearly can't be impossible.

My young son and I, 2 weeks ago, found 40 caches in an afternoon, in under 4 hours. We just cruised a touring type trail, caches maybe a mile or two apart, this included a few that were way off on side roads, or required walks up hills to get to, and a few DNFs (that always take ages). On this fairly leisurely rate alone, kept up all day, we could have done 80, without raising a sweat, and time for a long lunch. And this area is not very cache dense. 100 is nothing special at all. 

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On 9/13/2020 at 6:38 PM, Goldenwattle said:

On visits to the UK, I loved caching beside the canals. Lovely walks, with the canal boats passing. One of my best days was when I was caching along a canal near Braunston, and I could hear church bells ringing, so I left the canal path and walked across the field to the church. I was seen watching the bell-ringers though the window, so they invited me, along with another woman, who was also watching, upstairs to ring a bell. Then to tea and home-made cake with them. I think I would have joined that friendly group, if I were local. The other woman was from a canal boat and she was invited to join the bell-ringing when her boat was passing on the local canal, as she said she did regularly.

I found a number of caches along the nearby canal, but it appears they are now archived.

Oxford Canal 2.jpg

Talking about bellringing. I used to play the bells at St Andrews, Lutwyche, Brisbane, when I was much younger. The peal is 13 bells, a full octave of 8, plus 5 others (sharps and flats). These bells are not played in the "traditional" way, of one person per bell, pulling on a rope attached to the bell. This peal is played via a large keyboard, by one person. Each key it attached to the clapper, so the bells stay stationary. Its been nearly 40 years since I played them. The belfry is behind the small windows above the main front doors. 

 

https://kedrontoday.com.au/christmas-carols-and-church-bells-to-fill-the-air-at-st-andrews-anglican-church-lutwyche/

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I'll admit that finding over 100 solo was no fun after awhile. Will not say I will never do it again, but I have no desire to try any time soon. 

 

It's funny some of these challenges I have no desire to ever try again. It becomes work. The happiest day in my caching experience was day 424 when I did not go out and find another cache and let my 423 day find streak lapse. I could have gone out that day but chose to not to. As a challenge addict, I really dislike any challenge that forces a behavior on you. When you have a 101 fever and a bad case of the flu yet you are driving to your nearest saved LPC just to keep the steak alive its too much. 

 

Now no one forced me to find over 100, I did that but about half way through I definitely had to power through it. 

 

The next challenge I never want to do again, I am 864/1000 for the year but I'll power through it hopefully. I went out today thinking about finding a cache or two but all the smoke from the nearby forest fires was just too much and I went grocery shopping instead.

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9 hours ago, HunterandSamuel said:

 

 

I can''t even imagine. I still think it's impossible. 

What you think and what is real is very different here.  It is easy to get 100+ caches in a day - without using a PT - well, maybe not where you are (I don't know and haven't looked at the cache map) but here in the Northwest section of the US it has been happening regularly at the CM's I talked about above.  There have been 60+ held since 2002 (generally 4 a year).  So, since it is clearly NOT impossible, I stand by what I said - you need to change your opinion.  Not that I really care, you can believe the world is flat, but that doesn't change reality.

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7 hours ago, Bundyrumandcoke said:

Talking about bellringing. I used to play the bells at St Andrews, Lutwyche, Brisbane, when I was much younger. The peal is 13 bells, a full octave of 8, plus 5 others (sharps and flats). These bells are not played in the "traditional" way, of one person per bell, pulling on a rope attached to the bell. This peal is played via a large keyboard, by one person. Each key it attached to the clapper, so the bells stay stationary. Its been nearly 40 years since I played them. The belfry is behind the small windows above the main front doors. 

 

https://kedrontoday.com.au/christmas-carols-and-church-bells-to-fill-the-air-at-st-andrews-anglican-church-lutwyche/

That sounds like you are skilful. Was it like the National Carillon here in Canberra? Pictured here.

National Carillon 2.jpg

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15 hours ago, HunterandSamuel said:

 

 

I can''t even imagine. I still think it's impossible. 

 

I've done it twice, both times by myself.  The first time I did it was in 2011, when I had been caching for just over a year.  I had 3 bike trails (1 already mostly done) and all the 1/1s and 1.5/1.5s loaded up on the way there and back to the first trail.  I left home at 5 in the morning, found mostly P&Gs (1/1, 1.5/1.5) in parking lots on the way down to the first two trails, which intersected each other.  Rode my bike from cache to cache along the two trails, returned to the car and attempted the P&Gs on the other side of the road on the way back up.  I got back in my primary home area around 3 and headed to the other bike trail that I had already mostly completed and found what I could.  Once it got dark I ended with more P&Gs.  I wrapped up around 10 PM.  I had some DNFs that certainly delayed my getting to 100, but not so many that it caused me serious issues.

 

The second time was in 2016 and it was primarily two separate geo-arts with some challenges I had to hike to near to where the second geo-art wrapped up.  Almost all of the locations were along country roads, while a few were inside town limits.  This time actually went much faster as I was driving from cache to cache just about the entire time.  The second geo-art had lots of LEOs driving past and waving, as they knew what I was doing, having seen so many do it previously.  This one, other than the actual drive to start (about an hour and 15 minutes), drive to the second geo-art (1 hour) and head back home (about 2 1/2 hours), took me about 8 hours of actual caching time, so it went much faster and smoother than the first time I did it.

 

While I have no plans to do anything like this again, I'm not going to say I never will do anything like this again.  It was tedious, although the first time I did it at least I was on a nice bike trail and getting some great exercise.  It wasn't really "fun" but the sense of accomplishment of doing over a hundred in a day by myself was probably the best feeling after completing both days.      

 

It's really not as hard as some people think.  You just have to be willing to see it through from start to finish.  I was ready for both days to be done, the later in the day it got.

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17 hours ago, MNTA said:

The happiest day in my caching experience was day 424 when I did not go out and find another cache and let my 423 day find streak lapse.

I won't say it was the happiest day in my caching experience (there's a lot of competition for that), but day 367 of my 366-day streak was definitely a relief. It was also a bit weird. At that point, I was used to finding a cache every day. It was part of my normal routine. For a few days after I stopped, it just seemed weird not finding a cache at some point.

Edited by niraD
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My top cache finding days have included:

  1. 240 caches in 24 hours way back in July 2004 at GeoWoodstock 2, before the days of power trails.  There was one car, occupied by two finders, a driver and a record-keeper/navigator.  The driver and the navigator were familiar with the Nashville area and had pre-planned the route in order to produce what was, at the time, a world record for the most finds in 24 hours.  The caches were a hodgepodge, everything from city parks to cemeteries to commercial parking lots to roadside grabs.
  2. 121 caches in 12 hours, achieved by finding some GeoArts in southwest Indiana/Southeast Illinois in December 2018.  There were four of us in one car.  We had solved the GeoArt puzzles in advance, and plotted the most efficient route to visit the actual cache locations.
  3. 105 caches in an afternoon spent with my daughter in a rented 4WD car on a dirt road through the Nevada desert.  The caches were roughly 528 feet apart and thus required no advance planning.  After a few hours of this, and knowing we'd exceeded 100 finds, we called it quits and returned to our hotel so we could see a nice Vegas show that evening.  There were hundreds more caches in that area of power trails, and I knew I could have easily found 500 in a day if I'd been motivated to do so.
  4. 72 caches in a day spent wandering through southeast Ohio on Memorial Day weekend in 2008.  This was an experiment to see how many finds I could accumulate in one day, solo, with no advance planning.
  5. 50 caches on July 4th of this year, with no "park and grabs."  All caches by our group of four were found along two trails, one using bikes and the other a hike in the woods on ATV trails.

My experience has taught me that (a) the more planning that's done in advance, the more finds are possible, and (b) it's easier to rack up high numbers when the caches are on a single trail rather than scattered around.  I'm confident I could find a couple hundred caches in a day, solo, with enough advance planning.  I just haven't felt like doing so.

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18 hours ago, HunterandSamuel said:
18 hours ago, niraD said:

 

Restoring the context of what HunterandSamuel said...

 

I know people who have found 100 in a day. Yes, they were working in a group, but they were not separating (using leapfrogging or any other divide-and-conquer technique). Everyone in the group was there for all the caches the group found.

 

One group even found more than 100 puzzle caches in a day, and then had dinner with the owner of many of those puzzle caches. They didn't take any questionable shortcuts (unless you think that geocaching in a group is by definition a questionable shortcut).

 

 

I can''t even imagine. I still think it's impossible. 

No it's not :P. Even under sub-optimal circumstances, as I can tell from first-hand experience...

 

The highest number of caches I found solo on a single day is 102. First about 35 in a series of traditionals with all kinds of hiding styles and D/T ratings, then about 60 of a classic PT (park&grab every few 100 meters), and the rest were a few other trads along the way. Took around 12 hours IIRC - including a 90 minute side trip to a hospital to get treatment! On one of the high-T caches of the first series, I fell off a tree (not because I "rushed it" to gain time, but because of another super-dumb mistake) and ended up with a really bad cut around one eye. It didn't hurt too badly, but to make sure that nothing serious had happened inside my head, I got myself a scan in the nearest hospital. It turned out to be "only" a very small cheekbone fracture, but nothing was dislodged or so. The doc said I'm fine to go, and when I asked if I could/should do anything special and/or restrict activities, he only said "No, only one thing:: Don't fall off another tree". So I continued my caching trip as planned :D (except for leaving out any remaining high-T caches, of course).

 

Without such shenanigans, and doing only PT caches, I think that even solo-ing 300+ caches per day is possible.

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On 9/11/2020 at 6:48 PM, HunterandSamuel said:

In my opinion, people who find 100 in a day are working in groups who separate and then log the groups finds.

 

I logged 100 in one day, back in October 2011, just me, driving to a bunch of mostly film cans on dirt roads in a national forest. The day before, I logged 74, same conditions. It got pretty monotonous, but I did it. (It got even more monotonous trying to come up with individual logs once I got home.)

 

I wanted to get my numbers up so we could celebrate  milestone find when we went to Japan that December. We made it. But I wasn't having much fun, and I would not be likely to do it again. These days, I will do sections of a power trail, but I do them on foot. I'm thinking of buying a bike, but I think I'd want to make sure my wife and daughter were interested in getting bikes as well. Otherwise I'm fine walking.

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On 9/15/2020 at 3:34 PM, HunterandSamuel said:
On 9/11/2020 at 9:33 PM, The Jester said:

You need to change your opinion. 

 

I stand by what I said.

 

You are of course entitled to have an opinion that the only way cachers can log 100 caches in a day is in a group. You've been proven wrong multiple times in this thread, but it's your absolute right to be as wrong as you want to be.

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On 9/15/2020 at 8:34 PM, HunterandSamuel said:

I stand by what I said. 

I posted earlier that I found 102 in a day on an 18 mile walk, I was on my own the whole time, and by the way I just checked my logs for the day and I also DNFd 12 on that walk.

 

So I genuinely want to know what is it about that day that you find so difficult to believe?

 

Do you think nobody's capable of walking 18 miles?

 

Are you suggesting I'm making up the story and lying about it?

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23 hours ago, HunterandSamuel said:

I can''t even imagine. I still think it's impossible. 

That is, as many of us have suggested, because you haven't tried. 

Get yourself out of your immediate home territory and head over to the caches east of Somers.  That looks like your closest 'power trail'.  It is not as dense as some others I have seen, but if, starting with the northern bunch, you can't bag 50 of them in a day, you're walking too slow.  On a bicycle, you could mop up even more.

 

Somers.jpg.1f6d70eac176fed6fb9e2423a8f7d0ab.jpg

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8 hours ago, niraD said:

I won't say it ways the happiest day in my caching experience (there's a lot of competition for that), but day 367 of my 366-day streak was definitely a relief. It was also a bit weird. At that point, I was used to finding a cache every day. It was part of my normal routine. For a few days after I stopped, it just seemed weird not finding a cache at some point.

That's a bit like how I felt about retirement - 10 in the morning, on my deck in the sun, kicking back with a coffee reading the newspaper and feeling like there was somewhere else I was supposed to be. That soon went away, replaced by every day feels like Sunday.;)

Edited by colleda
typo
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On 9/16/2020 at 3:21 AM, The Jester said:

What you think and what is real is very different here.  It is easy to get 100+ caches in a day - without using a PT - well, maybe not where you are (I don't know and haven't looked at the cache map) but here in the Northwest section of the US it has been happening regularly at the CM's I talked about above.  There have been 60+ held since 2002 (generally 4 a year).  So, since it is clearly NOT impossible, I stand by what I said - you need to change your opinion.  Not that I really care, you can believe the world is flat, but that doesn't change reality.

 

It's also entirely possible that where you live isn't representative of many other places.   Cache machines may be common where you live but I've never heard of one happening anywhere in my state.   There are a couple of trails here now, but before they were in place a few years ago it would have been very difficult to get 100+ caches in a day without driving a couple of hours away.   Probably the most avid geocacher in my area once found 40 in a day (in this area).  She found many more in a day during trips out west but as incorrect to assume that it's impossible to find 100 in a day, it's equally incorrect to assume that it's easy to get 100+ in a day based on what it's like in the Northwest.  

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10 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

Cache machines may be common where you live but I've never heard of one happening anywhere in my state.   

There are a couple of trails here now, but before they were in place a few years ago it would have been very difficult to get 100+ caches in a day without driving a couple of hours away.  

 

IIRC, this ended in 2011 with the OCATT series and surrounding caches in the Yonkers to Croton gorge park area. 30 miles.     

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