Have You Ever Found One By Mistake...

[+SilverMarc]

I'd love to hear if you've ever accidently happened upon a geocache in an unexpected place or when you weren't searching for one? Perhaps before you were a geocacher and it hooked you into the hobby?

 

--Marc

March 18, 2005 @ 10:25 PM

N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

[+Camo-crazed]

Yup, I muggled my first cache in 03, Filled it full of cedar bark, rocks. and leaf litter and stole a TB, then moved it 110 meters or so from the cache location onto a busy pathway. That took care of it, nasty old thing.

[+Camo-crazed]

Then, since the owner didn't archive it, I found it once I had been enlightened.

Edited March 19, 2005 by Camo-crazed

[+Will+Bill]

Is that how you got interested in the game?

[+Cool Librarian]

I've found a few letterboxes that I wasn't necessarily looking for - but was happy to find anyway!

 

I found a commercial cache that was hidden near an existing cache - quite a few people found it and thought it was the actual cache until a note was posted on the cache page about it.

 

I found the final of a multi while looking for the first stage - which would have been a big bonus, but it was locked with a combination lock - the combinaton was part of the multi stages

[+Camo-crazed]

No actually, but it helped. I met up with a church friend who started talking about it and I offered to show him where I put the cache, needless to say it was gone.

[+Katydid & Miles Stone]

Well, sort of. We were hunting for one cache, and found a different one. They were in the same park, and surprisingly close together. The one we accidentally found was the final of a multi that we weren't even hunting because we didn't think we'd have time (we were passing through NC on vacation at the time). It was funny to hear two kids call "I found it" practically at the same time.

Took a few minutes for Mom and Dad to figure out was what was going on too.

[+The Navigatorz]

Yes, I once went looking for a place to hide a cache. When I found the right spot, I noticed it was occupied by another cache, that wasn't even listed yet. Needless to say I was FTF!

[+IVxIV]

Of all the caches I have found "as a Geocacher" I can say were sufficiently well hidden that I doubt someone casually strolling along would have spotted them.. but I suppose it's possible a cache may become exposed to public view by wind/weather or a critter finding & scattering it about.

 

Another question might be.. how many caches had you walked very closely past without seeing it (hindsight after you've become enlightened ) Right now I can think of 2 caches that I had been very near to, but hadn't noticed.

[+Jamie Z]

Yes.

 

Here's my log.

 

I'd like to read the logs of the other posts in this thread!

 

Jamie

[+briansnat]

It didn't happen to me, but another local geocacher was walking through a state park with a friend and their kids. He was explaining geocaching to them and pointing out the kinds of places that caches are hidden. When he pointed out a hollow tree the kids ran up to it, looked inside and pulled out a container.

 

It turned out that it was a cache that had been listed as missing and archived 2 years earlier. Judging from the logbook, the state park rangers found it on the trail, took it back to the office and used this website to figure out where to re-hide it. Meanwhile it was probably archived. It's now active again and very popular.

[+Fergus]

I had gone over to my girlfriend's mom's house to meet her and for my girlfriend to show off her new van. We were going to a geocaching event that day so I had my GPS with me. I pull my GPS out to show it to my Girlfriend's mom and see that I am less than 200 feet from a cache. I walk over and find the cache then bring it back with me so my girlfriend could sign the log.

[+reveritt]

I have found half a dozen letterboxes, and then there was this strange incident.

[Jake - Team A.I.]

I was stopping by Circle-K one morning after work to get some gas and something to drink. As I walked into the store, I glanced back towards my truck and then headed over to the soda fountains. As I started to fill my drink, I kept thinking, why did I just see the Geocaching logo in the window of the store. GCB3EE was sitting in the corner. I realized that I had found a cache with out even trying. This particular cache would travel between a couple of different locations. So, without a GPS, any idea of the coordinates, or really even trying, I logged this one.

 

The Force was with me that day.

[Stony2008]

I found one before it was even appproved once. I was looking for a place to put one and sure enough there was one there already.

[+loraonly]

I had read about geocaching in a newspaper article a few years ago and I was very interested, as it sounded like scavenger hunting to me, which I've always enjoyed. However, I was computerless and GPSless at the time and consequently forgot about it. But...last February on a beautiful sunny day I took my two boys out to a place on the river that I knew they would enjoy. While hiking around the top of this island, I spotted what at first I thought was a plastic bag of trash, but on closer inpspection turned out to be the contents of a geocache. I was just so tickled...took the bag into a little area out of the wind between some logs, and read every page of the log. My boys chose a couple little toys, and since I didn't have anything in my purse that would have been appropriate, left a mood ring I had been wearing.

 

By this time I had owned a computer for a few months, and as soon as I got home, googled geocache, found the site and put it in my favorites. The GPS came a couple months later. A few months ago I returned to Elk Rock Island to find its' bonus cache, and then discovered that the place where I had found the original, was not the correct place at all, it must have been moved by someone to the place I found it. I was just grateful for that happenstance, for the enjoyment I have experienced this past year being involved in geocaching has been so meaningful, I would hate to think of all I would have missed.

[+Tsegi Mike and Desert Viking]

Someone found one of our caches when looking for a place to put one of his caches.

 

See his log entry.

[+bigcall]

Someone found one of our caches when looking for a place to put one of his caches.

 

See his log entry.

 

Had the exact thing happen on one of mine. It's a puzzle cache so they got a free bonus!!! See this log

[+Blind Avocado]

I found my very first cache by accident. I was hiking in a state park near my house to regain my strength after a long illness, when I just happened to find this ammo box out in the middle of nowhere. When I opened the box, I read the log and figured out what it was. I found gc.com through google and figured out which caches it was. I bought my 60c two weeks later.

[+DJ Calamari]

I found a letterbox and a benchmark by mistake in a secluded corner of a park, while looking for a place to hide one stage of my multi.

[+jamrasc]

Well, sort of. We were hunting for one cache, and found a different one. They were in the same park, and surprisingly close together. The one we accidentally found was the final of a multi that we weren't even hunting because we didn't think we'd have time (we were passing through NC on vacation at the time). It was funny to hear two kids call "I found it" practically at the same time.

Took a few minutes for Mom and Dad to figure out was what was going on too.

OMG, that is what happened to us and I bet it was the same cache in the same park in Charlotte. We were bushwacking our way through the park to the different caches when we came upon the last stage of the multi. It was cool to find it though.

[+Team SAR-Dogs]

We once found a letterbox while looking for a place to hide a cache. And, a guy I work with claims one of his buddies was out in the woods with a metal detector and came across an ammo can cache.

[+pwcorg]

I had a cache that was "found" on accident. Another cacher placed a micro less than 100 feet from a cache I own, but never listed it on the web. I started getting posts about the cache needing mx because the coords were way off and the velcro on the film canister was loose. Only problem was I used a magnetic key holder for my hide. The whole thing caused a good bit of trouble before I got it figured out. I emailed the other owner but never got a response.