give me some challenge. As I age, my bones and joints are giving me more pain on long or hilly hikes. We still love a good location and demand the opportunity to get out of the cachemobile. But, hikes of much more than a quarter of a mile will quickly drain my enthusiasm.

My personal favorite was the now archived “Alien Hideout Cache” in western PA. The walk in was about 700 feet. It took us from a rather trashy area on a tired highway into one of the most awesome little wooded natural areas I have seen. There was a waterfall on one end and sheer canyon walls at the sides. The cache container was unique and very well hidden.

Another favorite cache with a short hike, unique location and great hide would be Door County’s “Rock of Gibraltar”. It is also archived. Door County has a number of caches of this type. Be sure to catch “Fonferek’s Glen” in Brown County on your way to Door County.

They are all wonderful, some are just a little more to our liking. Some are very special.

tb

Don’t forget the third type of cache, the all to prevalent combination of #1 and #2: Simple hide, place is nothing special.

You could call this the “Look! I own a cache” cache. It was the rampant proliferation of this type of cache that dampened our spirits to where we rarely cache anymore as we found ourselves being ‘mediocred’ to death. It just got too hard to ferret out the kind of caches that used to be the rule, rather than the exception, two years ago.

We fell in love with the caches that took people days or even weeks to design, layout, and create. Take us to a beautiful place, or give us a hide that challenges us. But please, just don’t waste our time…

[This message has been edited by CacheCows (edited 05-18-2004).]

Uh oh… has geocaching “jumped the shark”?

Not quite yet…

We’ve done a couple trips to different parts of the state (or Chicago) just to “cache out” a certain area. It’s fun but gets to be tiring. Personally, our take on caching is to just knock out a couple in an area if we’re there on vacation, visiting, etc… If we get them then we get them… if we don’t then oh well.

We’re taking the “baby steps” approach up to #100. It’s been a year and a half since we started caching and we haven’t even hit 80 yet. We’ve seen some beautiful areas and met some great people through this hobby. Caching is something that is there in the background and something that we can do on a Sunday or on a vacation if we have some spare time.

Fun, fun, fun. Good stuff… Great thread House of Brew!

Jeff

I like both kinds!

I am using those principals as I place my own caches. I tried to make my Bark River Cache a nice hike in a neat area, but not a hard find. Ralph, on the other hand, is not that interesting of an area, but I think it’s a little bit of a challenging find.

Bec

I love the rugged hike followed by the easier hide.
I love the easier hike followed by the tough and ingenius hide.
The tough hike followed by the impossible hide irritates me as I’m really going to start to dread this hike if I’ve gotta come back here 3 or 5 times to evenually nab this one.
The easier hike followed by the easier hide is good for the kids or for a morale booster after the DNF.

I really had to keep all these likes and dislikes in mind lately as I’m just finishing up a new cache series in the NE Wisconsin area. 29 different caches, all unique and challenging in thier own way. Hiding this quantity and making each one a quality hide has been the challenge so far, but I’m ceratin I’ll be successful and certain that there will be something here to please every type of cacher.

Personally, though, I’d have to say that I lean a tad more towards the hide over the hike.

Great topic, Brew.

I like all kinds of caches.

~Mama Fishcacher

I think you could maybe add another on your list. More and more younger geocachers are popping up. I have tried to make some simple enough for the younger generation to find without too much difficulty so they do not lose that enthusiam and want to find more… which they build up to the harder ones. I have met up with some people with the under 10 age along and it is so cool to see that enthusiam on thier face when they find the cache and open it up to see the treasures inside! I go for the hike, to try and lose some weight… I also for the hunt, the intrigue, how different some caches can be. I have also helped my nieces hide “easy” caches, for the young people, the new to the sport, and nice hikes along with it. Not everyone wants a hard find. I have a grandson on the way, some day I hope to introduce him to geocaching and hope there is “easy” finds for him to build his enjoyment to the sport.