Geocaching in the Dark

On Wednesday afternoon, several new geocaches were published.  My lunch break had passed so the next opportunity for me to grab a FTF would be after work and before church.  That is only a 45 minute window!

I ended up deciding to wait until after church and I am glad I did.  The cache I had planned on going for had not even been placed yet (more on this in another post)! I would have been pressed for time for nothing!

Geocache #1

So, church ended at about 8:00 pm.  We visited with our church family for a few minutes, then to the closest cache that had not been found yet.

GC70J2J – On the Fence Again was to be our first geocaching in the dark experience for the night.  Although the navigation app on my phone was telling me to go down the I-75 entrance ramp, I turned onto the road immediately before it.

I have had many caches that the closest driving is not necessarily the closest or safest spots to search for a cache.  What Google’s navigator doesn’t seem to realize is parking lots are great places to park.

The coordinates took us to exactly the right spot, which was great.  The problem was we were searching for a “micro” in the dark and there were so many possible hiding places (several evergreen trees, a couple of utility poles, and a fence with lots of nooks and crannies that would easily hide a micro container).  To make matters worse, I couldn’t find my flashlight.  Geocaching in the dark with just the glow of your phone creates a very difficult situation. I would like to think we would have found it sooner in the daylight, but who knows.  We were finally able to log a FTF at 8:51 p.m.

Geocache # 2

After grabbing one geocaching in the area, I just couldn’t help myself; I had to have another (would that be called an addiction?)

Next on the list was GC70J2N – Cradle Cache. When we arrived in the parking lot, I spotted what I thought to be the likely hiding place fairly quickly (I had found another “cradle” type cache in Murfreesboro, TN).  I was looking at a large tree with a hollowed out section where the branches all came together.  I parked so my headlights were shining directly at the tree so we weren’t having to geocache in the dark this time.  Little Dave(SlateFox55) rushed ahead of me and confirmed what I suspected. He grab the geocache container from its hiding place and proceeded to sign the log, the  replaced it as he’d found it.  By 9:07 p.m., we had logged our second FTF of the night.

Geocache #3

Yes, I think it may be an addiction! Before heading home, I decided to make it three for the night. GC70J2P – Big Ears Splash & Cache Car Wash ended up being more difficult than it was probably meant to be. Geocaching in the dark added a couple of points to the difficulty level. I had to be standing in the right spot and shine the flashlight on the right spot at the same time in order to spot the well placed cache. After making the find at 9:21 p.m, we signed the log as First to Find and replaced it as we found it.

This wrapped up our geocaching at night adventure because I still hadn’t had dinner and was getting pretty hungry.  This made our 34th month of being FTF of at least one cache per month.

What are some of the crazy things you have done to be first to find?  Tell us in the comments below.