Caches Along A Trail

Bike in a tree!
Do you remember that commercial? That one where the company launches their website on the Internet and the owners are all gathered around a computer in an otherwise empty room. They’re watching the counter. Nothing.
Watching the counter. Nothing.
Watching the counter. Nothing.
And then suddenly, a click, an order. Then another! Then the numbers shoot through the roof and one man turns to the other and says…
I think that might be one of the experiences new geocachers have with placing their first geocache. A few people find it and then WHAMMY! your geocache shoots to be the most popular cache in your area. People are talking about what a great location, what clever clues, fantastic swag. It’s worth driving two hours JUST to find it.
Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration! But, still, when I placed my first geocache, I expected it to be found regularly. And to have comments about it more exhaustive than TFTC SL.
The very first geocache I placed is called High Gear. And it IS in a fantastic location, if I do say so myself. A friend of mine explained the location: a bike frame hanging about 15 feet up a ponderosa tree. Wow! What a neat place. AND, there’s a bike shop in Prescott that happens to be called High Gear — a perfect name.
I spent WEEKS getting ready to place the cache. The friend who knew exactly where the bike was made a trip to the site to take a GPS reading to make sure there wasn’t a cache there. At the time I didn’t know about how I could use geocaching.com to figure out if this was a good location WITHOUT heading up there. (I’ll write an article about how I do that!)
Then, I actually went to Wal-mart and spent a small fortune on a cache container. And on perfect bike swag. And on camouflage patterned duct tape. And then, I visited the High Gear Bike store to get my FTF prize: a $15 gift certificate.
When the bike store heard what I was doing, they actually gave me some swag and the gift card for FREE. Funny thing, the owner had NO idea what geocaching even was — just liked the idea that I was going to call a bike in a tree “High Gear”.
On the day of placing the cache, we had a picnic and then headed up the trail. And up. And up. Since I had never been up the trail before, I didn’t realize how long it was, about a mile. And it was a good trail but covered in loose rocks so I had to be careful in the climbing. And a pretty steep elevation gain.
So, cache perfectly placed, I headed home to nurse my blisters and aching legs. And to post it on geocaching.com.
And then I waited for somebody to find it. And waited some more. The FTF was by a die-hard cacher in the area nearly FIVE DAYS after the cache was published. In my area, that’s unheard of! FTF can happen in as little as 5 HOURS.
And two weeks later the cache was found again. Then no finds for 5 months.
When your #cache is lonely... Place #geocaches along a trail! Click To TweetNeedless to say, I wondered what I had done wrong in placing the cache. I mean, yeah, it was a hike, but not a crazy hike. It wasn’t like hiking all that way to find a micro. I had good swag in there! And, it was well hid from muggles, but kinda obvious to anybody who plays the game.
What gives?
Then I realized something: it was the only cache on that trail. There had been one about half way up, but it had been muggled and removed. It was just too much of a hike for anybody but a serious cacher to go after.
Then, something really neat happened: four OTHER caches were placed along the same trail, all leading up to High Gear. Suddenly people WERE making the trek up and down the mountain to find MY cache. Apparently, in my area at least, four caches with a 2 mile hike (since you have to hike up and down!) made it a worthwhile trail.
Here’s the moral of the story:
Caches along a trail get found!
Most people like PNG caches, but it’s nice to get out of the car and stretch your legs a bit. It’s even better when there are plenty of geocaches along the way.
So tell me, what’s your experience in your neck of the woods. How far will people hike for a solitary cache? Do caches along a trail see more action?
By the way, High Gear has now been found a grand total of 9 times in the last 9 months. Not going to win any most-visited-cache awards, but I still think the swag is cool!
Find Your Geocache
December 23, 2009 @ 6:57 pm
[…] Caches Along A Trail […]
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December 24, 2009 @ 7:14 pm
I found this one on 11/29/09. Nice one, too. Didn’t see the bike (but then again, I wasn’t looking for it).
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December 24, 2009 @ 7:15 pm
Also found “Oak Grove” and “Marley” and Mahogany” the same day.
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December 24, 2009 @ 7:49 pm
I’ve been caching for over a year, have over 800 found and 75 Hidden. I have set up several trail ( more in a row )caches. I set out to draw people on to the roads less travelled and placed 9 caches over a 25 mile drive through Scenic WV. It indeed draws more cachers when there is more than one cache on a trail to complete them all.
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December 25, 2009 @ 2:16 am
You hit the nail on the head! I’m becoming one of those die hard cachers, and I REALLY enjoy hitting caches that are in remote areas. Having caches on my resume that no one else has is fun for me.
However, I do appreciate it even more when there are several caches along a trail so I get more bang for my effort. I’m much more likely to hit the trail worth 5 caches for a two hour hike than I am to hit the trail with only one cache for a two hour hike.
Good article!
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December 25, 2009 @ 8:10 am
I will hike miles for a solitary cache, but I think most people want to find a series of caches and get more smileys for the effort invested.
There are several cases of “lonely” caches around where I live that suddenly received signficantly more visits after a series of other caches were placed along the same trail.
Your cache looks really cool. Hope I can visit it someday 🙂
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December 26, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
LisaandDarin – excellent! I love caching along a road. In your cache descriptions, do you put which side of the road they’re on? What about pull-outs? I’ve gone caches along a road before and had problems anticipating WHEN we’d need to pull over. Not as much fun when you miss a cache OR have to convince my Dad, to turn around.
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December 26, 2009 @ 12:02 pm
Exactly! I really love visiting caches that have great written log entries so I’m more inclined to find caches that are visited often AND are big enough to have a decent sized log book?
What’s the farthest you’ve ever hiked for a small or micro?
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December 26, 2009 @ 12:03 pm
Laura —
Thanks! I had a friend actually change out the cache container to one of similar size but not so fancy. I’ve got to find the perfect place for it.
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December 26, 2009 @ 12:04 pm
Mike B —
I haven’t found the OTHER caches along the trail — maybe this spring I’ll do a big hike and also catch the ones on the other side of the road.
The bike is kinda hard to see and it’s not really visible from the trail.
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December 26, 2009 @ 6:44 pm
I really like caches along a trail when we go caching with grandchildren. It keeps them interested and walking farther than they would otherwise. I al also curious about Lisa and Darin’s 25 mile route in WV–sounds like a fun day trip for us.
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December 31, 2009 @ 3:03 pm
Nice article, thanks! I gained a lot of helpful information from it. I really enjoy this hobby, my son and I have been participating in it for awhile now. Have you seen the geocaching song? Pretty funny! Visit my site if you’d like to read more. Thanks again for a very educational site!
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Geocaching Power Trails
May 10, 2011 @ 8:22 pm
[…] back in 2009, I wrote about caches along a trail. But I wasn’t thinking of anything like a “power trail”. I like hiking along a […]
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