› Forums › Geocaching in Wisconsin › General › 7-Year Rewind

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • 04/15/2012 at 1:16 am #1733107
    GForce

      Reminiscing about caching in May 2005 when we started . . . there were 6 caches – count ’em – 6 in the La Crosse area. Now there are hundreds . . . thousands perhaps. There weren’t any in Onalaska, a town of 12,000, next door to La Crosse.

      I looked at the names of the most prolific cachers then. While some still pop up every now and again, only two are still very active.

      Also,

      • You laughed at peanut butter jar sized containers because they were frighteningly small!
      • New caches could sit for 2 – 3 days before an FTF.

      04/15/2012 at 1:36 am #1959350
      sandlanders

        More than two years newer than you to caching, G*Force, but even in late 2007, I recall more emphasis on the swag than today. You would see lots of logs that said what they took and what they left. Peanut butter jars didn’t hold much then, and they still don’t now. (PB jars have gotten smaller over time, too.)

        When we log a cache online, we try to go back to see what others wrote about it. This is really fun to do when the cache is an oldie, even though it takes quite a while. A lot of the names are ones I don’t recognize, and those cachers have relatively few finds. Click on their profiles, and a lot of them haven’t been to visit the GC site in years. But then it’s fun to see some familiar names that were the “early” finders of the caches, and they’re still going strong!

        04/15/2012 at 2:15 pm #1959351
        Trekkin and Birdin

          A lot changed in a year around here, then. We started in June 2006. I don’t know the number in the LaCrosse area, because our search always spit back caches within 50 miles. But that would result in just under 25 pages. Now there are 112 pages in that same search radius. I remember a day after we’d been caching a year making the comment…”How in the world do these people get 20-30 caches in ONE day?” That was like a super-human feat back then.

          We also notice that hardly anyone writes a little note anymore…if the log book is big enough. By the time we came along, you had the BigStick/laxbobber/geocantrell trio that were impossible to beat to a new cache. It took us almost two years before we ever were able to get a FTF. And because caches weren’t placed in heaps as they are now, those chances for FTFs were much rarer.

          We’ve also noticed that in the past couple years, one seems to need a wide array of “tools” in order to find/retrieve/open many of the caches placed now. That can be fun, but we still love a nice sized cache that takes us on a nice hike somewhere or brings us to a point of historical interest or regional fun.

          04/15/2012 at 9:15 pm #1959352
          LMcGisme

            I remember having a notification on for the La Crosse area back then. There were so few caches in the area that I wanted to know when there was a new one. Not any more!

            There were a lot more regular sized caches at the end of a hike back then, very few park & grabs and I don’t remember any guardrail caches. How times have changed.

          • Author
            Posts
          Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
          • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.