Jump to content

Your worst day caching?


Recommended Posts

I'm curious on what your worst caching day was? I had a terrible weekend and Sunday was the killer. Sunday started out with forgetting the Off bug spray at the house. (I only own 5 cans so don't ask why one isn't in the truck!) I continued on finding my first cache.

 

The second cache I looked for and gave up after not finding it. The third cache was a multi. On the second stage you are on a wooded hill about 45 degree angle. At some point my percription sunglasses fell off my shirt and the next hour was spent looking for them. There is no way I was going to spend $300 on a new pair. Went to the next cache again finding leg one and not the final cache. At this point I gave up and went home.

 

Later in the night found a travel bug close by so I ventured off. On the way to the cache I trip and twist my foot really good. Limp to the cache using the trees and found the bug.

 

This was about my worst day. Not too bad but it made me laugh icon_biggrin.gif

Link to comment

Let's just say it involved Yellow Jackets, Mosquitos the size of a small Piper Cherokee, Ticks, Stinging Nettles, a hill with a 45° incline (sure it was fine going down), 102°F/95% humidity and a missing cache. It was only 45 minutes, but it was 45 minutes of pure hell. Cache has been archived.

 

But it still beats being cooped up in the office all day. icon_wink.gif

 

Markwell

Chicago Geocaching

Link to comment

quote:
Originally posted by unclerojelio:

is still better than the best day working.


 

I have to agree with that. Heat exhaustion, lack of water, flies, sore feet, cuts and rain are great compared to having to go to work.

 

And believe it or not I like what I do for a living. icon_smile.gif

 

====================================

As always, the above statements are just MHO.

====================================

Link to comment

Im really too new to this to have a deep "worse day" story, as I have only been Geocaching for about a month. However, the other day I did decide to try my first 3/3 star rated cache. Out in the middle of no where after a 50 mile drive, and it was hot and muggy and you had to go down a slippery slope to a stream and into thick brush/trees, duck the bugs, etc. I DID find the cache I was after, even though my GPS had me in the middle of the stream do to poor sat lock under the trees.. The real "worst part" of that adventure was the part while sliding/tripping/stumbling down the slope to the stream, was that sinking feeling I got watching my GPS's battery compartment door pop open and the batteries go rolling down the hill in front of me...

 

-Centaur

Link to comment

Would have to have been last Sunday. A buddy of mine that frequently goes cache hunting with me has a pair of ware runners. Sunday we downloaded about 6 Hydrocaches into our GPSs and took the wave runners to Lake Lanier. We both have GPSs and in fear of losing mine I got a mini biner and clipped mine to my compass and stored it till we got relatively close. Headed out to the first cache, got in the area I pulled out my supposedly waterproof GPSIII+ and put the string around my neck. We figured out that either the Island this cache was supposed to be on sunk or the cords were bad so we headed on to the next cache about a mile away.

 

On the way there the anchor for the wave runner I was riding, fell overboard (used to tie the wave runners to the beach no compartments large enough to stow it). No big deal it has a little float on it so I just turned around and went back for it. In the process of retrieving it I fell off with the GPS around my neck. I didn’t lose it but it later quit working! One of several times the GPS got dunked. Got back on and got to where my buddy was stopped in the water. Turned out his wave runner died and would not restart 0.80 from the cache, 4 miles from the boat ramp, and pretty much in the middle of the lake. He called for a towboat (apparently he is a member of a boat club similar to AAA) 2 hours later and ¼ mile of drifting still no towboat. During our 2 hours of drifting I found that my GPS was indeed not waterproof as it kept shutting off after about 3 minutes or so. I also managed to loose the anchor again and was unable to relocate it, and lost my sunglasses. Even though we both put on sunblock both of got bad sunburn on our heads (really short hair) and a nice burn out line of life vests on our backs as well as the tops of our legs. After waiting 2 hours we gave up and tied a rope between the two wave runners and towed the dead one 4 miles back to the boat ramp, took about an hour. Ironically the one that broke down is rated for towing but the working one was not… oops.

 

Turned out to be an expensive trip to say the least.

GPS repair $125

Shipping and insure to Garmin $10

New anchor $30

New sunglasses $10

Wave runner repair $???? Still don’t know.

 

And we didn’t even get any darn finds to show for it all!

Link to comment

I was bound and determined to hide my first cache on New Years Day. Unfortunately it was pouring with rain - I mean pouring. My selected spot was a half mile walk, part of which was down a very steep path (almost a cliff) and on that day it was one mucky river. I spent ages trying to get accurate coordinates (me and my new GPSr were getting soaked - I know its waterproof - but still it was NEW!!). I finally hid the cache and then began the very steep, incredibly muddy, trek back up that path. I thought to myself, "I hope no one is stupid enough to attempt to find this one in the rain."

 

Got back to the car, cold, soaked and covered with mud, and was just starting to warm up a little when I noticed the transparent document cover sitting on my dashboard that contained the "Geocache Site - Please Read" letter - that I had forgotten to put in the cache! This was my first cache, so no way was I going to allow such a serious omission! dadgum! Took a deep breath and then back out of the car and back down and back up that cliff - still pouring with rain of course. What a miserable experience.

 

That day, I realized I was hooked on Geocaching.

 

You may not agree with what I say, but I will defend, to your death, my right to say it!(it's a Joke, OK!)

Link to comment

Libby & I have had several terrible days, but looking back they are some of our favorite hunts.

 

I remember the first cache we tried at night, it was after midnight and we got turned around in the woods (no we didn't mark our car). We saw a road about 20 yards away thru some thick bramble and bushwacked over to it. Once there we realized we were on a private gated driveway, and then the dogs started barking, and getting closer! We took off running, and somehow managed to roll under the gate as the dogs closed in and lights were coming on in the house. To top it off we didn't find the cache. The next day it was easy. We still laugh when we talk about it.

 

Rusty...

 

Rusty & Libby's Geocache Page

Link to comment

Here are some excerpts from my journal for that day....edited a bit for length.

 

-----August 11, 2002 - 1:00 pm ------

 

Well, here I am, stuck "out in the middle of nowhere" (at least, that's what I've named this - my first saved waypoint on my GPS) so to pass the time, I figured I'd write a "nattering journal entry." :-)

 

[Aside: I think it's about 95 degrees or more right now - outside anyway. It's probably hotter here in the car. How hot can I expect it to get before I'm "rescued?" Good question, but I don't know - I forgot to check the weather forecast before I left. Insert "rolled eyes" here...and I'm making a mental note to set up an automatic weather report download for this thing again.]

 

I set out in good spirits today. The first thing I did - it being nearly noon - was to grab some lunch. So, fueled with some batter-dipped fish and a large cup of ice water, I set out on the first leg of my trip. First stop, the Wichita Falls Virtual Geocache. A short but very pleasant walk, another GPS reading, and a few jotted notes later and I was back in the car and heading north to the second cache on my list for the day - City View of Burkburnett, about 10 miles north of town across the Red River and a short distance into Oklahoma. I was still in Texas, just about a mile south of Burkburnett in fact, when the red temperature warning light suddenly lit up on my dashboard...

 

I pulled over immediately, shut off the engine and opened up the hood. The water reservoir on the side was full of radiator fluid - not just a bit in the bottom as is normal, but completely filled to the top, and the reservoir itself was bulging with the pressure and the radiator was making ill-tempered hissing and burbling sounds. Even my non-mechanical brain was able to assess that this was "not good." I got out my cellphone and called my oldest son. He told me to let the engine cool down and then carefully open the radiator cap, with something as a cushion between it and me just in case it spewed. Then, when the pressure was released, to fill it up to the top with some of the water I always carry with me for emergencies.

 

I followed his directions and then got back in, started the car back up and turned around at the next exit, heading back towards town. I didn't get very far. This time the hissing and knocking and burbling noises were even more alarming. Another quick phone consultation with number one son and I was told to "sit tight" and he'd come out there and have a look at it in person and we'd see what needed to be done.

 

So, that's what I'm doing, sitting tight. :-D

 

I started off passing the time by playing with my GPS and learning how to set a waypoint in the Nav software. I took a reading of where my car was sitting out in the sorta-boonies at the side of the road, and set a waypoint called "out in the middle of NoWhere" - which amusingly enough, showed up in the waypoint menu as simply "NoWhere."

 

Then I started trying to figure out what else I could do to pass the 45 minutes to an hour that I expected to be sitting here before my son arrived. I thought about calling someone on the cellphone and yakking some of that time away, but I figured I probably should keep the line free in case he called to check up on me. So, that left my Visor handheld, with it's myriad of possibilities, to occupy my time. Since I was still in a good mood in spite of what had happened, I decided that writing a nattering journal entry would be fun. So here it is. :-)

 

--------------

 

Final verdict - a blown head gasket. But, on the bright side, I did get one cache in before things went south. ;-)

 

Teresa (Adovbs)

 

The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth.

Link to comment

quote:
Originally posted by Team Golden:

I'm curious on what your worst caching day was?


 

It was a muggy Central Texas day in which I failed to find my first microcache (still haven't found one). The cache is Troll Heritage . My GPSr tells me that the microcache is by the creek bed, so that where I head.

 

I'm pushing through lots of shoulder-high greenery when I spot some pale green berries. "My", I think, "those look like poison ivy berries."

 

They were.

 

Like the geocaching idiot that I am, I kept looking until dark. After I gave up, I tried to work my way out of the ivy, but I managed to run hard into a smilax bramble that left five deep scratches on my leg (yes, I was wearing shorts at the time.) On the way home, I picked up a bottle of Tecnu and used almost all of it. Only one slight bit of rash on my leg, but those smilax scars are going to be with me for months.

 

What makes it worse is that no one but me has had trouble with this cache--even small children find it with ease.

 

None of this stopped me from finding , which warns of poison ivy, the next day.

 

wcgreen

 

--

Wendy Chatley Green

wcgreen@eudoramail.com

Link to comment

My worst day was also my best day, as it was my first find.

 

I had a crappy GPS - old, clunky... I think it was an Eagle somethingrather. Anyway - I plopped in the coordinates and went off in search.

 

The GPSr had accuracy only to .1 mile I think... it was horrible. Scrounging around in the overgrown woods, muddy, wet, logs of bugs - getting dark...

 

I didn't want to give up - finally found it, and then since I was new to the whole GPS thing, I hadn't set a waypoint at my car - and nearly got lost trying to get back to the car.

 

I was so happy that I had my first find, though... and at a fairly tough cache. icon_smile.gif

 

Now that I look back on that day, I realize that I had pretty much no idea of what the hell I was doing. *laugh*

 

Pirates of the Ol' Canal

 

--==< http://home.columbus.rr.com/rubbertoe >==--

Link to comment

Started by putting in wrong coordinates (mistake 1) in gps for this one. Was a mile off.. So being back in the woods already did not go back to main road. (mistake 2) Big mistake. Came up on the power lines. Humm this looks like the right way, So down the power lines we went. (mistake 3) As my wife told me not to go that way. Was doing good made it down and up one sand hill, Then came up on on 2ed sand hill.. That's right Biggest mistake number 4, made it down the sand hill but not up other side. Yes Wife let me know how right she was in telling me not to go that way.:-(... As we were walking out to main road we found the cache. :-) Lesson for the day, Sand is bad.. Stay off power lines, No tow truck will come and help. Cost me 3 hours and $150.

$150 for two guys in 4X4 to tow us out.

But Over all what counts is we did find cache and enjoyed the walk on trial.

 

But hey the worst day geocaching is better then the best day at work icon_biggrin.gif

Link to comment

I love caching... the worst thing about it though... living in South Carolina "Tick Country", I go caching on the weekend and still find ticks sucking my blood on Wednesday. I have been caching and pulled 4-ticks off me.

 

I am a Tick magnet. On the frustrating note... I hid a cache along a canal in our area spent a good hour or two finding the right spot, then realized that I was at the back entrance where I can't even describe how to get there... so now I am going to have to retrieve the cache and start over hiding it again.

 

~patrick

Link to comment

On vacation with husband and 16-yr old stepson. Couldn't locate "park" setting that was described in cache text, but found a likely parking place, handed GPS unit to son who yelled "All right!" and took off through the blackberry bushes at top speed. Suddenly, here he comes back at us, still at top speed, looking odd and telling us that we didn't need to find this cache. We could just move on to the next one. Tried to hand the GPS back and shoo us towards the truck.

 

Very weird, coming from the ultra-cacher that the kid is. What's the problem, kid? Welll.... there are people up there, Mom. Uh... naked people. We laugh. Yeah, right. Well, this is a college town. Maybe he surprised a couple of students doing the collegiate research thing. We've been standing here long enough for them to make a getaway, so we take the GPS, shake our heads and smile at him, and march out of the blackberry bushes into a clearing.

 

And come face to face with three naked men.

 

OK, I'm hip. I can be cool about this. They seem pretty nonchalant, so I can be chill. We all nod a friendly hello, except for 16-yr old, who is making choking noises and can't seem to take a full breath. He heads for the other side of the clearing and tries to get down a bank to the river. No path, no good footing, he's just headed for the cache and away from this weirdness in the straightest line possible. One of the naked men offers us directions to a better path than the one our kid seems to be making at the moment. Where do you look when you talk to naked men? I noticed a baseball cap, a pair of flip-flops, and a lot of interesting flowers and bushes alongside the road behind them.

 

I make a decision that this is just slightly too weird for family caching... I'm not against naked people, but wandering around with my 16-yr old stepson amongst a bunch of 'em is just too bizarre for me on a Sunday afternoon. So I go to the bank to call him back so that we can make a subtle escape back through the blackberries.

 

He is frozen in horror, halfway down the bank. More naked men at the river, only this is the geriatric crew. The sight of 70-year olds with no clothes on has rendered the poor boy completely catatonic. His face has gone white, then red, and is now a funny shade of turquoise. I'm laughing, but he's not laughing. He's just freaking. icon_eek.gif

 

I convince kid to come back up the bank, past the former naked men, and back across to the blackberries. It is the toughest thing he's ever done. He dives into the blackberries like a rabbit heading for home, and we don't see him again till we get back to the truck, where he is standing with his eyes clamped shut, rhythmically pulling on the door handle and chanting, "I need professional help. I need professional help."

 

We didn't stop laughing for twenty miles. Apparently, there is really a park on the other side of the river, and nobody else has experienced quite the same "scenic views" that we were given.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...