Ever Thought You Found A Cache...

[+julz91]

Out of curiousity, has anyone else thought they found a cache, only to find that it wasn't? I ask because this happened to me this weekend while seeking The Arch. We found a small tupperware container at GZ, and inside it was a small dead hermit crab, carefully wrapped with a napkin. Now, on further reflection, that could be some kid's dead pet that just wasn't buried, but how strange is it that it was at GZ? I mean, what are the odds? For the record, I wasn't convinced it was the cache, but my boyfriend swore up and down that it had to be - it was too weird not to be.

 

Has this (or something like it, I realize the odds of finding a dead hermit crab in tupperware are pretty slim) happened to anyone else?

[+the hermit crabs]

inside it was a small dead hermit crab

[+briansnat]

I had a cache in a small, white, plastic container hidden in a hollow stump. I received an e-mail from a searcher who said the cache was plundered and he found the remains of the cache. As proof he and sent me a photo of a small, white, plastic container laying on the ground next to a hollow stump. Things didn't look good, so I went there the next day and found the cache intact and in place. About 30 feet away was the white container in the photograph next to a stump that looked very similar to the one that held my cache.

 

On one cache hunt I was scrambling over rocks and near ground zero pulled out a small, plastic container. Inside was an American flag folded and wrapped in clear plastic. I realized it wasn't the cache and found the actual cache about 40 feet away. Not sure why the flag was hidden where it was.

 

Another time I was making a maint visit to one of my caches. I had placed it in the spring and things looked very different in the summer, so I had to search for it. I looked in a rock crevice and saw a Tupperware container. Pulled it out and found it was a Letterbox. It was hidden about 50 feet from my cache. I noticed a few geocachers had signed the log, so I wasn't the only one to find it.

 

One more. I've been maintaining an abandoned cache for someone who left the game. I saw a log that complained about water and ink in the cache. In the log he mentioned that he took nothing, but left a pair of sunglasses. I headed out to check

on the cache and found it to be in great shape. I was pretty confused, but decided that while I was there I'd search for a letterbox I knew was in the area. I found it and opened it up to see a pair of sunglasses and some inky water inside. The odd thing here is that this letterbox was over 200 feet from the cache. I have no idea how the person stumbled on it while looking for the cache.

[+bigcall]

I've found letterboxes while looking for caches on 3 separate occasions. 2 of the 3 were literally a few feet apart. The other instance was maybe 100 ft or so, but it was in a tree that just screamed to have a cache in it.

 

For some reason, two of my caches seem to have letterboxes near them. I looked at the letterboxing site and found that in both cases my cache was in place first.

 

I guess there are only so many good spots......

[+rjo]

Just the other day while looking for k i t a r o here in Toronto, Ontario I found several bags with books in it. Maybe a homeless persons stash? Anywho it was hidden up inside a tree. It was actually a very good cache hiding spot.

 

The worst part is I never even found the actual cache

[+Pasha]

This is much more of a problem with benchmarks, I think. Many benchmarks (around here at least) have several reference marks and so forth around them, close by, that look very similar. It's sometimes hard to tell which one is the actual benchmark.

[+flgAZ]

I did that with my first hide GCHZBT Elden Keep I submitted the cache with a wrong longitude, exactly 0.6 miles East from whrere the cache was hidden.

Turned out the first finders found an Urn containing the ashes of a beloved family's dog at the "wrong" coordinates.

Learned my lesson. Whenever I place a new cache. write the info on ONE piece of paper, wipe the memory of GPSr and re-enter the data and make sure the data is right.

Edited March 10, 2005 by flgAZ

[CacheNCarryMA]

Yes. At one of the most popular caches in Massachusetts I found a large travel bug in a "false" container 50 feet away.

Edited March 10, 2005 by CacheNCarryMA

[+julz91]

Wow, there was a TB in the false cache? That would have fooled me. Then again, a dead hermit crab in a napkin fooled me....

 

And methinks I might have to check out letterboxing as well. This stuff is gonna keep me busy for the rest of my life, isn't it?

[+StarBrand]

On one of my very first cache hunts, I found a film canister between 2 large boudlers about 30 feet from GZ. I thought I had just found my first micro but inside was a note stating that "The Smith family visited this spot on Jan 3, 1985" - too early for geocaching so I replaced it and found the ammo can quite near GZ.

 

Another time, 1 of my caches was reported as plundered and destroyed. The email said the container was ripped apart and setting near the coords. When I went to check - it was an old piece of worn tupperware actually sitting on the grass that concealed my ammo box.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Andy Bear and I did The Arch (in its new incarnation) a few weeks before you did. Feb 12, the first weekend of the Gates. It was fairly well hidden. (Okay, so sometimes we miss easy caches... It only took us three tries...) We didn't see any hermit crabs. Did you sign the crab?

We did find a letter box at the rest stop in Harding, on Rte 287, before we found the actual cache. We found an empty lunch at the time capsule in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, but that was a Virtual Cache, so we didn't investigate the lunch container. I've been to more than one cache where I've checked out the garbage thinking it might be a cache...

[Grumpy Grampy]

While searching in vain for a very well-hidden cache, we stumbled upon what I would call a "letter box." At least I think that is what they're called (?)

It was a rubbermaid container and contained letters, etc. We just put it back where we found it.

 

It was one of those "Hey, we found it......oh nooooooooooo" moments.

[+julz91]

Harry~No, there was no log with the crab, unfortunately. Stoopid crab. Going to make another attempt at the Arch on Saturday. After we get a fresh coating of snow, of course. Maybe the crab will still be there, carefully wrapped in its napkin, in tupperware. That was just weird...if it's still there, I'm taking a picture this time.

 

GG~I've had those moments. Mostly involving trash - it's New York, after all.

[OzMeg]

OzGuff here.

 

While chaperoning my daughter's class on a trip to Clingman's Dome (in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park) I chatted with the Park Rangers about geocaching. They mentioned the ban on hiding caches on NPS property and we discussed the activity. They were both familiar with geocaching.

 

An hour later my daughter came running up to me to let me know that one of the kids in the group -- who was familiar with geocaching -- had found a cache. The Park Rangers said they would have to report it, and I offered to go and retrieve it. When I got to the cache I found it was a Tupperware container filled with a mini-memorial to a teenager who had recently died. Apparently the boy loved the mountains. There were letters from family/friends and a few mementos.

 

I left it there and went back to tell the Park Rangers what it was. I don't know what they did about it. But at least I rehabilitated the good name of geocaching.

Edited March 11, 2005 by OzMeg

[+Perrin]

Faile and I were hunting for a multi that took you all over town. The point was to see who could complete the cache in the shortest amount of time. We got to the final location and check the watch and saw that we had 3 minutes to find the cache if we wanted to beat the old record. About 30 seconds before the deadline Faile yells that she found it... but it was just a letterbox

 

Turns out that this cache that was about 150 feet by 50 feet had 2 caches and a letterbox hidden in it.

[+captnemo]

This has happened twice to me. Once when I was looking for a cache I found a letter box about 2 feet away.

 

The other time I found the cache and was walking back to my vehicle and found another cache complete with log and loot less then 200 feet apart. So I wrote in the log and traded again. The interesting thing is that both caches had recent logs and were in good shape.

 

Latter when I was logging the cache I noted that the owner had lost the original cache he had placed and replaced it with another at a new location. I think the second one I found was the original.