geowoodstock xiii

When heading to GeoWoodstock, I did some serious research to make the caching routes as efficient as possible. Sometimes, it’s harder than others to do that.

While doing a “way down” list, I came across one cache created by WVTim and it had hundreds of favorite points. More digging showed even more caches with hundreds of favorite points.

Creativity made WVTim’s caches amazingly fun.

Gadget caches seemed to be his specialty – in other words, you needed to use a gadget of some sort to get the cache out.

These caches – or at least many of them – had to be done.

The plan was on the Friday of the long weekend to go hit many of these caches and see all about them. Needless to say, we weren’t disappointed. The sad part is, we should have taken down codes and such as I think we might have been able to land the free geocoin offered for a couple of the trails that Tim has caches on. Oh well, the caches by themselves were way worth it.

I also had a chance to speak a little with Tim at GeoWoodstock and am going to talk to him at some point for a story on the blog I really want to dig in and see where he comes up with all of these amazing ideas.

Without giving everything away (though there are YouTube videos out about many of his caches), check out a few of these caches and what was needed/used:

• Jumper cables
• Batteries
• Motion sensors
• Solar panels
• Electricity
• Magnets
• Sense of smell
• An Etch-a-Sketch (it was in the cache’s first part)

And how they are all used is pretty amazing all by itself. It seemed like every one that we went to made us smile or look at it in amazement. The caches were all well-done, all locked so they couldn’t be stolen, and all had permission to be placed. That’s something in this day and age.

Bring you sense of smell to be able to get to the log in this cache!

The best part, though, was it was rare for us to have to worry about being around others. For the most part, we had the opportunity to go cache to cache without lines of people, which is often the case when you are at mega events. The ones where we did see people, we made sure to wait from a distance so we had the chance to do it ourselves.

Now, the cool part is caches like this give me inspiration to come up with some clever and fun hides. The issue, though, is being able to pull them off. I’m not the handiest person in the world, so I’ll have to think about things a bit to see what I can come up with.

Not all of his caches required gadgets, though. Some were just plain creative or fun. Such as the human-sized mouse trap with an ammo can painted as a block of cheese. The reality is he is just one creative hider and the caches were fun to do.

Either way, it made the weekend that much  better with these caches. It’s good to know people put a lot of thought and such into their ideas. In the few minutes I got to speak with him, I got some pretty good insight about the process and hopefully, when I get the chance to talk with him more in-depth, I’ll get a bit more.

I always wonder when I see caches with a lot of favorites if it’s totally well-earned, or if it’s just cool and people click that favorite box. But when you are talking hundreds of favorites, you know something has to be good and these caches weren’t just good—they were great. I hope to make a trip back down there to do the ones I didn’t finish as I am highly curious to see what they have to offer!

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