Any Must Hit Caches in Madison or on the way to Madison??

WGA Member Joined: 2007-07-12 Posts: 2

My father and I, both geocachers, will be in Madison next weekend for a wedding. What are some must hit caches in the area? Also are there any must hit caches just off the freeway between Madison and Milwaukee?

Willing to bring a change of clothes!! We want the cream of the crop! Thanks!

Dan
Jr High Scifi

Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 8:13 am

jr high scifi wrote:

My father and I, both geocachers, will be in Madison next weekend for a wedding. What are some must hit caches in the area? Also are there any must hit caches just off the freeway between Madison and Milwaukee?

Willing to bring a change of clothes!! We want the cream of the crop! Thanks!

Dan
Jr High Scifi

Hi Dan,

I would highly recommend the Leopold Legacy series of caches, which is 12 great caches, all ammo boxes in great spots in Dane County. Here is a link to the series:

http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=87f946c0-bd03-478f-bc17-9a9120f9d8ea

I should add that I have not cached much in Dane County since my daughter graduated from UW-Madison, so I will have to leave comments on the newer caches to the local folks. However, at one point, I had found nearly all the caches in Dane County, and thought the Leopold Legacy series was some of the best in that area.

zuma

Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 8:22 am

What do you consider the best? Scenic views, long hikes, evil nano hides? If you give a bit more detail about what you like I'll give a few suggestions.

I agree with Zuma! that the Leopold series are great caches involving relatively easy finds after hikes through a county park, if that's what you like, but most are a ways out from Madison itself.

WGA Member Joined: 2007-07-12 Posts: 2

We like everything except micros in bushes.

That hike series sounds great. But we also like caches that are interesting unique containers, great cammo stuff that just blends in with its surroundings.

Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 10:09 am

We hit 3-4 of the Leopold series on our way home from the Camp-out. They REALLY made me want to do all the rest if I had had the time.

The best of the bunch is one atop a good sized hill. The wind was just right, and the trees nearby were perfectly placed, so that RIGHT after we opened the cache, a ROAR of applause and cheering from an out-of-sight sports field nearby engulfed us! With the way the wind carried the sound around the hill, it felt like we had 20,000 people cheering our find!

So if you do "JULY" in the series, make sure to try it on a Sunday in the early afternoon, and you to will know the feeling of being the Rock Star CACHER!

Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 11:45 am

The Madison area has several caches with nice views, but not a whole lot of interesting containers, although I've heard that the Madison Underground series are well camouflaged. I've only found one of them, so can't speak from personal experience.

If you hunt for the "May" cache in the Leopold Series (north of Lake Mendota) be sure to walk to the bottom of the hill on the south side. There is a really cool, big spring that bubbles up there, with a nice boardwalk out to see it.

There are lots of bison tube hides in the parks here, so in my biased opinion you can skip the micros except:
GC162JQ Eye Spy Madtown,
GCWZRY Wyldhaven, and
GC10P5G Springhaven Pagoda

which all have great views. A virtual with a nice view is GC1EEC Picnic Point Cache , and an Earthcache with a view is GC1BAQ1 Madison Lakes (This is mine, so I might be a bit biased on this one).

Other recommendations include:
The Door Creek Park caches:
GCWVD8, GCWHQT, GCWHR2
Harry's Bug Resort GCQZJ2
Syc-Some-More GCZT2Q
Another Simple Dead-End Cache? GC15PHV

Right between Leoplod Legacy July & September is

Map Stash Cache GC17BN3 another nice cache.

If you have more time or want to venture out farther from Madison let me know and I'll add some more recommendations.