2017 LCP NM Back-Country Champion... maybe

How did that happen? To be fair, every year I've geocached in New Mexico I have chased this leaderboard, and in 2013 I was actually quite close. I was in the top spot that year but Wolf11469 had some late-year finds that bumped him ahead of me. The next year we moved out of state, so LCP was not something I could partake in, but we came back in 2016 and I jumped right back into the game (see this blog post). That year I was only able to climb to 6th in the NM back-country leaderboard, but considering I was only in the state for half the year, this wasn't a bad showing. I hit some pretty high point caches, some really lonely ones that had gone unfound for quite some time.

This year, aside from January where I was near the top due to a fun geocache outing on new Year's day where I found a handful of fairly lonely caches, I was mostly in the 3rd to 5th rank position. The geocachers that were always ahead of me were Sandpig, sywy, budabeli and occasionally others were ahead as well. I had pretty much resigned myself to this ranking, but when I checked just the other day, some recent point activity between the eladers had cause d them to drop, and me to rise, and 'lo and behold, I was in the top spot!

2017 is over now, but the final point tally isn't final until January 15th, so I will need to wait until then to see if I retain this position. I know I didn't have any lonely finds in late December that are still waiting to be added to my score. I just have to hope that the other contenders do not have any. You can be sure, on January 15th, i will be checking back at lonelycache.com to see if I made it as the Top Back Country Geocacher in NM in 2017!