This topic contains 12 replies, has 7 voices, and was last updated by 
BeccaDay 9 years, 3 months ago.
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For the major caching accomplishments that are out there, do you feel the need to find a final cache once you have met that challenge to validate what you did?
It has been over a year since we filled our calendar grid, and we haven’t made any effort to find any challenge cache related to that. It was fun just working towards filling the grid. We did find the final for the Wisconsin Counties Challenge, and we will probably go after the final for the Wisconsin DeLorme Part Deux whenver we finish that, but we’re still working on the original Wisconsin DeLorme even though there is no longer a final for that. Not sure if we will ever fill our D/T grid or the Jasmer, but if we do, there are so many different finals out there related to those that we may or may not go for any of them.
How do you view working towards and accomplishing the major caching challenges that are out there?
That is a great question SL. Personally, we like to log the challenge cache. Often times, we may have already found the cache – we just can’t log it as a found until we qualify.
Having said that, I will also say that I am referring to challenges that took a good amount of effort and time to qualify for – many of which you mention above. There have been challenges such as these that have taken us years to complete and finding the final brings it to a close. There are other challenges – like 50 souvenirs challenge that I would log if convenient, but the quality of our caching would not be diminished if we never logged these types of caches.
So – when we worked toward filling our grid – finding the final was a day of celebration! It brought the challenge full circle.
The views expressed here are that of myself only and do not necessarily represent that of the WGA board.
I usually do but mostly because I never really thought of that particular challenge until I see cache describing it.
Not all who wander are lost. -J.R.R. Tolkien
We got a little bored with just finding caches a year ago so much of our time now is spent on challenges. We completed T&B’s classics hides challenge last year. It took us 2 years to find enough qualifying caches and then we travelled 3 hours to get the final. The journey to complete the challenge was the real reward, but finding the final was a nice validation of our accomplishment especially since only 6 teams have completed the challenge. When we were in Tennessee last month we made sure we got all of the caches on the Jack Trail Geo Tour so we could get the coin that was offered. We specifically went to find the last open spot on our D/T grid last week, but for that one I don’t even know if there is a corresponding cache or where it might be. We also try to find all of the caches by certain hiders whose caches we enjoy. So I guess we just like to challenge ourselves as long as it is fun.
And yet you won’t find my one challenge cache, the final is just south of you!
Not all who wander are lost. -J.R.R. Tolkien
And yet you won’t find my one challenge cache, the final is just south of you!
National Parks?
Not even close for that one.
I bet you are. The only square that might be somewhat challenging for you would be the National Lakeshore spot. Have you ever been to the Apostle Islands or Indiana Dunes?
Not all who wander are lost. -J.R.R. Tolkien
I bet you are. The only square that might be somewhat challenging for you would be the National Lakeshore spot. Have you ever been to the Apostle Islands or Indiana Dunes?
That trip we just took to Tennessee was the first time we ever found a cache more than 180 miles from home. Before that Marquette, MI and Northern IL were the extent of our out-of-state caching. Up until 3 years ago when I owned my own business it was very hard to get away. I need to retire and get away more, but we have too good of jobs to do that for 2 more years.
I love the variety of challenge caches that we have come across, but the ones I am talking about are the major ones, the ones you can mention to almost any cacher anywhere and they will know what you mean. These are ones that are very simple in the way of requirement: fill a grid, find every one, find everything on a list… We really enjoyed looking for oddities and rustic roads, but we had to refer to the cache pages frequently to see what we needed to do. We did the national parks bingo and still need to check out our IAT counties progress. However, these and similar challenge caches were placed with a final in mind, not just… do it.
You know when you have filled your calendar grid, or when you have found all the virtuals in Wisconsin, or when you have a streak of so many days with finds, or when you have reached 1000 finds. These, along with other ones I mentioned, are challenges that are basically universal. Is it enough for you to say, “I accomplished that challenge,” or do you need to find a “final” somewhere to validate what you did?
So, what you seem to be asking is, “Do you feel as if the accomplishment isn’t complete if you don’t find the ‘final'”. For me….No…It never occured to me to think of it that way. I’ve been approaching the Challenge Caches like an old-school “Dungeons and Dragons” sort of RPG game….Like, if you reach this or that level, then you get additional areas and treasures that open up for you.
I view it as doing the “challenge” part of the challenge cache is the accomplishment and adventure. Finding the cache is the reward you give to the cache owner for creating the challenge.
Well, I think it’s a known fact that we do find some challenge caches. We certainly enjoy the “reward” of the extra cache for doing the work to accomplish the challenge, but as we’ve played this game over the years, the final is less important. Even when the final was our “goal,” we were never in any hurry to get there. I know there are so many different ways to complete the DeLorme, for instance. We saw that as an opportunity to explore and get to know all the nooks and crannies of the states (WI x2 and MN), and we didn’t put any kind of timeline on finishing them. The point for us was exploration and discovery, so we tended to be pretty thorough and visit many corners of each page. I know others will take long road trips and fill the pages in a short order of time. That works for those folks and perhaps for them, it’s more about getting to the final. With the D/T challenges, we completed that a long time ago the first time and thought it would be impossible to do it a second time. Then…..things changed. Those interesting combinations became much more common, and often, they’re lined up in stop signs along some road in a neighboring state. We’ve done some of that. We realized that those kinds of caches weren’t why we liked that kind of challenge. They’re just out there so people can “finish” that challenge without really experiencing the challenge. As we’ve seen these things happen in the world of geocaching, it has become less about the final and more about the experience that could lead to that final if we chose to go to it. We’ve also stopped presigning challenge logs. Some we signed were just there and really, the challenge is of no interest. Plus, we forget what we’ve signed and don’t need one more thing to try and remember.
I have gone too long, but….you asked! Interesting to hear everyones’ different takes on this question .
Just looking through old threads and spotted this one. Kind of funny since I completed the WI county challenge recently and the actual challenge cache is less than an hour’s drive from me and still haven’t gotten it yet. I’m hoping to finish off the Jasmer next week, not sure when I’ll be able to get over to the final challenge cache for that one, no plans to visit Governor Dodge any time soon.
Not all who wander are lost. -J.R.R. Tolkien
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