The Great Eau Claire FTF race.

[zuma]

With 73 new caches published at midnight April 14th, there were several teams in the race for FTFs, which was a lot of fun. (There were also 27 temp caches published by CVB, that are not gc.com caches.)

Our team, zuma, Team Honeybunnies, k0rpl and lagrac ended up with 21 gc.com FTFs on Saturday, and no FTFs on Sunday. (We didnt count the temp caches as finds.)

It looks like the La Crosse team of LAXBobber, Geocantrell, and BigStick got 14 FTFs on Saturday, and 1 more on Sunday. (Correct me guys, if I got it wrong–I didnt include the temps in your count.)

The Bandits scored 7 FTFs on a long walk on the Trivial Pursuit series, it looks like.

It also looks like Bob Cat and Nurse Cat got 6 FTFs on Saturday, mostly on the Ice Age Trail (and as luck would have it, our team followed them all day, the next day).

The highlight of the night was when our team met the La Crosse team very early in the night, as they were coming back from the find. We knew then we had stiff competion, because those guys have a reputation as being awesome in the FTF department. We later met MamaKat down the trail later in the moring, and saw her signature in several caches before that. Since she has not logged yet, I dont know how many FTFs she got.

Thanks a lot to Kent for organizing the Chippewa Valley event. He has done just an outstanding job with this event, and the hiding teams have found great spots for their caches. The quality of the caches is very, very good, and there are very few park and grabs here. Just a lot of quality caches in quality locations.

Congratulations to all teams who found caches this weekend in the Eau Claire area, no matter how many FTFs ya got or how many ya found. It was a beautiful day to be outside, walking the woods, looking for geocaches.

zuma

[lagrac]

Did you happen to see some skinny white dude had 5 FTF’s Sunday in Bjornson? And what makes things worse, I hear that he was over here from Minnesota. I don’t know about those Minnesota guys. Except for their overly large Units, their skewed caching sense, and their modesty…, they are really up to no good.

[marc_54140]

Yah, when it comes to yahoos from across the river, you need to watch ….. ah, ya, just watch!

[AuntieNae]

I just hope that park hours were honored when going for those first to finds.

[lagrac]

Park Hours?? What are those? 😕

[zuma]

@Auntienae wrote:

I just hope that park hours were honored when going for those first to finds.

These were quality caches in quality locations, in mostly rural areas, where park hours are not a factor. The only places, that I know of, that have posted hours where the new caches are located is in Mt Simon Park and Hoffman Hills.

Mt Simon is a party destination for the local riff-raff, so they have park hours posted there to try to minimize that. However, judging by the beer cans left behind, I dont think it is well enforced.

Hoffman Hills is a beautiful rural DNR park without amenities, and I am not sure why they have posted hours there, but they do.

In any event, as far as I can tell, no one night cached either of those locations. However, I dont take it upon myself to try to worry about what other people are doing. Life is too short for that.

zuma

[bandits]

Zuma! made us earn those 7 FTF’s with a very long hike, up and down hills and over creeks (we should have planned our approach a bit better). The Trivial Pursuit cache series by zuma! is excellent and everyone should do it. We felt privileged to be FTF. On another note, we also got two additional FTF’s in Chippewa Falls that we have not been able to log (temps?)

[BigStick]

Congrat’s to you and your crew Zuma on the 21 FTF’s. That’s quite a number. The 15 you have for us is what we have logged but we had another 3 for caches that were supposed to be GC listed but have not yet been approved. Don’t know if they will get approved or not though.:cry: If they do it’ll be a bonus. We could have had a couple of more on Sunday ( I believe you bagged both of those solo) but we were headed home and too pooped to make the longer hikes.

[K0rpl]

It was neat meeting up with another FTF Hungry Team. Wish we could of chatted for longer, but we had caches to find!!!!!!

Good luck to you guys, and I hope to see you again.

Justin

[Cache_boppin_BunnyFuFu]

Way to go you guys!! Wish I was not workign that weekend. I woulda joined in the fun!! Maybe next time.

[laxbobber]

I had a blast too. Congrats & heartfelt thanks to all who put in the hard work to place caches and setup the event. There were many great caches out there. It was impressive to see the coordination pay off and so much support from local businesses. Everyone did a great job.

I had expected a lot more of the caches to be park & grab but afterwards I was happy they were all good hides and all fun.

Until then I’d never been to the Eau Claire area before and I’m happy to say I enjoyed it so much I’m already planning a return trip!

Glad to meet you guys on the trail too. Maybe next time we can spend a little more time getting to know each other. I need to learn your secrets! You guys are caching machines!

[Decrepit]

❓ I have a question for all you people who found the CV caches already… I noticed that the coordinates on the gc.com pages and the coordinates on the pass book are different… which are the correct ones? That is if you would be so kind to share with everyone else. 😆

[mama kat]

There were some errors in the CVB booklet. Use the geocaching.com coordinates – they are correct! Also, the CVB has corrections/changes listed on one of their entry pages so check that out too. Happy caching!

[Trekkin and Birdin]

Congratulations to all of you! We weren’t able to make the event, because Birdin’ had to get up at 4AM to do the Sandhill Crane count and knew she’d be pooped early on. But we plan to head up that way and hunt some of the caches, anyway.

Hmmm. Today? I heard a Piping Plover was seen up that way yesterday. Maybe the proverbial two birds with one stone? 😉

[kent1915]

Zuma, thanks for the compliments and for the help hiding! By the way, nice truck!

Okay, Yes, when the book images were burned, there were some typos. All coordinates in the data files as well as the passbook and the “nearly paperless” were updated on Wednesday and are accurate.

Would you like to enter all that stuff by hand? Man! The clerical lady at CVB earned her stripes!

Anyway, thanks to all involved for making this a success; hiders, seekers, etc. Come on bac!

[Author]

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