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Top World Geocachers


GilDean

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I read with interest that the top Geocacher in the world has 215,000+ finds across all types of hides. This equates to an average of 31 a day, every day for the 19 years they have been a member.

I walk reasonably quickly and don’t do Geocaching for the numbers, it is more about the walk and the interesting caches people make or the clever way they hide them.

My most finds in a day was 59 and it was 8 hours of walking and driving, I did 5 hours yesterday and walked 8 miles getting 20+ caches, how can you physically do 31 a day for 19 years and have a job etc. I am retired so could do it every day if I wanted, but not sure I could do it every day for 19 years.

How can you do so many?
Is there a secret to doing so many?

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

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9 hours ago, GilDean said:

How can you do so many?
Is there a secret to doing so many?

 

The better question in my eyes would be: why do you (or anyone) want to find so many caches over having fun geocaching?

 

Do you have fun the way you are caching? Are you outside and do something good for your body?

If you say yes both times don't change anything. Don't try to be as others are if that's not your style.

It is absolutely not about the numbers.

 

Several of these high number cachers may be cheating in any way (and if it is just getting final coordinates from mystery and multi caches from data bases). Some might be doing it without cheating by spending there whole life (plenty of hours each day) for this hobby. I don't think any of these things is something to mimic.

 

Keep it simple and have fun!

Jochen

 

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Agree totally with Frostengel. I am happy doing it the way I do it. You are only cheating yourself if you log and haven’t done them, not really in the spirit of Geocaching I feel.

I was just interested to see how somebody can get so many more than others and how with distances between caches and time taken to do them, how an average over the period was possible. 
My answer to Mausebiber is, I am not after numbers, so will carry on walking and finding caches how I like to do it, but thank you for comments to the question.

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It's possible they may do a lot of travelling. Constantly going to new areas give you more opportunities to log power trails. Power trails are a good way to get high numbers quickly - at the expense of doing lots of repetitive, identical caches.

 

It's possible they may have done the ET Highway - that one is a few thousand caches that can be done in a day or two. Not my idea of fun, but it's mecca for the number chasers who want legit counts.

 

It's possible that they constantly join up with different teams in order to get co-finder finds where ten people find ten caches each but each signs for all so that all get 100 finds.

 

It's also possible that it's a team account shared across multiple people and they all log under the same username.

 

I know what is possible is that I'm not too fussed what others do, there's no prize for "winning" geocaching and I'll continue enjoying my hobby the best I can. Props to them for being the highest finding account, but if it wasn't them it'd be the next account.

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I know the #1 geocacher and yes, he finds them all. As soon as he signs the log, he is on his way to the next cache, walking  or walking to the car to the next one.  They had a georally in the area and I was with his group (3 of us and his wife(she doesn't log caches)) We all had to go to 4 places to get info. Then everyone met back at the georally and made sure we all had the right info. Plugged in the data and instead of starting where we  all had met he (was the driver) said "lets start at the farthest ones.  We ended up being FTF on 25 of the 35 caches  and found all 35. We even had time to go to the fair in town to meet some of the other catchers and have dinner. He had to have a stent and only took a week off of geocaching to recuperate. Last time I saw him  at a big party (event) at his house for his 100,000 th find in July '14. I had  a stroke 3 days later and moved out of the area.

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3 hours ago, Unit473L said:

It's possible they may have done the ET Highway - that one is a few thousand caches that can be done in a day or two.

They may have done the ET highway and similar numbers trails, but that alone isn't how anyone gets a find count above 100k. There just aren't enough numbers trails out there. If you hit 100k, then most of that has to be regular caches. Lots and lots and lots of regular caches.

 

And a find count above 100k also requires a lot of travel, because you would quickly deplete even the most heavily saturated local area at that rate.

 

2 hours ago, Wacka said:

I know the #1 geocacher and yes, he finds them all. As soon as he signs the log, he is on his way to the next cache, walking  or walking to the car to the next one.

Sounds about right. I've never gone geocaching with him (or with anyone else with a find count above 100k), but I know people who have gone geocaching with him. They said that it was very hard to keep up with him. He moves quickly. He finds caches quickly. He signs quickly. And then he's moving quickly to the next cache. He doesn't go geocaching every day, but when he does go geocaching, he finds a LOT of caches.

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Another way to quickly boost find counts is with Adventure Labs, where you get five smileys for about the same time and effort as it would take to get one with other cache types, but I'm not sure if there are enough ALs around yet to be significant for someone in the 100,000 find stratosphere. For those wanting to fast-track their gallop to 10,000 finds, though, it might be worth considering.

 

But, as I see it at least, caching's not a competitive sport where a higher smiley count beats a lower one. To me, a "top cacher" is one who always takes the time to write good logs specific to the cache they're logging (no TFTCs or cut-and-paste), puts out good quality fun hides in interesting out-of-the-way places, attends and hosts events, is quick to respond to any maintenance requirements and is helpful and encouraging when someone needs that extra hint. They're the ones who make the game fun for everyone else, not the high-fliers with six-digit find counts.

Edited by barefootjeff
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On 10/11/2021 at 6:37 AM, barefootjeff said:

Another way to quickly boost find counts is with Adventure Labs, where you get five smileys for about the same time and effort as it would take to get one with other cache types, but I'm not sure if there are enough ALs around yet to be significant for someone in the 100,000 find stratosphere.

I know a couple of cachers, who armchair-log ALs en masse all over the place. But even they have tallied up "only" around 11K Lab Cache finds so far. So for 6-digit find counts, ALs are not around in large enough numbers.

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14 hours ago, Uncle Alaska said:

Throwdown Artistry

14 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

As a reminder in another post I mentioned one person who placed 300 throwdowns in one day!!

 

Yep.  One hit one of ours, even though the hint should have been an easy find.  Got notice from another CO.

We checked, it was there.   Took the film can home and deleted that find.  Found at an event there were dozens of COs that had the same.  

Guess that extra minute or two messes up the days numbers. The person is highly regarded by others at large events.  Go figure... 

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On 10/13/2021 at 12:48 AM, cerberus1 said:

 

Yep.  One hit one of ours, even though the hint should have been an easy find.  Got notice from another CO.

We checked, it was there.   Took the film can home and deleted that find.  Found at an event there were dozens of COs that had the same.  

Guess that extra minute or two messes up the days numbers. The person is highly regarded by others at large events.  Go figure... 

Look on the bright side, extra cache container if you need it!

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13 hours ago, EthisEthat said:

Look on the bright side, extra cache container if you need it!

 

If you think a film can is a good cache container, it's a shame you're on the other side 'o the world...    

We just put shopping bags in them in hopes people will CITO, and you'd be welcome to a bunch.    :D

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On 10/10/2021 at 2:42 AM, GilDean said:

I read with interest that the top Geocacher in the world has 215,000+ finds across all types of hides. This equates to an average of 31 a day, every day for the 19 years they have been a member.

I walk reasonably quickly and don’t do Geocaching for the numbers, it is more about the walk and the interesting caches people make or the clever way they hide them.

My most finds in a day was 59 and it was 8 hours of walking and driving, I did 5 hours yesterday and walked 8 miles getting 20+ caches, how can you physically do 31 a day for 19 years and have a job etc. I am retired so could do it every day if I wanted, but not sure I could do it every day for 19 years.

How can you do so many?
Is there a secret to doing so many?

 

During the beginning of the pandemic, I hosted some live interviews with some geocachers, one being Mondou2, the geocacher you are referring to.  He currently has 222k finds.  There is some controversy to his numbers because in the interview (around the 57 minute mark) he does mention working in teams that split up and claim finds as a group.  I don't believe that's a big number of caches and it's done as part of these multi-geocacher adventures he's part of.  But if you're interested, here's the interview I did.  


I also interviewed MissJenn and Bl4ckh4wkGER of Geocaching HQ, and Chris Mackey, a geocoin designer who I wound up using this year to design a geocoin I'm currently working on.  I enjoyed each of the interviews.

 

 

Edited by GeoElmo6000
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16 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

So disappointing to hear.    How about we change the title to Geocacher with the most logs?

Yeah... 

We attended an event once, and as usual a cache was close-by for attendees to find.

Nice walk in the dark, but the cache wasn't there.  We heard later the CO didn't ask permission, and it was removed by the caretaker.

Every  person  but  us  logged a "Found It" on a cache not there.  We logged a DNF. 

A  "finned"  forum member bored one evening noticed that, and we're now mentioned in the  "Found it = Didn't Find It" thread.   :laughing:

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There is so much that has to line up for high level geocachers like Mondou2 to have such numbers - the time, the skill, the patience, but most of all the access to travel. Well done. I'm happy just plodding along on my 1 cache a day streak trying to ration out what is near me. I don't know if I'll ever break 5 digits of caches but like you said, everyone has fun in their own way in this game. It is quite diverse.

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On 10/17/2021 at 5:16 PM, GeoElmo6000 said:

 

There is some controversy to his numbers because in the interview (around the 57 minute mark) he does mention working in teams that split up and claim finds as a group.  I don't believe that's a big number of caches and it's done as part of these multi-geocacher adventures he's part of.  But if you're interested, here's the interview I did.  

 

 

I cannot confirm with 100% certainty but mondou2 and almogul have been accused of tag-team caching.. while on opposite sides of the country. I HAVE NO IDEA IF ITS TRUE OR NOT. Nor do I care about someone's find count. Though I would hope that honesty should be the best policy.

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Caching is not a competitive sport. If folks want to play the game differently than you or I let's not worry about did they follow your/my rules. 

 

All my crazy days of caching were because I had the time and chose to spend it on some great adventures caching. My most recent was we finished a project at work after working 7 days a week 12 hour days for a few months I got two weeks off,  being unable to plan ahead I chose to road trip close to 1500 miles to Potter's Pond and on the way back hit the League of ID Caches challenge trail again and got 60+ that day. I did it because I loved the area and love challenges. I stopped when I stopped having fun and getting in and out of the car was becoming painful. The funny thing is even my dogs were tired as I'd open the door and they stopped wanting to go as well. Oh and still had over 400 miles drive to get home.  Great 3 day road trip with only myself some audio books and my dogs.

 

These times it is about the open road, being in the middle of no where. Reflecting upon life and at times just zoning out.  Will I do it again? You bet just no time soon. 

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