917 Finds... In 24 hours. What the?!

[Zalgariath]

On June 19th this year, the world's most prolific Geocacher, Alamogul, of California USA added this to his profile...

"Personal daily find record of 917 caches with nvsrvyr and Materus at the Alien Invasion"

Alamogul has been caching since 2002 and has clocked up 43,500 finds plus. The #2 ranked cacher, Tem Snook, has 'only' 28,700.

Here is my point, 917... in a day. That's 38.2 finds an hour, or 1 find every 94.2 seconds, for 24 hours straight. How is this even possible? What must the cache density be in parts of the US to acheive this? Does this go against everything Caching should be if indeed it is possible to do this as 90% of those must be useless mint-tin style hides or LPCs. (Lamp Post Caches). Id love to know WHERE he did this.

Discuss!

Stats: http://www.cacherstats.com/Rank1-125.html
Profile: http://www.geocaching.com/profile/Defau ... 1537af57f1

[homedg]

See the ET 1-1000 Powertrail.

Aliens have invaded the ET Highway and wanted to get in on the geocaching craze. There are 1000 caches along this stretch of the Extraterrestrial Highway. How many can you do in a day? All the caches in this series are on the north side of the road; therefore, for safety reason, this series should be done going north bound (from Ash Springs towards Warm Springs) start with 001 and work your way to 1000!

First cache is GC2551A

[Yurt]

I'd be lucky to be able sign a log that many times in that space of time. They probably just stamp it.

Even 200 in a day, which has been achieved by a few here in Australia is a cache every 7.2 minutes for 24 hours. I can't even comprehend THAT.

[SamCarter]

That's 38.2 finds an hour, or 1 find every 94.2 seconds, for 24 hours straight.

And given that the caches are supposed to be at least 160m apart, that is 160m/94 seconds or 1.73 m/s or 6.3km/hr between caches. This is a brisk walking pace, providing you are only walking and not searching, and that the caches are NO MORE than 160m apart. If we allow 20 seconds to find, log and replace (a very low estimate), then we have to average 8km/hr. Obviously you can drive, but you still have to stop and start again, and move from the closest point of vehicular approach to the cache itself.

There is a hint from one randomly picked power trail cache that when teams are doing the power trail, not everyone in the team is individually signing the log book:
"Signed the log SNUC for Southern Nevada Utah Coalition. This includes Buttercup2, CWDancer, 2Old and Baad Daata."

[Echo]

But if he did it with a team, what is to stop each of the team having an identical stamp and caching the trail individually?
That way if for instance there are three in his team they each might have done only a third of the 917 caches. That means about 306 caches each person might have visited?

[Damo.]

But if he did it with a team, what is to stop each of the team having an identical stamp and caching the trail individually?
That way if for instance there are three in his team they each might have done only a third of the 917 caches. That means about 306 caches each person might have visited?

Yep. Quite possible. And some people think that is a perfectly legitimate way of caching. Like if one team member couldn't find a cache and another member later does find it, they add them in the logbook so they can claim a find.
That's why you need to play the game for your own enjoyment! If you are trying to compete on numbers..... well let's just say there are cachers who have quite different opinions of what they can claim as a find than most would!

[Bewilderbeest]

That's just ridiculous, in so many ways

[Zalgariath]

I spose with Identical stamps, and a team you could play "leap frog" and each cacher just drives by stopping at every 3rd or 4th cache. While there is no 'wrong' way to cache, (although I believe YOU are supposed to mark the log or at least handle the cache physically, even if part of a team) it does seem to be against the spirt of the game... but perhaps not the spirit of "a power trail' which seems to be the ultimate expression of "Caching for Numbers!"

[Captain Terror]

Alamogul is definitely a team. I remember looking at their numbers quite a while back, and it's something like 40 finds per day they have since they started. That is no single man, or family of 4. Thats a large group fixed on numbers and numbers alone. But good on them, that many finds is kinda awe inspiring.

[Captain Terror]

As if on a slightly different brain wave, Australia shouldn't attempt a world record Power Trail. I'm thinking a cache every 160m along say, the Nullarbor. Or maybe from Darwin all the way to Adelaide.

Perhaps, maybe starting smaller could be another idea.

[Bewilderbeest]

But if he did it with a team, what is to stop each of the team having an identical stamp and caching the trail individually?
That way if for instance there are three in his team they each might have done only a third of the 917 caches. That means about 306 caches each person might have visited?

There are a few ways you can do it. I saw a photo of one guy riding in the back of a pickup, obviously they pulled up at each cache and he jumped out to sign.

Another way would be a team of say 4. One person drives, drops person 2 at cache 1, drives up to cache 10 & drops person 3, drops person 4 at cache 20, then drives back to pick up person 1 from cache 9 & ferry them to cache 40 etc, with your finders legging it between caches (based on SamCarters speed calculation)...

[Zalgariath]

As if on a slightly different brain wave, Australia shouldn't attempt a world record Power Trail. I'm thinking a cache every 160m along say, the Nullarbor. Or maybe from Darwin all the way to Adelaide.

Let's See... "The 90 Mile Straight" which forms part of the Eyre highway and crosses the Nullabor is the 2nd longest piece of dead straight road in the world. It is 147.6km long. At 160m per cache that is 923 caches! Now the good news... there is about ooooooo 500km of not very much on either side of the "Straight". You do the math... thats a lot or caches for the numerically insane. On the plus side, the 'Eclipse' compnay would LOVE YOU! hahahaha

[Bewilderbeest]

Just think...Marcus Vitruvius holds the Australian record for fastest to 1000 finds at 175 days. You could take your time and still beat that record by 170 days!

[homedg]

As if on a slightly different brain wave, Australia shouldn't attempt a world record Power Trail. I'm thinking a cache every 160m along say, the Nullarbor. Or maybe from Darwin all the way to Adelaide.

Let's See... "The 90 Mile Straight" which forms part of the Eyre highway and crosses the Nullabor is the 2nd longest piece of dead straight road in the world. It is 147.6km long. At 160m per cache that is 923 caches! Now the good news... there is about ooooooo 500km of not very much on either side of the "Straight". You do the math... thats a lot or caches for the numerically insane. On the plus side, the 'Eclipse' compnay would LOVE YOU! hahahaha

You would spend more than 60secs per cache dodging soft roaders towing caravans.

[Zalgariath]

You would spend more than 60secs per cache dodging soft roaders towing caravans.

Hahaha not to meantion the distinct lack of hiding spots... no gaurd rails, no trees, just scrub and rocks... thats a LOT of camo rocks to cross the desert