What makes a good/creative/attractive nightcache?

[+MomOfDogs]

A question for everyone who is a fan of nightcaches🌙. After logging a number of nightcaches and admiring the creativity of various CO's (for which a big thank you again), i started to brainstorm to create one too. Although ideas are not lacking, I would also like to know your experience, tips and opinion in order to make the cache/experience even better. Hence some questions:

• Which elements (besides creativity or diversity of caches) do you think are important for a good night cache?
• What elements cause you to drop out faster when looking or preparing for a night cache?
• Other findings can of course always be shared.

 

Thanks in advance for your tips and opinions. 🤘🐾

[+RecipeForDisaster]

It’s great to know when you’re on the right track or off course. We’ve done some that have, say, a red tack showing you you missed a turn… or an immediate yellow one to show you’re going the right way. Redundant tacks to be sure it doesn’t derail everything if a tack is removed or falls off. A final that is not difficult to find in the dark - reflective is a plus. It stinks to do a nice long night cache and then not find the final. Ambiguity isn’t fun, either. We have backtracked too many times, or gone a half mile out of our way. 
 

Loop night caches that bring you back towards the trailhead are thoughtful.
 

Other than that, all I can think of is staying away from houses so you don’t look like a creep. 

[+cerberus1]

2 hours ago, MomOfDogs said:

Which elements (besides creativity or diversity of caches) do you think are important for a good night cache?

What elements cause you to drop out faster when looking or preparing for a night cache?

 

Use the KISS method.  People aren't raised to walk in the woods (it is in the woods, right?) at night.   

Like RecipeForDisaster, we prefer a means to get back to parking, though I always mark the car ~JIC.

Night caches require flashlights.  Night caches we won't do are those too close to civilization. 

Some people are afraid of everything, even when they know hunting here is allowed on Sundays, and some game is taken at night.

Run-ins with police over a hobby isn't fun.

[+niraD]

3 hours ago, MomOfDogs said:

• Which elements (besides creativity or diversity of caches) do you think are important for a good night cache?
• What elements cause you to drop out faster when looking or preparing for a night cache?

The first requirement is safe legal access to the location at night. I used to live in a county where most of the parks closed at sunset, or half an hour after sunset. Needless to say, that doesn't work for a night cache.

 

One of my favorite night caches was in a park that closed at 10pm. It was a rather long cache, with several varied stages, and it was easier to complete in a single trip during the autumn, winter, or spring.

 

My favorite night caches have been more than just a reflector trail. Some haven't used reflector trails at all. Those that have used reflector trails have incorporated other elements. The other elements can include things like:

• Glow in the dark markers (which need sunlight during the day to recharge).
• Fluorescent paints/inks that require UV flashlights to be visible (regular paint and fluorescent paint can be combined to create a pattern that is meaningless under normal light, but which reveals information under UV light).
• Reflectors that are not part of a trail (e.g., point flashlight up to see reflector on bottom of elevated stage).
• Physical challenges (e.g., climbing a tree to retrieve stage, using "clothesline" pulley system to retrieve stage).
• Physical puzzles (e.g., a dowel/scytale at one stage with the cipher strip at a later stage, a simple wooden jigsaw puzzle, ball bearing maze puzzle gift boxes), as long as they are protected from the weather.
• Information on cache page that is used to interpret markings found on site.

[+Wet Pancake Touring Club]

I did one 'night' cache in woods that were too dense. There were limited, obvious sight lines, on the only trail. Easy to figure out where the next point was. I did this one during the middle of the day.

 

Give me some interesting challenges. One of my favorites had several waypoints that took a bit to figure out how to get to. (The cache description included a park map.) One was up a very steep climb, another across a small bay (0.1 km across). The woods were not dense, the markers were well spaced, it took a fairly powerful flashlight to find the next one. And, it turned out the cache was a short, 1/4 kilometer hike back to the parking lot. 

[+SeekTheCache]

Great question!

I am also preparing a cache that will have the night cache attribute and there are a few things that you have mentioned here in this post that I had not considered, such as marks to hint that you’re in the right path.

I am using a solar lamp that will glow after dark, I have already tested it and although you may easily miss it during daytime, it is clearly visible from a distance during nighttime, so I think finding the cache will not be a problem, but the waymarks might be very useful in finding your way back.

Curiously, I have never logged a night cache myself. I don´t think I have ever even  had one come up on my to do list, so there are no tips I can give from that experience, but I think that making the cache easy to find might be better, because a long search is probably a lot more frustrating during the night than it is during daytime.

[+dophe]

I've been on a few night caches... some evil and some fun. The evil one was like a maze which had choices on which way to go. You didn't find out you were on the wrong track until you've found a red reflector a few 100 feet down the path (you learn to set way points). It's not over until you find a camouflaged container in the dark under a canopy of evergreen trees (memories). I learned never leave a reflector until you see the next reflector(s).

 

I have placed a night cache that kept getting muggled. Never underestimate the range of headlights and the curiosity of people driving in the middle of the night. Because nothing says "check me out" like bright reflectors on a line of trees, even though the nearest road was over a quarter mile away across a body of water. You can see the reflectors from the parking area when it was very dark.

Another mistake was placing 3 reflectors on the last tree where the cache was located. This was another "check me out, I'm different". My next night cache will be placed on the reflector after the 3 reflectors and I may place an extra reflector beyond that to throw off the muggles. And the web page will note this. 

[+The Jester]

I've put out three night caches - and not one is a glint trail.  One use glints like channel markers (one "high" and back, the other "low' and closer) so that they marked a line (move back and forth until the two glints line up vertically).  Move along the line until another set is seen, where the two lines meet the cache page has an offset to the container.

 

Another uses four glints spaced a short ways away, you need to find the middle where the two lines cross.  Again an offset to the container.

 

The last uses different color glints, bright and dimmer, in groups of four for binary numbers.  Walk down a road/trail gathering three numbers on the right side until red/orange glints, turn back and gather three more.  Plug those numbers into the listed co-ords for the final.  

 

I'm planning another that will use beads - some glow-in-the-dark, some UV reactive - to build a matrix.  Both a regular & UV light needed to read the number coding on the bead matrix.

 

One thing to be aware of, there is one type of tree I've run across (a juniper?) whose berries at certain times are reflective.  It's a real pain to scan the trees for glints and the whole darn tree lights up!  I ran into this near Bend OR once.