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Nemesis Caches


Halden

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When conditions are close to perfect I tend to get stumped. Blue skies on a sunny day, great reception on GPSr. Trees and bushes open up before me along my path. I find nothing. There was a cache that haunted me. I mean keep me up at night haunt me. One of those situations where you KNOW that your trying WAY to hard. Meanwhile every newbie in the state is logging "Easy find, Took Plasma TV screen. Left a stack of winning lottery tickets and a playboy bunny."

 

After the first of the year I dedicated myself to logging every cache within 10 miles of me. That cache stood out, it had become the bane of my geocaching existence. The first few days of the year where dismal. It had rained for a week straight, the temp was dropping and the wind was doing its best to knock things down.

 

Undeterred I set out. I got wet, muddy and cold. I crossed flooded, rushing creeks and mud bogs that a pig would walk around. I fought killer trees and sticker bushes. My toes froze, the wind bit at my skin. The skies darkened, my watch ran backwards and my trusty compass needle spun uncontrollably. A large fish ate my left boot. Thunder booming overhead, I pressed on through seemingly eternal darkness and cold, for about 10 minutes.

 

Suddenly a clearing opened. The clouds parted and a ray of sun fell onto a pile of branches before me. From beneath the pile a golden glow radiated a brilliant light. The air itself was alive with electricity. Angels began to sing a gorgeous harmony. Oh, happy day and wondrous swag, I had found the cache!

 

Falling to my knees before the treasure, I cleared branches frantically. Underneath lay the greatest ammo box ever created. Hammered by Thor himself from metal fired in the pits of Mount Olympus and touched by a goddess. Eagerly I opened the lid and a bounty of swag poured forth like an extremely agitated Mountain Dew. Reaching into the pile of glorious knickknacks I freed the evasive log book. "I am Spartacus!"

 

But what is this? How could any cacher so lovingly place this cache without a pencil? <thunder boomed> No problem, I have a pen in my geo pack. Where is my pack? OH NO! My pack is gone, I must have dropped it when I fought the killer, boot eating fish! Oh, Geogods, why has thous forsaken me?!? No swag to trade, no pen to sign. All is lost, hope has abandoned me,and my spirit is crushed. Dejected and disheartened I walked the 50 feet back to my car.

Edited by Johnnie Stalkers
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This cache Quit Iron Horsing Around (CGGBER) is the closest to my house (~0.25 miles) and is within 15 feet of a suburban paved hiking/biking trail. I started geocaching at the end of August and must have visited it at least 20 times at all hours. I searched every square inch within about 20 feet of it. I finally had a good idea an how it was hidden and met another geocacher Saturday that had found it. I asked if my idea was on the right track and they agreed. I found it Saturay night. Finally!

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I also looked for one on a suburban walking trail. The first search was at lunch (I wanted to be FTF), so I only had a short time to drive out there, search, and drive back without getting my butt chewed for being late. I searched all OVER that trail within 50 feet. Through briars, in mud, into a small cave opening, and didn't find squat. Posted my DNF when I returned from lunch. Even got an email from the owner saying "it should be an easy find -- it's right behind a rock, right off the trail!" Well, we were leaving for a trip the next morning, so I decided to try it again in the dark on the way home. My pitiful flashlight wasn't near enough... but I still turned up nothing, looking behind every rock near the path I could see.

 

Of course, the local guy who is a frequent FTF freak had lots of fun poking fun at me for not finding it, and proceeded to write me a "how to" on caching.

 

I finally found it when we returned from our trip. Turns out the damed thing was 60' off coordinates, and on the OTHER SIDE of the trail!

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This 1/1 has given me fits! It's called "Room 401"Room 401 & was put out by an elementry school class. I've tried four times to find it & have only found some destitute joggers *&^% on my shoe & the drawers they wiped up with :lol: ! (its by a bike/joging path) Anyway the hints say, "10 feet into the bush from the back"; but back of what? The path is on one side & the parking area is on the other & the "bush" is roughly 200x200 feet triangle shaped so if the coords are even 10 feet off - you ain't findin' it! I've decided to wait on this one for a few months & try again in the hopes that the cache area is "worn".

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Rail Roa... Signs has stumped me many trips out... as many as i have fingers... i swear it cant be that hard.... maybe this spring when it all melts offffffff

It took me 3 tries to get that cache. The tree cover screws things up but the last time in the gps took me directly to it. There used to be a Rail Roa sign a couple of hundred feet away but it's nailed to our barn now.

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Won't say which one, but we have looked 4 or 5 times for one particular hide. After the second time, we logged DNF. But every time we had an opportunity, we have stopped to look. And folks have continued to log finds for it. It has potential to be anywhere due to the surroundings - eg. under a rock in a pile of rocks. However, we've been told it is a fair hide. I'm almost to the point of not bothering to look anymore. Almost.

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I looked for this cache 3 times. This is a very simple magnetic key holder on the guard rail... but my brother and I searched one day, it was not found by a few more cachers multiple times... I went back after it was confirmed to be in place and did not find it... and on trip 3 I spotted it on my first look. I know I could not have missed it where I found it... it had been logged by Dr Dan who never logged on the sight... he must have uncovered it from someplace but too this day I can not see how or from where

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Well....I'm sorry to say, I haven't been stumped on an existing cache. The first two I looked for were already MIA. I planted a new one today, and almost didn't get back. Got the new Jeep high centered......took about 5 minutes to get the jack out (virgin paint on the jack held it snugly under the hood), and two minutes to jack up the Jeep and stack a couple small logs under one tire. Then, vroom vroom, I was gone! So, I guess, in answer to your question, I haven't been stumped, but was almost stumped in planting one! :rolleyes:

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One that drove me nuts was Bradyview which took me three tries before I finally found it. I grew to hate this cache after each trip as it was 80 miles from home. It was rated 4/4 so it wasn't easy but others had found it while some didn't.

 

I planned it so I'd hit other caches the same day in the area but I was beginning to run out of nearby caches by my 3rd visit. Finally with a tip from the owner I found the sucker. I was all around the cache before but was never in the right angle to actually see it.

 

Now I consider it one of my all time favorite caches with a great view looking down on the town of East Brady. Funny how finding a cache can change your view of it. :)

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Doctor....Doctor stumped me and my son for about a month. I must have looked twice a week. This is a micro that was devilishly placed in a very public area. Every time I searched, I was sure that someone would call the authorities about the loiterer wandering about in circles, muttering to himself and looking beneath and above everything in sight.

When I finally found it (in plain sight, of course) I felt like slapping myself.

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Doctor....Doctor stumped me

 

It is not quite in my neck of the woods but close enough that feel concerned enough to ask. How did this get approved without a log book requirement? It is a newish cache. Or has this been covered somewhere else?

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QUOTE 

Doctor....Doctor stumped me 

 

 

It is not quite in my neck of the woods but close enough that feel concerned enough to ask. How did this get approved without a log book requirement? It is a newish cache. Or has this been covered somewhere else?

 

 

Team Jammer has placed a series of micros in my area, at least four are no log book. They were all placed in mid to late summer 2003.

 

I myself wondered about the no log book aspect, but still enjoyed the find. I realy don't know the answer. Anybody?

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I myself wondered about the no log book aspect, but still enjoyed the find. I realy don't know the answer. Anybody?

Actually, that seems pretty sensible to me; a really tiny micro cache won't offer room for swag, and precious little for a log either. Having the finder quote information back from inside would make it easy to maintain, too; as long as people keep finding it, it's good to go! I think I'd change the info that they have to quote from time to time, tho.

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Actually, that seems pretty sensible to me; a really tiny micro cache won't offer room for swag, and precious little for a log either. Having the finder quote information back from inside would make it easy to maintain, too; as long as people keep finding it, it's good to go! I think I'd change the info that they have to quote from time to time, tho.

This was a verrrrry tiny micro, a mini altoids bin (mints, not breathstrips), if I remember correctly.

 

Not having a log book made no difference to me. Team Jammer, as I stated, has placed a number of interesting and challanging mini/micros is the area. I completely enjoyed all their hunts regardless of log / no log.

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Okay, I've got to bust myself out.:D There is one here in the wilds of Terre Haute, IN that just about had me "stumped". I'd already logged 2 DNF's on this baby, the cache owner even went out and checked on it. (Thanks, Shooter206!) "Yes, it's still there!"

Anyway, I've got to hand it to Shooter, the camo job is excellent!

 

Third time's the charm!

 

Keep looking for the ones that elude you.

 

(edit: corrected some minor blunders...)

Edited by Team Flashncache
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Chaloochies Choice has beaten me five times, I admit it.

 

And Micros? IF you have time....

Its a tin of plastic

A tin of mints

Its got just a note

bring your own pen.

There's so much that we seek

That Its time that we sneak!

Its an altoids tin after all.

 

There is just one tin

And one golden spot

And a million places

The tin is not!

Though the degrees divide

And the coords are right,

Its an altoids tin after all

 

An altoids tin after all

An altoids tin after all

An altoids tin after all

An altoids, altoids tin

Edited by Bo Peep and the Sheep
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Per the original topic, this new cache south of Boston isn't just a nemesis for me as much as everyone (save one savvy finder). But it has 1) resulted in two DNFs for me (so far) 2) accumulated 12 total logs, only one of which is a find (four DNFs and several notes), and 3) completely taken over my life. I live an hour away and have been down twice and am *dying* to get back there.

 

The reason it is a nemesis is that it is a cache that requires calculations and I am *positive* that I have been within a couple hundred feet of the location. Looking for a camo micro hasn't helped. Even right now I think I know where I went wrong and where I need to be, I just can't get down there until the weekend. Heck, I ought to just go - it's not like I'm getting any work done...

Edited by Theseus
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This onewas mine (and Faile's) for months, finally found it today.

 

Here's the log I posted: Dang dang dang dang dang dang, well this one should have been (and was actually) easier than Faile and I had been making it

This story is actually quite embarassing

 

So we've been trying to find this one since December sometime, its been so long we can't exactly remember when in December we actually printed the cache page. All we know is that it was back when there was still a hint on the page. It must have taken us a week or so to finally get around to looking for it, because we've tried this one 4 or 5 times without success!

 

Double check the coords, forgot there was a clue the first time or two, find that there is a clue, read the clue, attempt to implement a search with the clue and still no love!

 

So we come back today with our good luck charms (my parents) to hunt this one down once and for all. We follow the coords, use the clue and still nothing. We give up and head back to the car after searching nearly every gerr in the area. I then get this idea to check the coords one more time as we are driving away. Hmmm, there is something suspicious going on here. Why are they different than what we've been using in the GPS?

 

Turns out we reprinted the cache page earlier this week. Plug in the new numbers and we walked right to it

 

We've never had this much trouble with a 1 star before, and hope we never do again! Great job though! Just wish I could say that our wandering around was some one's fault other than our own

 

END POST

 

Boy did we feel stupid afterwards.

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Here is my post on a similar topic about a year ago..

 

Last September a new cache was placed about a mile from where I work. It is a small area, but the dominant features are boulders.. thousands of them totally covering an area of perhaps 30 acres. Some are the size of small cars, others are much smaller, but the ground is nearly covered by rock. I don't use a GPS and of course the USGS really smooths out the contour lines in places like this so it became a real search for me. The discription said "under a large boulder" so over the next few days, I got to know each of them by their shape and position. After about 3 unsuccessful trips I paced in to the spot that I thought was indicated on the map from three different landmarks on the USGS.. each of which was perhaps 200 meters away... and came to the same spot each time. Here I built a small cairn to save time later and came back several more times to search an area centered on the cairn. In November, with daylight savings time gone I was forced to put the search on hold, but a couple days ago someone put up a photo of them at the site. In the photo... a foot from the open cache was my cairn. Went there early the next morning and found the cache was beneath the same rock that I had chosen as the base of my cairn. So my map reading was perfect and my vision greatly flawed edscott

Edited by edscott
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Mine was one in the Chicacgo aea called Putt Putt Geocaching. I made 4 trips to this one. I finally found it but I had to get a little extra help from a fellow cacher. It was a very easy hide in an old abandoned putt putt golf course, but it eluded me for some reason. What really frustrated me was I was actually standing over it according to a log posted right after my No Find. It had snowed so my footprints were visable to the next person. The next time out I took two of my kids and we searched for an hour with no luck. The rain started to fall and darkness was setting in so we quit. I cursed that darn cache for many months until the day I found it. I wanted to toss the darn thing into a nearby stream, but of course I didn't. This was the biggest thorn in my side so far.!

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There's a micro here in town on a old tank that sits in the middle of the park and 25 people have found it and I've been four or five times and can never find it.  So I've given up for a while.

:) Yes me and my family were out there this weekend on our way to Calico Ghost town and for the life of us we could not find this cache!!! The name of the cache is "wadda Caboose".

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I got bit by Acadian Driftwood. This cache had my number from the get go. I did the leg work, I was determined to get FTF when it was open season on it but a combination of bad math and bad timing lead to some interesting results.

 

In case my wife didn't think hunting tupperware was crazy enough I turn to her at Midnight on a friday and say: "I gotta get this one or it will drive me crazy all night"

 

Check out my logs for details.

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I come across these every couple of months. A simple 1-2 star...everyone finds it. No one complains. Should be a quickie. I finally get around to it and I can't find. Several repeat visits later...nothing! It' just a freakin' one star...it shouldn't be this hard!! UGH!! Of course, in between trips I'm banging out 3-4 stars left and right. I can't say I find any joy in finally finding that elusive cache...I'm just happy to be able to forget about it. :bad:

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I then get this idea to check the coords one more time as we are driving away. Hmmm, there is something suspicious going on here. Why are they different than what we've been using in the GPS?

BTDT. When something seems wrong, I check the coordinates out of habit and experience. The problem is that sometimes the wrong coordinates can lead me to a reasonable location where I spend much time looking before realizing what a dope I am.

 

Of course, human error goes both ways. The caches that have given me the most trouble are the ones with bad coordinates, calculations or hints. One multi-stage had all of these problems and caused me the most trips for a single cache: one for each of 4 stages plus a couple extra trips thrown in for fun. Took me 7 weeks and several emails to the owner to finish it. It was eventually cleaned up and many people have enjoyed the hunt since. Taught me something about trying to be first finder.

 

Another multi-stage took me 4 visits and emails to another finder. The pity was that it could have been an outstanding cache with a little more attention to detail but was archived instead of fixed.

 

The cache that burned the most brain cells--and that I highly recommend for a taste of Central Oregon--is Pine Mountain Ridge Runner. Takes a couple of days under the best of circumstances.

 

I have developed a rule-of-thumb that I will try caches that have no more than 3 of the following qualities: micro, unpleasant location, crappy reception, questionable coordinates, poor hint, puzzle, or many potential hiding places. More than 3 of these and I'm out of there. That leaves plenty of challenging caches to do. One that is on my list for a return visit is Time Machine in a highly public place in Portland, Oregon.

Edited by bigeddy
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We tried to find this one Saddle River Cache but couldn't.... I woke up this morning and was having a nightmare about trying to find it. The cache is located very close to a Catholic high school and in my dream it was right in a non-existent backyard. I lost my caching partner, and I was chased away by nuns. Then I found the cache and it had been muggled. I am hoping that the cache gods will be merciful today so that we can attempt it again. I don't need anymore bad dreams about caches.

 

Yes I often have bad dreams when we don't find a cache...

shellie of mistaken4sisters

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I had one down here in Texas. It was suppose to be a simple cache, just off a nice paved path, in a nice park 5 minutes from the house.

 

To make a long story short, on the 22nd try, I finally found what used to be it, that's right it has been muggled (and all the time up to this point other cachers are lgging this cache, saying this was too easy, or my 2 yr old son found this one, or homer the dog found this one, or fluffy the cat walked right up to this one). I wrote to the owner telling what I had found, they replied that I could go ahead and log a find. I refuse to, to this day. I feel like I have been cheated, here I put all this time in, just to find a piece of paper with someone else name on it saying that they had found the cache. As soon as the owner builds another I will make my 23rd trip and if found I will log the find at that time.

Edited by ignats
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I have one.

there's a park near my house and there's a cache with 19 sets of cords - one of them right, the other 18 are frizbee golf holes.

 

Now, I've been to this cache at least four times and never found it. And I know for a fact that I was looking in the right place.

 

Of course, I'm not sure the owner ever actually went to look to see if I knew what I was doing or not (he knew I was new, he'd shown me the ropes the week before)...

 

 

And now another one, hidden by his aunt. The people before me said the cache was in plain site and so they rehid it in just about the same location but out of site... and this one was just found less than two weeks ago..

Now tell me, how in the world can I not find something that is bright PURPLE in a location that's all brown because there's nothing growing in the woods.......

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Hye,

 

I can't call it a nemesis cache (I've only just started geocaching a couple months ago) but I've gone to find this little bugger 4 times.

 

First time I figured it would be an easy find, the coordinates led me to a muddy (really muddy) creek. I read the hint and all it said was that it was near the creek and 1,2 feet of the ground. So I ruined my shoes.

 

Try 2,3 was the same as the 1st.

 

On my fourth try I decided to walk up the side of the creek, sure enough, after 20 minutes of poking around, I found it sitting in an old rotting tree 1,2 feet off the ground.

 

Anyhow, That's my story

colonelby

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My "nemesis" was a silly 1/1 magnetic cache - I went and looked for it four times until I finally found it. It was called "guarding...something" I don't remember right off hand. Well, I looked and looked and the fourth time I looked in the exact same spot for the twelfth time and I found it - I wasn't thinking "magnetic" and was looking in the crook behind the guard rail and its post, just not at the TOP of the crook. Duh. Well a month or so later, I was looking for another cache called Guarding the Target and wandering around in circles I saw another guard rail and that's when it dawned on me - "Guarding" was FREAKIN' code for guard rail! Talk about the obvious-fish smacking me in the face! Well, now I know, if it says guarding, just ignore everything else and look on the guardrail. That is of course, until some genius decides to really screw with people and... Hey, i just got an idea for a "revenge" cache! (insert evil laugh here) :lol:

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