Geocache Challenges

Challenges are one of the most interesting 'unofficial' aspects of geocaching. Basically Geocache Challenges are a simple traditional cache with coordinates, anyone can go and find the cache. Logging it is the tricky part. There are various rules that a CO (cache owner) can create for geocachers to be able to log the cache.

For example, I've already said that I am taking part in the Ontario Holiday Challenge. But there is a literally limitless amount of challenges! Endurance challenges encourage you to find a cache once a day for a month or even a year! Chart challenges make you fill out your Difficulty/Terrain Chart (or your Year Chart or month (finding a cache for each day of the year or month (sometimes including leap years! 2012 here I come...).

A Vancouver Island challenge where you have to find a cache in every box

Keep in mind that these can all be in specific locations too. There's DeLorme challenges where you must find a cache in every section of a map. Challenges where you have to find a cache in every county of a state. Caches where you have to find caches with names that start with each letter of the alphabet. 

Geocache Challenges are pretty much unlimited. You could have ones where you have to find a cache on every mountain in an area, or the 10 highest mountains in North America, one on every river, who knows? They're a fun and interesting part of geocaching and it's only a matter of time before they're made a bigger part of the game.

Slow December, Even Slower January!

Since the first of January, I've only found 1 cache in 9 days. A big problem is of course the cold and snow. It takes a lot to plan out a caching route during spring-summer-fall. In winter though it's even harder. Your looking for caches that aren't going to be buried in snow. That are in trees or some other object above the ground. Maybe even looking for caches that have been found recently, not just for footprints but to know they can actually be found. Just leaving the comfort of your warm home is difficult.

Another problem is the lack of caches. In good season you'd get a couple of new caches every couple days. In January there's only been about 5 new caches so far. I'm not worried about my FTF streak yet, the month is still young.

Good news though. Yesterday I did get an important cache. GC22320  was updated by its owner who found out that the information needed to get the coordinates had changed. I've probably been trying to figure out this cache since April, and it's the last cache I hadn't found located in my home geocaching territory, so to finally cross it off my to do list is a huge relief.

2010 In Review

January & February- I was... a....... muggle!
March- Got my first cache (and first DNF) on the 19th. Sharon12's first cache was on the 26th. First Multi on the 30th.
April- First Puzzle and Series cache on the 1st. My first US cache and Earthcache on the 13th. On the 27th I went on my first power trail and got my 100th cache.
May- Started off with a bang getting 15 caches in Petrolia, Ontario.I got my first Virtual and I had my first event too.

At Introduction to Geocaching, my first event cache

June- I reached my 200th cache. I got my first FTF and did one of my favourite caches of the year.  I also introduced my friend Rob to geocaching.
July- An excellent month with dozens of fun caches, including more caches in New York and the amazing Devil's Punch Bowl Earthcache. The things right in our backyard that we don't even see.
August- I attended my first major event- Dairy Daze V and the last Harvestfest and got my first Letterbox cache.

Our first and last Harvestfest

September- Got 50 caches while on a trip including caches in Arizona, California and Nevada where I got my first Webcam Cache. I also placed my first cache!
October- I attended the Petrolia Discovery Event where I got my 500th cache. I set personal records for most finds in a day (38) and most in a month (95). No doubt getting my Magellan Triton 500 this month helped.
November- I started the Geocache Tribune and got my first puzzle FTF.
December- I hate the cold, I only got 12 caches for Dec. But one of them was my 600th cache and an FTF making it 7 months of FTFs

Looking at 2011: 2011 is going to be a good year. I plan on attending Geowoodstock and getting some challenging caches. My goal for the year is 2500 caches.  That would be 4 times more than this year. I have a bunch of ideas for caches and I can't wait.

Sharon12 holding up a cache

Have a good 2011 everyone!

Holiday Geoswag

I ended up having a good haul this Christmas for geocaching items. I got a car travel bug sticker, Cache at Night geocoin, a flashlight/laser pointer/UV light, as well as a headlamp, a bison tube and a travel bug.  Can't wait to get out on the field and use them!

Meanwhile I got a few geocaches over the holidays. Sharon12 and I ended up doing a letterbox cache and an Earth cache in order to get further in the Ontario Public Holiday Challenge.

Did anyone else get some good geoswag this holiday? Find any caches in this chilly weather?

Editorial: Winter Blues,,,

Let me start off by saying this: I'm NOT a fan of winter. My love of Geocaching is not helping that. Winter means it's cold (so you don't want to Geocache), it snows (traveling is harder and so is finding caches) and the days are shorter (meaning less time to Geocache). Overall winter is sort of a Geocachers nightmare, there's been a total of 3 new caches in my area and with the Holidays coming full swing I doubt there will be many more (thus ending my FTF month streak).

And you can see the effects winter is having in my stats, I currently have a total of 7 caches. Compare this to my lowest month July 44(other than when I started Geocaching in mid-March at 42).

Right now I find myself reading Geocaching blogs (Fermentums GeoBlog is a great new one) and the GC.com Forums.

So what gets you through the Winter months? Any tips for Geocachers on the hunt in winter (besides the obvious don't get yourself killed tips)?

Geocaching.com Updates INCOMING!

Recently announced by several sources are a number of large updates coming to geocaching.com (GC). The first is stats, which have been done outside of GC by GSAK, mycachingprofile.com and CacheStats. GC acquired mycachingprofile.com and will now be fully featured on profiles.

Also big news is the new Favourite system. This will likely be a Members only feature where depending on the number of caches you have, you get a certain number of Favourite Points. These points can be given to caches of your choice (not your own hopefully). I think this idea is far better than most DIY geocache rating systems on the internet.

Finally and biggest of all is this...



Yes on screen that is every geocache in EUROPE! Also notice the differences in icons, it make you wonder what other goodies they have tucked in there.

Theses updates are supposedly going to be implemented before Christmas! More details will be coming soon I'm sure.

OpenCaching.com... Competition or Plan B?

There's been a lot of buzz surrounding OpenCaching.com, and rightly so. GPSr manufacturing juggernaut Garmin opening it's own geocaching website is huge. Garmin directly competing against GeoCaching.com seems almost like an attack on a site that has practically built geocaching (and sold a lot of Garmin products in the process).

And that's not going to go without controversy. Delorme and Magellan have both backed Geocaching.com Of course no one expected otherwise. But the question that needs to be answered: Why is Garmin doing this at all?

Market share is a part of it. But the real issue: Stability. Let's face it, car navigation systems are on the way out. Cell phones are quickly adapting to GPS and people don't want to buy a GPSr if they don't need it. So who is going to buy Garmin GPSrs? Geocachers, that's who.

Geocaching is unique in that there's really only one source, that being geocaching.com. Garmin knows that relying solely on geocaching.com is dangerous. Terracaching.com is closing and that took a lot of people by surprise. Anything could happen, Groundspeak could be breaking some tax law you and I have never heard of and be shut down. It could be hacked or have a DOS attack, who knows? This is the Internet and things happen. So what would Garmin do then? What would YOU do then?

If this were really about promoting Garmin products, why are other GPSrs allowed? In fact I don't see any mention of Garmin GPSr products on the site, even the "GPS Devices". People can go on all day about competition and how it advances things. But really the win here is that not only Garmin, but the Geocaching community as a whole has a back-up to geocaching.com. Opencaching.com might just keep our community alive and, at least for now, sleep a little better at night.