Meeting Other Cachers By Chance While Caching

[ThunderandRain]

In the year I've been caching, it's happened to me 3 times. Last time was by far the easiest...this young lady was paying so much attention to her GPS that she didn't know I was around, and it was obvious what she was doing.

The other two times was a bit more discreet....after we both decided that the other was looking for something, we said something like "Are you a cacher"?

Just curious about your experiences

[+MOphoto]

The only experience I've had so far was about 3 weeks ago. While on the trail returning from a find my son and I met another couple. By the GPSr swinging from a lanyard around his neck it was pretty obvious what they were going. I made a polite comment, and we stopped and shared a great conversation for a few minutes. After returning home I checked the logs on some of the caches, and e-mailed them through GC.com inviting them down sometime. Have yet to have a reply, but I sure tried to be friendly!

 

There have been a couple of other times where I wondered if the person I met on the trail was a fellow cacher, but wasn't confident enough to do more than say "Hi".

[+Miragee]

I ran into first one, then a second cacher, at a cache in San Diego one afternoon. The three of us had a nice conversation.

 

Then I went on to another cache and ran into one of the two guys again . . .

 

Two months went by without seeing anyone, but since I'm usually out in the boonies, I don't expect to see anyone. However, a week ago Sunday, two cachers showed up just as we were putting the cache back in its hiding spot. It was two guys I met at an Event a couple of weeks earlier.

 

It was fun to meet them out on the "trail" and we had a nice visit.

[+Grand_Royal]

I just ran into other cachers for the first time yesterday. Came up on the cache and saw some people in the area we were headed. They saw us with a GPSr as we were approaching so they didn't have to scramble for excuses or to put it back quickly.

It was really neat to meet some others "out in the field".

Just so happens it was Nurse Dave and Beckerbuns. Nice family!

[+NevaP]

Let's see, not counting event caching, I've encountered others with the same pursuit four times. In Florida, Missouri, Utah and Illinois. Maybe I'll keep a list of states where I have cached AND met other cachers while caching.

 

Just a couple weeks ago as I was about to give up on a lakefront micro in Chicago I saw another woman approaching with an obvious GPS in hand. We joined forces, found it and had a great conversation about why we liked caching so much.

 

NevaP

[+tls11823]

It's happened to me a couple of times - the most recent was yesterday. My wife and I were caching with our six-year-old son. We also had our geo-dog leading us to things that only he understood. My wife noticed a couple coming up the trail behind us. My son was - as usual - checking out every stone and plant along the way, so she suggested we leash up the dog and stop to let the people behind us go around, since they were clearly moving more quickly than us.

 

As they approached, the guy said, "you don't have to bushwack to get there." Of course I knew that he knew what we were up to. (My son had the GPSr in his hand and I had my Palm in mine so it didn't take too much guesswork.) So we had a nice chat. He was the owner of one of the caches on the trail, in fact the kid's cache we were going after. He had just put it out a few days before and wanted to check out how it was doing. I suggested that we could go to another cache while they checked out theirs, but they offered to head in another direction while we went to theirs. So we found it, and traded up. As we were replacing the cache, they came up.

 

It was nice to see somebody taking pride in his hide, and I was especially glad that we left better stuff than we took.

[+Bear_Left]

It's happened to us quite a few times, including one pleasant encounter with a cache's owner while I was in Arizona (a long way from my then home in New Zealand!)

 

Most have been at new caches, with other keen FTF attempters, but sometimes it's been at less likely sites. We usually make sure that one of our GPSrs is visible, to avoid the awkwardness of approaching a Muggle by mistake.

 

A local newbie cacher _thought_ he'd met a fellow cacher when he asked the man hanging around the bushes in a park if "he was there for the same reason", but was heading into the shrubbery when the "other cacher" asked him what that device he was carrying was for!

[+briansnat]

It was a fairly common occurence when I first started geocaching. There weren't a lot of caches out there so the chances of meeting someone was pretty good.

 

These days it's extremely rare for me to run into another geocacher at a cache. The last time I did was a year and a half ago where I ran into two geocachers at a tough suburban cache that all three of us DNFed.

 

Where I do meet geocachers these days is outside of the sport. That was rare a few years ago. Sunday I was at a GIS seminar and one of the attendees was a geocacher. I've also run into fellow geocachers while working on a trail crew and at work.

 

I did recently meet what I thought were two geocachers while on a cache maint trip. They were hanging around within feet of my cache, holding a GPS and studying a sheet of paper. It turned out that the guy had just received his GPS as a gift and they were looking at a printout of the hike. They had never heard of geocaching.

 

Which brings up:

 

A local newbie cacher _thought_ he'd met a fellow cacher when he asked the man hanging around the bushes in a park if "he was there for the same reason", but was heading into the shrubbery when the "other cacher" asked him what that device he was carrying was for

 

When I do meet a stranger at a cache site who seems to be a geocacher, I usually ask "are you looking for the same thing I'm looking for?" I may have to change that .

Edited May 3, 2005 by briansnat

[+cache_test_dummies]

In the last two+ years, I've met other geocachers on the trail only a few times (2 or 3). But oddly, a couple of weeks ago while caching in New York, I met two on the same day, including one person who was hunting for his very first cache.

 

I'm fairly certain that on other occassions I've passed geocachers on the trail without knowing it until reading it later in the logs online.

[+NotThePainter]

My son spotted a pair of geocachers while at a red light the other day. We pulled over and watched for 30 seconds. Quite a bit of fun. We would have stopped and helped (we had not yet had a chance to log the urban micro) but we had a schedule to keep.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

As our game grows so will chance encounters. I have met at least 40 geocachers while I was geocaching, met some really nice people, met a few jerks.

 

I go out of my way to talk to those who seem cool and introduce the AGA.

 

A number of them are now members.

 

I have also met a number of police, hunters and hikers, folks who never heard of the game, that I have met while geocaching, stopped to talk and (selectively) introduced them to the game, even taking some to the cache.

 

I really LOVE watching the newbies that have been told to keep what they're doing a secret try to be stealthy so I won't know what they're up to!

[+AtoZ]

Probable about a dozen in the last year. Some I know aready from events when we meet at a cache it is fun. Others for the first time. The first cacher I met had just gone over 500 caches and I had just done my 50th. We met at a well hidden cache I had been to once before but didnt find as it was under water, hard to look when an area is swamped. So he had been looking for 45 minutes when I got there the third rock I picked up had the cache under it. Go figure it is luck. We keep in touch and have cached once or twice together since then. But I have met many nice folks since then.

cheers

[+Kit Fox]

My first experience with another cachers was quite funny. I thought she was a muggle, and she thought I was a muggle. We both waited about ten minutes, in our vehicles, for the other to leave. I finally jumped out of the vehicle to find the cache, she jumped out to, and asked me if I was a cacher.

 

I have driven up to a location and spotted cachers, on at least three or four occasions. On these occasions, we had a nice conversation after I got out of my truck.

 

On one toguh cache, an out of town cacher, approaced the cache at the same time I did. We teamed up to find the cache.

 

I own 43 caches, and when I drive by the area, I look for cachers. I have spotted cachers, at my caches, as I passed by several times.

 

My friend is a Deputy Sheriff, and a cacher. He likes to cruise past caches he has found, in the patrol car. When he spots cachers, he likes to browbeat them, about what they are doing. Once he let's them know he is a cacher, their blood pressure drops.

[+The Leprechauns]

This question made me go back through my list of finds and make notes. I appreciated the excuse to do something other than work while enjoying my mid-morning coffee.

 

I started geocaching in June of 2002, but did not meet other geocachers by chance (i.e., other than at an event or a planned group hunt) until February 1, 2003. On that cold winter's day, my daughter and I met two other local cachers on their way back to their car, and then we followed their footprints to the cache. I think it took so long for that first encounter because, in 2002, geocaching was just starting to get popular, with about 30 active cachers in the area.

 

After that, it was like the floodgates had opened. I met other cachers in May, June, twice in July, August, October and December of 2003. Two of those encounters happened when I was far outside my normal caching range. But then in 2004, I only had two chance meetings, in January and August. This year it's only happened once so far, but it was especially cool. We had planned on meeting up with Team GPSaxophone in Lincoln Nebraska, where we were meeting for a spring break caching trip. But pretty much at random, we wound up doing the introductions between a Pennsylvania family and a Colorado family when we met at a cache in rural Iowa.

 

I think that the decline after 2003 in my random meetings can be attributed to my no longer chasing after FTF's, and also because so much of my cache hunting is now done on a planned basis with other geocachers, or in conjunction with event caches.

 

Twice, I have met newbies on their first weekend of geocache hunting. Looking back at the logs and stats, I see I scared them both away through overexuberance.

 

So, it is a total of 11 chance encounters over the course of more than 1,400 cache hunts during a period of nearly three years.

Edited May 3, 2005 by The Leprechauns

[+StarBrand]

My first or second month geocaching, I ran acrosss a guy with GPS in one hand and a plastic bag full of stuff in the other. I wasn't out on a hunt but I naturally assumed he was a geocacher. He wasn't - I believe he was some kind of forest service ranger doing some trail surveys. He thought I was odd when I explained our hobby.

 

My first "real" encounter took almost 1.5 years. My family was doing a 5 stage multi near Fremont Nebraska. As we rewalked part of stage 2's path on stage 4. We spotted a guy with GPS looking through tree branches and holding some small gifts. The give-away was his geocaching hat. We had a nice conversation and moved on.

 

In just over 3 years and 3 months - we have only had 4 chance encounters.

[+CurmudgeonlyGal]

We seem to have a lot of random geocacher run-ins.

 

In the last month alone, we've met up with 5 separate people/groups while out caching.

 

I'm going to have to do a quick run through in a bit much like Lep did and see where we stand, but I/we have definitely met a lot of people out on the trails while we've been out being geocachers about towns.

 

-=-

michelle

[+Glenn]

I ran into first one, then a second cacher, at a cache in San Diego one afternoon. The three of us had a nice conversation.

Hey, thats funny the exact same thing happened to me. No really it did! Hi, idiosyncratic how is geocaching in SoCal with all the rain and mud? I wonder if Gobolt will post here next.

[+Moe the Sleaze]

Here in Minnesota, we have a cacher who maintains this graphic representation of who has run into who.

[+Renegade Knight]

Not many at all. I've been busted by more muggles than I have encountered other cachers.

 

I can recall 4 times, but there are probably closer to 8. That's about 1 per 100 caches.

[+sept1c_tank]

In two years I have met about 10 cachers (not including events, of course) while caching.

 

I bought several Groundspeak hats soon after I began caching and I always wear one at work. I work at a winery near a major interstate highway. In the first year, I met a couple of cachers who noticed my hat.

 

In the past 6 months, at least a dozen (mostly out-of-state) cachers have introduced themselves to me after identifying me as a cacher.

 

The curve is definitely rising.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Five or six, I'd guess. On my third cache, I climbed Bowling Green Mountain, and discovered a cacher with the cache out and open! Thanks, Tiffany's Slaves!

Next one was in NYC, trying to avoid the San Gennaro Festival on the next block. Hmmm... Mrs. Added Value found that cache for us... Skully and Mulder twice. Once his daughter found the cache first; the other time, we got the FTF. One other that I can remember. So, it's not that common for me.

[+tanisdad]

Have been caching for two months and met fellow cachers twice in that time period. Met the first ones out in the open spaces outside of town. He had his son and were just putting the cache back as we walked over a little rise. He didn't seem to have the location for many caches so I gave him a few more to look for.

 

The second time was durring lunch when I was looking for a micro. A gentleman was smoking a cigarette outside the building and spoke to me saying that I would find it. After looking for a few minutes I went over and spoke to him and found out he was the person who had hid it.

Edited May 4, 2005 by tanisdad

[TCE]

I've never met a fellow cacher who actually had their GPSr with them when we met!...at least not that I know of. One I met at church because he was wearing a t-shirt that said, "The voices in my head tell me to go geocaching." Later I met his wife, and another couple at the same church who also cache!

 

On the trail...I may have seen them returning from a cache once. The log said, who had been there, and the family description was the same as those on the trail we saw...and a few had been digging around under some rocks as we walked past...hmmm...caching or just digging around under rocks???...hard to say! But, I think it was caching since 2 of the 4 greeted us and talked with us as if to make a distraction for the other 2 digging around under some rocks nearby. Caching?...possibly.

 

Also, once while we were looking for a cache, a fellow and his dog walked past with a look on the guys face as if to say, "I know where the cache is and I'm not telling "...we didn't get to talk with him to see if that's why he was really there.

 

But, I've never actually talked with a cacher who was out caching at the same time we were!

[+Corp Of Discovery]

I've met quite a few other cachers while on the hunt. The last time was just a week ago. It's always nice to stop and compare notes.

[+501_Gang]

We've met 3 groups so far, Wildcatdog as we were returning from the cache, Shadyacreseekers as they were returning from the cache, and a couple out with their childern on their first hunt who didn't give us there name. So far each encounter was pleasent. We've only been caching since Feb of 05, but it has taken us around our state showing us parks and areas of our state that we never knew existed.

[+Briggzz]

I've been geocaching for about a year and have only met one other geocacher. We were just leaving the cache when they drove up and started walking around with a GPS. We were tempted to ask so we asked him if he was geocaching and sure enough he was. Hopefully I'll meet some more, as it is nice to talk about geocaching with someone who actually knows what is!

[+Miragee]

Tonight I was sitting on a park bench with the cache contents in my hand after signing the log. I was about to put it back in the cache container, which was a few feet away, when I saw a man and his son approaching. I thought, "I'll just wait until these 'muggles' go past me."

 

As they walked behind me, I heard the man say, "How far is it now?" I looked up to see that the boy had a GPSr in his hand. I said, "Are you Geocaching?" They said, "Yes." And I had to say, "Well, I have the cache."

 

We talked for a while, he showed off his brand new Legend C, and finally, while they kept their backs turned, I replaced the cache contents. Then I got to watch them try to find the cache.

 

It was a fun experience.

[+Baxter-MD]

I've met 3 different teams while on the trails, but I have also mistakenly asked 2 or 3 people if they were geocachers when they were not. I finally decided to buy a hat with the GC logo on it so that when I am caching other cachers can identify me. More often than not, however, it is just me and the woods.

[+Team Wampus]

The first time for us was on our first full day of caching. We only had 5 finds and my son and I had gone to a nearby town, trying to get our first FTF and also because there was a neat cache I wanted to go after because of its description and logs. We got our FTF, met the hider of that cache in his store, then ran into another cacher in a cemetery. I was going to keep driving past but I saw the GPSr in his hand and we had an enjoyable chat.

 

The next time, I had both of my kids as well as a neighbor kid. We were looking for a cache just off a greenway, but it looked like a very thorny place, so I left the kids outside the treeline and went in after it. As I was coming out, a fellow cacher was coming down the hill holding up her GPSr and saying "I know what you're doing!" She had seen me as she drove by and stopped. I found that cache in just a few seconds, but when we came back by 20 minutes later, her truck was still there. That night she posted a DNF and jokingly accused me of misplacing the cache. The next weekend, she went back and found it...in a different tree that she thought it was going to be in!

 

Just this past weekend, my son and I were caching in Gatlinburg and were going after one near a waterfall. We love hiking to waterfalls and were really looking forward to this one. As we neared the falls, I heard voices and told Jr we probably wouldn't be able to get that cache because of muggles. Then I saw a couple near the top of the waterfall and saw the GPSr in his hands. As it turned out, it was their first ever cache attempt and their 20th anniversary. We ran into them again a little while later at another cache in the area.

[+rcav8r]

I just met a fellow geocacher for the first time today, on my first FTF. I was on my way out, and he on his way in. I thought something like this might happen, being a virgin cache. In fact, I was surprised to get FTF, since the weekly notice came out thursday night, and I found the cache at about 11AM Friday.

 

John

[+Miragee]

Congratulations on the FTF. I finally got a FTF and thought I would run into someone racing to get it. I wrote a long log about my experience and wrote about it in my blog but I didn't see a fellow cacher . . .

 

and no one has found that cache again yet . . .

[+Kidatheart]

I will go out by myself but also with MNLOBO who I work with (kind of helped another to hook him on GEOCACHING ). We went out after work to a park area close by and discovered that it was also an event and during a major climb we came across another Cacher who I found out has been trying to find a cache that I have unfortunately had to archeive (lost three containers). I got to say that was nice to meet another that I did not know.

[+Team Cotati]

Funny how when you encounter a stranger wandering around in the woods staring at a GPSr and poking every brush pile in sight...that they just happen to be Geocachers. What are the odds?

Edited May 7, 2005 by Team cotati697

[+TeamK-9]

I've run into cachers lots of times. A lot of times, it's just completely random. But on at least three caches, I've met people coming out of the woods on a new cache, just as I'm going in...

 

One of the more recent events was the FTF race for a new local cache. I had hunted three times, before someone came and got some help from the owner. Next, another person who had a hunch where the last stage would be managed to find it without visited the first, incredibly hard stage.

 

Anyway, on the first Saturday after it had been placed, the day after it had already been found twice, we loaded up and headed out. When we arrived, we found another team already searching. With four eyes, we searched for about an hour, until the owner drove by. Recognizing us from past meetings, he stopped, pulled over, and laughed at us, asking if we needed any help. Of course we said no. We then searched for another half hour, before the owner returned, walked up, and yanked the cache out of its hiding place, just inches from where I had been looking all along. After that, he drove off laughing.

 

And so we entered coordinates in our GPSr's and got on our bikes to leave. Just as we were about to ride to the next stage, the guy who got FTF pulled up the trailhead and location of the first stage, and talked to us.

 

So then, me, my dad, and the other group that had been looking when we first got there, rode to the next stage. After a quick search, the FTF drove up to this stage, and chatted a bit more.

 

So, we ended up meeting three cachers that day.. IT was cool...

[+LaughingTerry]

I had just started geocaching and was searching for a micro I had looked for a couple weeks before. I was back because other people were finding it so I knew it had to be there. As I was looking a woman with her two kids and dog came walking up. I tried to look nonchalant but she walked up and asked if I was geocaching. I admitted it and she looked under the picnic table I had looked under and told me the cache was missing. She had brought a new one just in case so I signed the log and she put it in place. I had some cool frog clicker key chains then(Cool if you aren't the parent LOL) and gave one to each girl. It was great to meet someone in the hobby so soon into it. I later found one of her signature items. It was a great piece she made herself.

[+Nyarlotep]

I had this happen to me yesterday. I did several caches in a park in my area and must've been just behind a couple other cachers who'd signed the logs earlier that day. Then I was driving around and did a random "find nearest" on the Legend and ended up down an embankment near a creek. While I was looking, I heard people on the road above me walking and talking. This isn't an area where people would generally be out of their car, and from the snippets of conversation I heard I figured they must be cachers. I hadn't noticed on the description that it was a micro so I was looking in the underbrush around a tree. After several minutes they greeted me and I invited them down and we talked for a few minutes. Once they pointed out that it was a micro we looked in the most likely place and voila!

 

Thanks Solar Flare and Seattle Songsparrow!

[+justybug]

i've met cachers from both sites on the trails, cathy of phil&cathy caught me FTF'ing a cache (sounds disturbing.. )

met more than a few GC'ers after placing my first cache and checking up on things.

it's funny how easy it is to pick out folks doing the things you do yourself...

haven't yet met one i didn't like either..

oh, and then there was my CITO event.... that always helps...!!!

[+fairly_odd_family]

I have only met 4 other cachers while out on the trail. Seems I am always a day behind some of the others or a few hours. This weekend I had some caching planned and would have run into several!! Darn it!

[+Team Wildebeest]

We've only run into 1 family caching, but that day we ran into them 5 or 6 times! Last year there were 6 or 7 caches in Chestnut Ridge park in WNY. We were doing all of them and walking the roads to get to each. They were doing the same ones in the same order but were bushwacking to them. It took about the same amount of time but we were much cleaner. We were putting yu-gi-oh cards in the caches, and eventually just started giving them to the kids and they put their trade items into the caches.

 

I looked up the family and it seems they moved to Florida shortly after that day.

[+yokes]

Met Big Red Dog on our 4th geocache. A pleasant surprise.

[TCE]

On Mother's Day we met our first fellow cachers while out caching! T-Bone, and Mad Dog. We got to the cache about a minute ahead of them. T-Bone came up and asked if we were hunting for the same thing, and it turned out we were. We had a nice conversation about GPSrs and caching. We re-hid the cache for them to find after we were done.