How to make a power trail fun?

[Team NorthwoodsParticipant]

Technically I think a true power trail is more of a series where you move the cache from place to place signing the log in the vehicle,  instead of just signing the log and moving on to the next cache.

The Bear Bait Trail is set up that way but when raslas 400eiger and me did it we went from cache to cache and we all got out almost every time so it took us 11 excruciating 11 hours to complete. It was quite an accomplishment and proud we did it but a long day for me.

I have placed a couple short runs. Then 2 larger runs. The Buckhorn Run GC4NG8H is 29 strong back in 2013. Then the largest in 2014 the Blue Hills Trail GC5AXC4 at 386 strong about 45 miles long .

Now of course to each their own and fun is relative depending on what you like but I did different things on these runs to set them apart from other runs. Below is one of the logs that captured what I hoped to accomplish.

nwc_voyageur

Premium Member

4550

 Found it

06/28/2015

Power trails are something we stay away from…it is part of geocaching that is very enjoyable for some, but it is not what excites us. Because of this, Buckhorn Run was one of those series that we had chosen not to do. What a mistake. Today we were out geocaching with my 89-year old mother-in-law and were looking for an area where she could get out and walk while we sought the geocaches…this series seemed to fit the bill. It definitely did and so much more. We would park the car such that we could find three caches before moving it again. We would geocache and mom would walk, pick some wild flowers along the road and enjoy the area. The variety of cache containers, camo and hiding places are outstanding. We found ten, hiked about 2.5 miles in doing so and definitely will be back to find the rest. In the future, we will be sure to check power trails more closely to see if there are other gems such as this to be found. TFTC.

 

Here is the difference. Instead of every cache being the same all the way around I completely would change up the hides. Different style of hiding, container size, difficulty, distance, and type of geocache (from Traditional to Letterbox Hybrids).  On the Blue Hills Series about every 10th cache is a small or regular placed off the road a short distance. Changes the monotony of hides. The fastest the this series has been completed so far  was in 3 days by a group from Minnesota. One day they did hit a Blue Hills Record of 150 finds in one day. They never did officially complete the series because there are 3 – 5 difficulty caches along the route.

 

Here is the breakdown.

Looking for even more of a challenge then check out these Level 5 Difficulty Caches: BH90, BH204 Version 2.0, and BH334.

There is one Level 5 Terrain Cache BH329 Super Evil White Pine. Leave the boat at home it will not help you here.

Many Traditional caches out there but for a Well-Rounded Day there are also:

3 – Multi-caches

3- Night Caches

3 – Letterbox Hybrid Caches

3- Mystery Caches

6- Challenge Caches

 

Setting it up this way allows cachers to find what they want. Maybe just sort by size and get all the small and regular caches off the main drag. Go for numbers and skip the higher terrain and difficulty caches.

I also added a hint to almost every cache and added the attribute of Winter Friendly or not.

I have 50 caches ready out of about 100 caches for a power trail type setup I am going to add on to the Blue Hills Series if I ever find the time to go out and place them all. It will run about 10 miles connecting the Harris Felsenmeer, Grundy Canyon Series, and Devil’s Kettle.

One interesting fact is that those that come for the Blue Hills Series do not go for the these off the beaten path caches. That goes for the cachers that go into Grundy Canyon for a 7.5 mile high terrain geocaching hike don’t hit the Blue Hills Series either.  I thought one might hurt the other but I don’t think it matters.

Blue Hills Series

 

Buckhorn Run

Any questions or what have you done?

 

 

 

 

***Opinions expressed are mine alone and will change based upon new information. ***

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