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Frenetic Caching Record?


The Puzzler

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As I was playing with QuakeMap over this last week (what an ausome program!) and my kids were watching where we were going on the computerized map, I realized that a highly motivated cacher could have a lot of fun trying to find as many caches as possible in one day.

 

Does anyone have any idea what the record of cache finds in a single day by either a single person or a small team has been?

 

I'm not very personally motivated by such tasks, so I think my personal record is probably somewhere between 5 & 7 in a day.

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Ya know, I'm very new to GeoCaching (only found two so far and the first one was by accident) but I've read a lot of posts about how many caches someone has found in a day. It just seems to me that the fun is in the quality of the adventure and not the quantity of the finds. I wonder how thoughtful the log entries are when you're only concern is how many more can I find before dark (or work or Christmas ... etc). Have a beer, relax, enjoy!

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Ya know, I'm very new to GeoCaching (only found two so far and the first one was by accident) but I've read a lot of posts about how many caches someone has found in a day. It just seems to me that the fun is in the quality of the adventure and not the quantity of the finds. I wonder how thoughtful the log entries are when you're only concern is how many more can I find before dark (or work or Christmas ... etc). Have a beer, relax, enjoy!

While my personal best is nowhere near 240(maybe 45-50?), there can be a certain thrill in planning, routing and executing a full day of caching. Certainly not the same thrill as a 2000ft elevation gain hike; but a thrill none the less.

Edited by Mopar
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Ya know, I'm very new to GeoCaching (only found two so far and the first one was by accident) but I've read a lot of posts about how many caches someone has found in a day. It just seems to me that the fun is in the quality of the adventure and not the quantity of the finds. I wonder how thoughtful the log entries are when you're only concern is how many more can I find before dark (or work or Christmas ... etc). Have a beer, relax, enjoy!

While my personal best is nowhere near 240(maybe 45-50?), there can be a certain thrill in planning, routing and executing a full day of caching. Certainly not the same thrill as a 200ft elevation gain hike; but a thrill none the less.

Like I said, I'm as new as they get but I see your point. I'm probably just jealous that I don't have more time to get out hunting. After reading some of the posts though about excuses for getting out of work and whatnot, I'm getting some good ideas about how to free up my time! :huh:

 

Edit: By the way Mopar Rules !!

Edited by CapnJackSparrow
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Give a thought to those who would like to do a full days caching but can't.

I refer to Kuwait where there are only 2 in the entire country and I did both before breakfast, what do they do for the rest of the day.? :lol:

Here in France the most I could reach (by breaking the speed limit) would be about 12 so you can see that numbers don't mean much to many of us. :huh:

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Ya know, I'm very new to GeoCaching (only found two so far and the first one was by accident) but I've read a lot of posts about how many caches someone has found in a day. It just seems to me that the fun is in the quality of the adventure and not the quantity of the finds. I wonder how thoughtful the log entries are when you're only concern is how many more can I find before dark (or work or Christmas ... etc). Have a beer, relax, enjoy!

While my personal best is nowhere near 240(maybe 45-50?), there can be a certain thrill in planning, routing and executing a full day of caching. Certainly not the same thrill as a 2000ft elevation gain hike; but a thrill none the less.

This is basically it. They are different experiences, and I find each fun. The 24 hour marathon provided an interesting new experience and a way to get a kick out of finding caches that I might normally not have chosen to seek out. I had a blast doing it. At the same time, it sure did wear me out and at this point I don't intend to do any further numbers runs of that magnitude. I'm too old to be staying out all night! :huh: Still, I rate it as maybe my second, third or fourth favorite all time caching day (I can't decide).

 

What was really nice was that a few weeks after the Nashville run, Leprechaun and I took a great 12-14 mile hike with some other cachers for three caches in Washington state. That provided a tough hike, incredible views, and some great company on the way. I rate that as my all time favorite caching day.

 

What are other favorite days? One was with my friend Jodi caching our way up the Cache de la Poudre Canyon in Colorado and another was at Saxman's campout in New Mexico. I also had another great day caching with my parents and friends in Colorado that could tie with one of those. Now that I think about it more, there was also a great day on Whidbey Island in Washington state. Something I must note is that all involved fun, friends and a unique experience (part of which was travel and part circumstances of the days). I think a nice mix of those things is the key to an all time favorite caching day for me whether I find one cache that day or 240.

 

So in the end, all were fun times and Nashville was an entirely different experience from the others which involved fewer caches and more hiking, or in the case of Saxman's, an event and some hiking. I like to try all sorts of different caching experiences. Others prefer to stick to the nice hikes and harder caches, yet others like to do a lot of numbers runs or easier caches. Some mix it up. Any preference is OK. What is important is the enjoyment of it for the individual doing the caching! :lol:

 

Edited to add Whidbey Island as a favorite caching day.

Edited by carleenp
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I wonder how thoughtful the log entries are when you're only concern is how many more can I find before dark (or work or Christmas ... etc). Have a beer, relax, enjoy!

Ooops! I meant to add something about this in my last post. Logging was an issue for us. Both of us like to write unique logs and Lep in particular writes good logs. So we were concerned about that. Because Nashville has many caches in series (e.g. there are 101 "dalmation" caches, there are a series of 26 Vanderbuit caches etc), the solution was to write logs based on the series. I mentioned things common to the names and Lep wrote poems. Where a particular cache stood out we remembered it or had notes and mentioned what stood out in our logs. Unfortunately though there were plenty of cut and paste logs for the run. Sometimes there can be little to say about the 60th lightpole cache of the day except to say that it was a fun part of the run and mention the series it was in etc. Plus it took over a week to log the dang things, which was not near as fun as the day of finding them. :huh:

 

Oh, and we did relax with beer! Hmmmm, maybe I should add beer to the mix of items that make for a favorite caching day! I had a beer during dinner on the Nashville run, the beer after the Melakwa's Heaven cache trip in Washington was sooooo good after a long day, and dang, I think I had beer after all the other days I listed.

 

I guess I like beers, I like them alot! :lol:

 

Here is after the Melakwa trip (long story about the badger):

 

3aae1d07-e389-4284-afd5-2ac12b3c52ba.jpg

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Those Melakwa badgers can be fierce. Good thing you found a petrified one!......200 plus caches in a week would be insane. I can't even comprehend that many in a 24 hr period. Without going back through the thread, I'm curious what is the single day unassisted record?

Petrified? But it is so soft and cuddly! :rolleyes:

 

I have no idea on the unassisted record. As far as I know, it has never been claimed or documented. I would be curious to know. Plus there are various levels of assistance. For example, the record from myself and Lep was clearly assisted. We had locals driving and navigating although we found the caches ourselves when we jumped out of the car (and often navigated to the appropriate parking when close). If we had gone by ourselves, we would have still had a navigator of sorts because we were two people, but obviously there would be less "assistance" there. Finally, there would be the solo person who goes out, which is truly unassisted. Each would definitely be its own record. I have seen plenty of posts for personal numbers in one day, but have never been able to sort out the level of assistance on many of them.

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if you want to talk about personal one day cache stats. Paintfiction and myself went to totally new territory to us, not alot of prior planning which cost alot of time finding parks closed ect and our record for 24 houre was 92 or 93. it was a blast though going to places we had no idea where we were with no help from the locals. this may not be unassisited but it is definetly different than other record attempts that I have heard of.

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Soft and cuddly, but what about the smell!.......:rolleyes: That is astonishing that many caches could be that close and findable in that amount of time. I'm not even sure what my record for one day is. Maybe 15-20 at best, but most of mine are hike in or unnassisted. Hmmmm, maybe I'll have to do up a search and see what I can do for a 24 hr period. Of course each cache find is celibrated with a cold beer, so right now 24 is my limit....but then they do have 30 packs at the border, so the envelope is being pushed everyday!.....:lol:

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I did 130 caches in 18 hours in June--a statewide record at the time, but which has now been broken twice by people even more obsessed than I. :rolleyes: It was a blast because it was so fast paced, and I was with good friends the entire time. I look forward to trying Nashville one of these days but in the meantime, I still enjoy long hikes to find just a few caches. It's all about having fun, and I find that caching affords me many different ways to enjoy it.

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Those Melakwa badgers can be fierce.  Good thing you found a petrified one!......200 plus caches in a week would be insane.  I can't even comprehend that many in a 24 hr period.  Without going back through the thread, I'm curious what is the single day unassisted record?

I'm sure this is NOT a record, but when I visited Nashville back in December I did 54 in one day, unassisted.

 

The number would EASILY have been higher but for the fact that since I didn't have a driver for "car jump-out-and-grabs" around the Vandy area, I had to park in one spot and cache the Vandy area on foot instead. This cost me at least a couple of hours, but in hindsight I was glad I did it because the exercise and "tour" of the Vandy area was enjoyable (and certainly more enjoyable than the uninterestingly-located and only-of-value-for-the-stats lightpoles, guardrails, bush-bases, and dumpsters I drove up to during the rest of that day).

 

I also lost quite a bit of time in the downtown/Capitol area, trying (and failing) to find suitable parking, as it was a weekday. So I ended up losing at least an hour around there, and worse, having no cache finds to show for it during that hour.

 

Given those 2 issues, if anyone's looking to do an unassisted Nashville run, I would recommend a Sunday.

 

-Dave R.

Edited by drat19
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I wonder, in an idle sort of way, what it would be like to cache in nashville with a bicycle.  Anyone who has been there care to speculate?

I have a hard time judging about caching it on a bike since our drive around the city is such a blurr now and we covered a large area over the 24 hours. I do know that there are several very cache dense areas where using a bike could work well, maybe even better than hopping in and out of a car, but who knows? Maybe a Nashville local will be able to give a good opinion. The most caches found by bike in say 12 or 24 hours could be an interesting statistic. I imagine trying it would be quite a unique experience as well, especially since it would be so much more physically exerting. It could be a good way to combine physical fitness with a caching run.

Edited by carleenp
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I regularly do caching by bicycle around the Toronto, Canada area. Not so much in the downtown as in the surrounding suburbs and smaller cities.

My personal, unassisted, best day of caching was 13 caches. That required 15 hours, and about 90 miles of cycling.

My personal best in any 24 hour period was a cache marathon we did this summer. I had a blast on both trips. Which one was better? I really couldn't say. There's a lot to be said for what amounts to a moving event cache. There's also a lot to be said for the satisfaction of doing it all by yourself.

Would I do it again? sure. I'm already planning on hitting the 5 closest caches to home, all by bicycle. I expect to roll up another 30 miles of cycling doing that. The 24 hour Marathon? sure, if I can find a bunch of cachers crazy enough to be willing to come along, and we can find an area that we haven't already done most of the caches.

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my friends and i are curious as to how it is possible to get 240 in one day. like, where do you have to be to do THAT? isn't that one every six minutes? it's more than six minutes travel time between most of the caches i've ever been to. and that don't leave a lot of room for searching.

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my friends and i are curious as to how it is possible to get 240 in one day. like, where do you have to be to do THAT? isn't that one every six minutes? it's more than six minutes travel time between most of the caches i've ever been to. and that don't leave a lot of room for searching.

look here. There are over 200 caches within 5 miles of that spot. 450 caches within 10 miles of there. And how long do you need to look if the coords take you to a light pole in the middle of a parking lot and the next nearest pole is 100ft away?

Edited by Mopar
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I have some experience caching in Nashville and as a cyclist (the picture is old, but it's the handiest one.) I did the WayFinding run on a scooter - not the motorized variety; the Razor variety as I carry one in my trunk just for caching and playing in the parks.

 

We certainly have some areas that would be even better on bikes. The ones in this park come to mind. (See also the Feb 28 logs for that cache.) and I even have a (temp disabled) one in that park that encourages you to do it on wheels. Shelby Bottoms and that park up in Greenbrier would also good candiates as they're earmarked as parks, not mixed roads. The areas around the Old Hickory and Percy Priest on the northeast side of town have some pretty areas to cycle in, but they may not take you terribly close to caches. If your goal is smileys per hour, you could do better than doing those on bike, but if seeing some amazing CCC work building those dams and lakes is your gig, it's a good stop.

 

Though I've never participated in these 100+ find days, I've spent enough time staring at cache maps of the town and developing metrics like potential smileys per square mile/hour to have a good mental image of the routes taken to do it. While the forums might lead you to think that they're every 529.1 feet apart at a lightpole, you're going to rack up some pretty serious mileage in very urban areas in a city that's really not very aware of cyclists on the streets. In my years of cycling, motorists have taken me out twice and both locations now have caches within 200 feet of them. This isn't CA: cyclists on busy roads are the exception.

 

If you're an experienced cyclist that can safely operate a GPS while cycling - and defend yourself against motorists that may have never seen a bicycle before, you could do OK in tselected areas like he Vandy area. Parking considered, you might do OK in the center of the city - traffic there seldom moves quickly enough for folks to flatten cycllists. If you're a braver soul than me, you might find it tempting to try the west Nashville tour or Goodlettsville/Gallatin road area on bike, but personally i'd take a pass because of the safety issues. The Opryland area has high density, but a weird mixture of terrain and traffic that'd make it hard to recommend doing totally on bike. I'd definitely want to split it up.

 

Combining caching and biking can be great fun. I had a great time earlier this year tandeming the Alaskan Tony Knowles Coastal Trail and caching along the way, but it was hardly a "power cache" trip - it was a ride with my wife where I just happened to go chase tupperware in the woods when she wanted a break. We've taken bicycling vacations in OH, CA, PEI Canada, Alaska, and the Cotswalds in England, so it's not like I'm inherently afraid of sharing the road, either.

 

In all, I think you could probably hit very carefully selected areas in Nashville faster on a bike - and probably enjoy the area more than if you were constantly hovering for parking - but I wouldn't attempt a full-fledged power attack on the numbers solely on bike.

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I just set the California/Southern California records, 144 finds in 14.5 hrs. For me it was nothing more than a personal challenge. The pretrip planning was almost more important than the caching. But the caching was an extreme blast, not rushed as you would think (because the route was so well planned). I remembered every cache, did a personal log for every find. I did have a co-pilot from the area, but his main goal was to document everything we were doing. Most caches I found before he was out of the truck. A good percentage he hadn't done, more that he didn't remember, and many others that had been moved, so his actual help was fairly limited. I'm not bragging about this, I just feel with the right amount of preplanning and effort anyone can do it. Remember this was about nothing more than having fun, it's a game and this is one of the most exhilarating times I've had. Two days later I did 37 in the Palm Springs area, another fun filled day at a relaxed pace. Two days later I did 6 caches, that went from evil to somewhat of a hike. It all depends what your mood is. The reason for the 144 finds? I was approaching 1000 finds and wanted to do it with a personal challenge. Doing something like that is more work than you could ever imagine, would I do it again, without a doubt!

 

Here's some stats:

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

 

Left home at 4am, grabbed the first cache at 5:20am. Meet up with ShowStop at 5:56am (8 solo caches in 36 minutes). Stopped for lunch with Team Dakiba from 12:40pm to 1:20pm. Finished the planned route at 5:59pm 120 finds, 12hrs. Decided to add more caches in Moorpark and Simi Valley, finished trip with ShowStop at 9:15pm 24 more finds, 15.2hrs total time so far. Continued to Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Pasadena. 4 finds, 1.5hrs. Arrived home in Riverside at 11:33pm. Total trip time, minus drive to and from time, 14.5 caching hours. 6:01 minutes per cache including drive time.

 

144 caches

 

2 multis

3 puzzles

8 virtuals

131 regulars

 

By ratings:

 

33 – 1/1

42 – 1.5/1

17 – 2/1

8 – 2.5/1

7 – 3/1

1 – 3.5/1

 

3 – 1/1.5

13 – 1.5/1.5

7 – 2/1.5

3 – 2.5/1.5

1 3/1.5

 

1 – 1/2

 

1 – 1.5/2.5

 

1 – 4/3.5

Edited by Firehouse16
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We talked later and discussed if we had planned on more and went for a full 24hrs. Our intial goal was to do 100 caches, but then we realized that was going to be very easy. Then we say the prior record was 131. But it wasn't really about that, it was about what could we do. My worry the whole time was what was my co-pilots vision? Well he ended up being as excited or more than me and said he wasn't worried about time. So when we finished the initial route that had 127 caches on it we decided to just add more and see what we could do. :) Sure westarted battling a broken GPS, having to use flashlights, some DNF's or missing caches, working a route we hadn't planned. Hell I even thought I got for locationless cache, but others had already used the same locations, dadgum. :D

 

No matter how many you do in a time period is irrelevant, did you have fun is the bottom line! :D

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Doing the run (240) was a lot of fun just because of the company that was breaking the record, it was a blast , but will not try it again till next year, it takes that long to rest up Heeee Heeee

 

Mopar said: And how long do you need to look if the coords take you to a light pole in the middle of a parking lot and the next nearest pole is 100ft away?

 

Please tell us which ones are a 100 feet away from each other, am from the area and don’t know of any light poles anywhere near that close to one another. Of course I could be wrong

 

JOE

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Mopar said: And how long do you need to look if the coords take you to a light pole in the middle of a parking lot and the next nearest pole is 100ft away?

 

Please tell us which ones are a 100 feet away from each other, am from the area and don’t know of any light poles anywhere near that close to one another. Of course I could be wrong

Joe:

 

I think that Mopar was saying that if the GPS takes you to a lightpole, and the closest lightpole is 100 feet away, then the cache is probably hidden at that closest lightpole. To clarify, I don't think he was saying that there were caches hidden at each of two lightpoles that were 100 feet apart.

 

Hope that helps...

 

N.B. My best unassisted record is 52 in about 6 hours (Hendersonville, Tryon, Landrum in NC/SC). (Though the last one was a locationless -- speeding ticket trying to get back home on time! :) ) That works out to a little less than 7 minutes per cache.

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Mopar said:  And how long do you need to look if the coords take you to a light pole in the middle of a parking lot and the next nearest pole is 100ft away?

 

Please tell us which ones are a 100 feet away from each other, am from the area and don’t know of any light poles anywhere near that close to one another. Of course I could be wrong

Joe:

 

I think that Mopar was saying that if the GPS takes you to a lightpole, and the closest lightpole is 100 feet away, then the cache is probably hidden at that closest lightpole. To clarify, I don't think he was saying that there were caches hidden at each of two lightpoles that were 100 feet apart.

 

Hope that helps...

 

N.B. My best unassisted record is 52 in about 6 hours (Hendersonville, Tryon, Landrum in NC/SC). (Though the last one was a locationless -- speeding ticket trying to get back home on time! :) ) That works out to a little less than 7 minutes per cache.

OG is correct. Sorry Joe, didn't mean to imply the caches are only 100ft apart there. My comment was in reply to the one about there not being enough time to search for a cache. My point was if the GPS leads you to a light pole in a parking lot, and the next closest pole (ie, the next closest potential hiding place) is 100ft away, chances are you don't have to search very long for the cache.

You know I'll hunt just about anything with coordinates, and I'm just waiting for a Nashville event on a weekend my airline offers another one of it's last minute $29.99 round trip fares. I'd love to spend a few hours on a power run there, hopefully after a full day of checking out a few of the most physically challenging caches the area has to offer.

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During the Team CHB run for the numbers back in April we added a new challenge for some of those easier LP caches. We were in a rented minivan with sliding doors on both sides. The test was: Can the driver get close enough so the mid-row birddogs can retreive the cache without leaving the vehicle? :blink::lol:

All the rear seaters had to do was sign away. <_<

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As there seems to be continuing interest in the existing record run for 240 caches in 24 hours, and because it's *raining again*, I thought I'd post some statistics:

 

Caches by type:

Traditional Cache: 208

Multi-Cache: 10

Virtual Cache: 19

Webcam Cache: 1

Unknown Cache: 2

 

Caches by container:

Micro: 188

Regular: 17

Virtual: 19

Other: 16

 

Cache Ratings:

Difficulty Average: 1.6

Terrain Average: 1.6

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One question that I've heard a lot is, "How can you find caches that quickly? 240 caches in 24 hours means a cache every 6 minutes?" Well, it's actually less than that, since we took a half hour lunch break and a two hour dinner break. The answer is: DENSITY. If you go to a city you've never cached in before, and there are lots of caches spaced very close together, it is pretty easy to just drive from one to the next. Here is a map showing just my Nashville finds from the record-setting day:

 

27ec2663-6694-474d-9325-6b83c1d79200.jpg

 

Yep, all those checkmarks were logged on July 4th and July 5th. In contrast, here is a map centered on my home coordinates, where I've been finding caches for more than two years:

 

aba8c890-0727-409a-9a91-e8445c00254b.jpg

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And here are a couple of pictures taken during our record run. If folks would like to see more, I'll be glad to post them.

 

Here we are, returning to the cachemobile after grabbing a lamp post micro that required a hike since it wasn't in the parking lot:

 

1872e082-543c-46b3-a38f-df41dafa6891.jpg

 

Here is a typical search for a well-hidden micro. Carleen found this one.

 

f460af3a-d415-44df-812f-4557fc5e9352.jpg

 

And here we are at the park near the TN State Capitol. This was one of our favorite areas! Unfortunately it was raining while we were in this area and while we were doing the caches on the Vanderbilt campus.

 

2885e120-9612-4e0d-88b8-f9f2dd31efd2.jpg

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I thought I'd post some statistics:

What about DNFs?

 

Jamie

An interesting question, Jamie. We had two or three DNF's during the record run and, consistent with our logging standards on any other day, we took care to record them on the cache page. See The Witches, which Witches were missing and later archived, and Sharlyn's Treasure Chest, which nobody else seemed to have a problem with. The third cache was one of those micros stuck down in the middle of a big grass lawn things, and because (a) I had some urgent personal business requiring immediate attention, and (B) the skies were about to open up in a thunderstorm, we cut our hunt short and I'm afraid our records don't include the GC number for that evil cache.

 

So, one might reasonably ask, why so few DNF's? One answer is that the caches were generally pretty straightforward. A second reason is because the Nashville cache owners made a special effort prior to GeoWoodstock to make sure that all their caches were in place, with fresh log sheets. There were very few damp or damaged caches noted.

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So, one might reasonably ask, why so few DNF's? One answer is that the caches were generally pretty straightforward. A second reason is because the Nashville cache owners made a special effort prior to GeoWoodstock to make sure that all their caches were in place, with fresh log sheets. There were very few damp or damaged caches noted.

I think we only found two or three in our group as well.

 

You know, the more you all talk about the 240, the more I wish I had been there.

Although, I was tired enough after 140. I think the next 100 would've killed me. (Well, actually it was 141, I got a CITO cache for putting CITO containers in three caches during the day)

 

 

The best/worst thing is that if you look at Lep's map you'll see that he could easily set back out here in Nashville and do 250 in one day and break his own record.

 

There are so many caches in this area it's amazing. I'll be somewhere with my mother and she's not that into caching, so I'll start pointing out where all the caches are. In one 5 mile stretch of road, I'll name 35 caches.. "down that road there's three" or "that road's the one where I was telling you about the garbage and the boat" or "there's one there in that tree and there in that guardrail and ...."

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I'm just curious. So the rules say that no cache can be within 1/10 of a mile of another, but has this been overlooked in the TN area? It must have with the density and time frame you would have to keep up for that many caches. It boggles my mind imagining that many caches so close together and being able to find them to boot. What day did you do this? Did you use a car? I would think a motorcycle with a sidecar would be the fastest way to go. Ok, now you have me thinking of ways to do this!.....NO NO NO....:D

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No, the .1 mile proximity guideline applies in Nashville, too. (In fact, I bet some geocaching rules exist BECAUSE of Nashville!) :D While there may be a few caches closer than 528 feet apart, these would have been due to grandfathering or through exceptions having been made to the guideline. I don't remember a lot of instances of that.

 

We traveled by CacheMobile. Later on when I have more time I will post a picture of it. In the meantime I'd encourage GeoRoo and any other new readers to look at the entire thread, including the maps which show the rather impressive cache density in the Nashville area. There are other areas like that, too, where such a record run could be accomplished.

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