Stick to the PLAN!!!
Those words have been said many times about a power caching run and will be said many times again. but you know what sticking to the plan is no fun!!
Knowing that I was going on a week long vacation last week and that it was going to be spent entirely at my in-laws on the Acadian Peninsula i decided that I was going to take one day to tackle the two major towns, Caraquet and Tracadie. So I planned a route that would give me maximum cache numbers and still achieve my goals ran a pocket query and then weeded out the multiple DNF’s and disabled ones. I then numbered the order that I was going to hit the caches and planned a more detailed route; added these caches to my GPSr and printed off a spreadsheet for additional reference.
Knowing that a power caching run could not have been entirely successful by myself I enlisted the help of a local cacher Denislan. He was gracious enough to take a day off work and drive me around as I found cache after cache. As denislan had found a large portion of the caches that I was planning on hitting was even more of a bonus as he was able to help on more than one occasion to speed up the find process.
Snag 1:
My internet access at my in-law’s is limited. So limited I have to walk down the street and stand out front someone’s house with my wife’s iPod Touch as they left their wireless internet unlocked. So getting new PQ’s and e-mail notifications was very limited. As such it wasn’t till the last minute that I noticed there were two new caches published along my run.
Snag 2:
DISTANCE.
If anybody has cached in the acadian peninsula you’ll remember the shear distance between caches. Min distance most of the time was 1 km and max was upwards to 15 km. That being said it’s really hard to go for great numbers when 1/2 of your time is spent driving from site to site. Half way through I had to dramatically drop 25ish caches from my planned outing just to make it back before dark.
Snag 3:
Sticking to the plan. It only took till the third cache to mess up the plan. We drove down a nice gravel road to get the third cache and realized that the road actually continued to cache number 13 on my list which then led to number 12, 10… Of course the plan rectified itself when we cam back that direction but…
Overall it was a nice day managed to get 58 caches out of the 84 that was planned mind you there was 4 DNF’s and two unplanned extra caches thrown in there one of which was a FTF. With this knowledge I know to truly get big numbers I have to refine my searching and plan for a smaller more concentrated area, as this trip took 11 hours and traveled around 260 kms.
Also I would like to thank Denislan as with out his help I would not have been very successful at all and if you’re ever in the Fredericton area I can surely show you around for a high find day for sure.
In closing while a good solid plan is necessary remember to be flexible also.
Even though the title has to do with a plan, I saw this as another great caching story. It has all the elements that make geocaching such a great hobby:
Getting out
Exploring
Socializing
Helping others
Doing some techie stuff
Using a bit of logic
Problem solving
A bit of humour
I have gone out many times with a group and a very detailed plan and we stuck to it as much as possible. I go out with Paul from Paulandstacey quite a bit and he makes a PLAN and we stick to it. I remember saying “Hey there are 3 caches just up this road and they are close let’s get them!” but Paul would say no stick to the plan and we will be getting them in about 4 hours. This happened about 3 or 4 times in one day but we stuck to the plan and snagged 128 caches that day. I also have no problem driving by a cache and not getting it if I know that I am heading for one so a good plan works for me but some cachers just can’t drive by one and not stop. Myself, Paulandstacey and Ron568 are heading up to the Cambellton and Bathurst area this weekend and I am counting on Paul making us a wicked plan again. If I was making a plan it would be “let’s go here first and then head over there after and figure it out when we arrive” Paul’s plan can rival a Garmin Nuvi with turn by turn directions and I am not exaggerating. I will report back next week to see how good our plan worked.
Glad you enjoyed your caching trip vb, it’s true that it’s hard to scale huge numbers here due to all the driving involved. But I say we still had a good time and it made up for caches we didn’t snagged.
Next time you are in the area and that you want to tackle some more caches just let me know. Tracadie could be a good option for you since there are a lot of caches still left to be snagged. Another option would be in Bathurst, there are many caches to be found there nowadays. Thanks to a few local cachers like GreyBeast who added a ton. Just let me know and I’ll get another day off to run around town haha ;-).
I will let you know next time I’m in the Fredericton area, I have never cached there so it’s entirely new grounds for me.
Thanks for the crash course on GSAK btw, managed to get the stats from it on my home laptop. I will surely spend more and more time on it on the weeks to come.