It's Not Just About the Numbers

This year I found my 500^th geocache. Unlike many cachers, I didn’t choose a particular special cache for the milestone. In fact, due to miscounting, I achieved it one find sooner than I’d figured on. My milestone was a simple lock-n-lock that was part of a trail of similar hides. I’m pleased that it belonged to a first-time cache hider and was in one of my favorite local parks, but that was not planned, nor have any of my previous milestones been.

Milestone finds are special among geocachers. Each is featured on your geocaching.com profile, and there is a special commemorative geocoin-and-hat-pin set for 500 which I, of course, ordered right away and proudly have on display. Some other cachers, though, would wonder why it took me nearly three years to reach this milestone.

The reasons are many and complex. I guess the main one is, I approach geocaching like a fine wine to savor rather than raw liquor to get drunk on as fast as possible. I’ll take quality over quantity, thank you. That doesn’t mean I’m above park-and-grabs… I love them, especially when I’m travelling or in an area for some other purpose than caching. Since I don’t have a Smartphone, it’s not easy to cache spontaneously, but when I find Wifi and locate an unknown cache in my vicinity then track it down, it’s a special find. That elevates a skirt-lifter or guard rail clinger to a quality cache to me. It is a bit of a challenge for someone without the instant access of a Smartphone, as well as an unexpected pleasure on a day devoted to other things.

Living far out in an unpopulated area, mostly public forests, caches of any kind are few and driving distances are long. It’s environmentally responsible and also saves me money if I devote entire days to geocaching, pre-load my GPS for an area, and drive there. Therefore ‘streaks’ of any length are not something I normally strive for. When I do take a caching day, the amount of driving time between caches still limits how many can be done in a day, and rural caches also usually involve hiking and/or climbing. A reasonable number to expect on a normal day in this area would be four to six finds. I’m happy with that. I’d rather enjoy a few caches, looking at the scenery, wildlife-watching, taking a few photos, and generally having the kind of adventure that makes a good found log.

There are those that do power trails (I’ve done the four relatively short ones locally) and rack up huge find counts in a fairly short time. I feel that newbies that do this are missing the learning experience of really understanding what geocaching is, how it works, and all it has to offer. Some of them may have found over 1,000 caches in a very short time (it’s possible to do in a couple of days), but what do they actually know about the game? Do they understand swag trading etiquette, how and why to write a great find log, what trackables are and how to deal with them, or even something as simple as how to reassemble a microcache and place it exactly where it was? I’ve heard some of the damnedest crazy-newbie stories and not all of those people by any means had single-digit find counts. Yes, we’ve all been there and I’m not dissing beginners… welcome, and have fun! But there will and should be a learning curve. (My first skirt lifter took me twenty minutes to find. You mean those things slide up?!?)

Another reason my find count isn’t higher than it is, is that the way I most enjoy caching is with a partner. My most frequent caching partner is my housemate Maggic. Since she badly broke a shoulder, our caching excursions are a lot less frequent that they once were. She is timid, often in pain, and tires easily. Neither one of us is under 60 and are far from the boldest cachers around anyway. I do go out on my own but prefer her company, for my own safety among other good reasons. Living in forested mountains in a snow zone, we also do little caching in winter.

Lastly, there are many geocachers that, for one reason or another, devote the major share of their caching energy to other aspects of the game. I am a caching socialite and evangelist; I attend (or host) a good many events. I also run geocaching programs for local festivals, kids’ organizations, the local library, and the like. This usually involves a lot of preparation, laying a temporary trail of waypoint hides, providing prizes, printing information sheets, and toting along my computer to demonstrate how the geocaching.com website works. This kind of outreach is important, not just to recruit new cachers, but to give geocaching a positive public image in the community. This makes it easier to get permission for a hide, makes caching events welcome activities in parks and towns, and informs the police exactly what those suspicious-looking individuals clutching GPS or Smartphone are doing in the shrubbery. In addition, I’m increasingly interested in hiding my own caches. This can become an absorbing, creative, and time-consuming hobby in itself.

I’m in no particular hurry to reach milestone 1,000. It may well take even longer than the first five hundred did. When I do, I’ll celebrate and take pride in the achievement. More importantly, I’ll know a lot more about geocaching than I know now, and will have had the kind of experiences that I’ll be telling tales about for the rest of my life.