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| Somewhere in Eldorado, NM |
The first things to do was to search for how many geocaches are in my radius. A 10 mile radius from my home location shows that there are 420 geocaches to be found. By excluding ones I've already found, caches I own and disabled caches, that number drops to 194. Still a lot of geocaches. in the two years I've lived here, I've only found just over half of the geocaches in my local vicinity. As I looked at the map of these though, is tarted thinking, maybe finding all these wouldn't be that hard? Almost none of them require any significant hike, most of them you can drive right up to. It would just be a matter of visiting all these spots.
It was with that thought in my head that I contrived to drive out to Eldorado, the community just East of Santa Fe, and try to "cache out" this area. There were around 40 geocaches to go after, a manageable number for me driving around. Plus, my usual destinations for a short day adventure were closed to due Santa Fe national Forest being closed for fire dangers. So it seemed like a good time to give this thing a go. If I could find all the cache sin this area in just a part of a day, maybe I could complete this challenge after all.
What I wasn't really thinking about before I started off was what my success rate for finding caches would be. Usually when I go out caching, I am going on hikes and to more remote areas and my find rate is fairly high. The geocaches in these areas tend to have pretty good longevity and not have as many cache maintenance issues that urban hides are plagued with. As I was driving out to and around Eldorado, I started getting DNFs. And a lot of these seemed like maintenance issues, caches that had a string of DNFs over the last year or two and that were suspected as being missing, but no action from the Co to check on or confirm. A few caches I found were obvious throw-downs, some areas were simply completely different than when the hide was placed. There were a couple that hadn't been found in a while and now have new homes constructed right next to them (one appears to be in the property lines for the new home even). Another cache was placed at the end of a dirt road on the outskirts of the neighborhood, but since the cache placement, the road has been extended further and there is no longer a fence at GZ. My DNF count started climbing, and it became pretty apparent that I would not "clear out" this area on my trip.
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| One of the more interesting spots for a cache |
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| The Flyin' Lion |
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| Great View from the Gallisteo basin Trails |
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| Sculpture near Gallisteo basin |
My final totals for the day were 24 caches found and 12 DNFs. Of those 12 DNFs, I posted 9 Needs Maintenance logs and suspect the caches are no longer there based on the recent history from other cachers. And herein lies one of the biggest challenges of the Bulls Eye challenge. Somehow, I either need to get the COs for these caches to check on their hides and verify they are there (or replace them) or I need to get them archived so that they no longer are in the radius. And this can be a lengthy process, especially if the COs are not responsive. How long do I let the NM log stand before posting a NA? How long after that will it take for a volunteer reviewer to archive these. Did I actually just miss some of these hides? Will I piss of the CO or other local cachers by these actions? Ultimately, clearing out the radius will require lots of follow up, possible multiple trips, and for what benefit? Showing I have completed a crazy challenge? Yeah... I guess there is some bragging rights in that. But I can also see how this kind of challenge tempts folks to leave throw-downs, simply leave a disposable container at the GZ, mark the cache as found and move on, leaving the problem for someone else. I guess this also "maintains" the cache so that others can actually find something there, but even that is only a band-aid and as the person leaving the throw-down, you are not going to do any future maintenance of the geocache, so it will most likely have more problems. There are loads of Forum discussions on this kind of thing.
The other possible benefit is helping to clear out "problem" caches in the area and improve the overall cache quality for what remains. One of the biggest bummers of a caching trip is to get stymied by missing caches and if a lot of these unfound caches are missing and with inactive COs, getting them removed from the site will keep other cachers from this frustration. Kind of a timely thought considering the Geocaching HQ is right now trying to figure out ways to improve overall geocache quality.
So what's my take-away from all of this? Attempting a Bull's Eye challenge is a lot of work. It requires persistence, and commitment of a lot of free time driving in random neighborhoods. As far as fun adventures go, it can be ok. Of the 36 locations I visited, 4-5 of them were really nice spots, and a couple had fun or interesting hides. Most though were completely un-noteworthy. The service to the overall geocaching community can be good though, helping to clear out the map from hides that are missing/problematic. And only someone really devoted to completing this challenge will be motivated to really follow up on all of those DNFs/NMs. normally, I wouldn't bother revisting any of these locations, there simply isn't anything there worth revisiting. Will I be doing more caching of this type? I don't know.... probably not. After expending a bunch of effort I only knocked down my 10 mile radius remaining caches from 194 to 170. Not much of a dent... And it wasn't all that fun. But I might continue to pursue this anyways... just because I am hooked on geocaching. Drats! Looks like I am getting sucked in...
