Challenging

So proud of my baby

But first a word from our sponsor...

This Sunday, September 23, is the Fremont Oktoberfest Street Scramble, with a course I designed.  It's the fourth Fremont Street Scramble I've designed, and, like the past two, it has a theme related to a famous Fremont landmark.  30+ checkpoints, from SPU up to the Zoo; find as many as you can in 90 minutes, on foot only.  Starts at 10:30am at Solstice Plaza, but you'll want to be there earlier to check-in or register and plan your route.  And afterward, of course, you can enjoy Oktoberfest.

Oh wait, that's the expurgated version.

The Executive Version

I used geocaching.com for a number of months before I signed up for a Premium Membership.  What changed my mind?  I had started training for a half marathon, and I don't really enjoy running all that much. [So why run?  I find it helps keep my legs in shape for other pursuits I enjoy much more, like ultimate frisbee.]

Anyhoo, training for a half marathon involves lots of runs of 3-5 miles (plus some longer ones), which I used to find tedious.  I don't like when people wear their iPods while running, but I certainly understand it, as running is usually as dull as toast (plus the tunes can help keep your mind off how tired you are or how your shoes seem too tight or whatever).  But that all changed when I decided to add a geocache or two to each run.  Jog a mile and a half to Green Lake, find a cache, jog back.  I found this much more enjoyable than my old routine, and it also caused me to vary the routes of my runs.  (And in case you're wondering, the official word is that it's not the speed that counts for most of these runs, just the fact that you covered the miles, so a 5 or 10 minute break in the middle to find a cache doesn't matter).  I decided this upgrade in my running routine was worth rewarding geocaching.com with $30 of my money.

The first thing I noticed (besides a fancier version of the map of nearby caches) was the number of  'premium member-only caches' that I now had access to.  Which was a good thing, since the number of normal caches jogging distance from my house was getting pretty small, and many of the remaining ones I'd already tried and failed to find at least once.  In addition, Premium Membership brought with it a page of new statistics, such as:  "You found the most caches in August, and usually on Wednesday." [Really, Wednesday?  I don't know why.]  But this week I discovered something else...

Are you asking for a challenge?

Challenge Caches

I actually discovered my first 'official' challenge cache soon after I started caching, as the Puzzler's Puzzle Challenge is near my house.  Puzzler's Puzzle, like all challenges, is a regular geocache (so, a container hidden somewhere in a public place that you have to find).  Like all puzzle caches, there is a puzzle you have to complete to discover the true coordinates --- all caches have published coordinates, but for puzzle caches these coordinates are bogus.  What makes Puzzler's Puzzle a challenge cache is that, in addition to finding the cache, you have to complete another task involving other caches before you can legitimately count it as a find.  In the case of Puzzler's Puzzle, for each year from 2001 to the present, you have to find a puzzle cache hidden in that year. (Geocaching started in 2000, but there are apparently no puzzle caches left from that year.  Btw, after recently finding Minimalism on Queen Anne Hill, I only need to find one from 2001 to qualify).

Puzzler's Puzzle is rare in that it is a challenge cache that is not a Premium Member-only cache.  Most challenges are Premium Member-only partly because they're meant for people who geocache more than casually, but also because of all the other perks that Premium Members get that make Challenge caches easier to administer and check.  For example, many of the challenges involve those extra statistics I mentioned before:  Find a cache every day for a month (or year).  Find every possible combination of Difficulty/Terrain ratings.  Etc.

Another feature Premium Members get is the ability to save lists of caches (called Bookmarks) on the site.  This makes checking easier for the cache owners for certain types of Challenges.  For example, there are challenges based on the titles of caches, e.g., Find 10 caches with colors in their title.  Instead of typing in the names of the caches when you find the challenge cache, you can create a bookmark list for the cache owner to check.

This brings up one of the main drawbacks I've found with the geocaching.com interface:  there is no easy way to search cache titles near a certain location.  So, for example, for the colors challenge, I have found caches with Red, Blue, Green, White and Gray, and have a line on Silver, but I'd like to look for nearby caches with Yellow or Black or Orange in the title, and I see no way to do so (you can look for nearby caches, and you can look for the words, but not the intersection of the two.  Please tell me if I'm wrong, because I'd love to know how to do this).  The best way to find these caches is (surprise), Bookmark lists from other people who are interested in the same challenge (which are usually listed on the Challenge cache's page).  So you can go through those lists looking for people who appear to live nearby and the caches they found or are thinking of finding.

Organization!

Lists of Lists

This all sounds very geeky and obsessive-compulsive, particularly when you look at some of the challenges (Find 500 caches in one day!).  Still, one has to be a bit geeky and obsessive-compulsive to geocache in the first place, so not surprisingly Challenge Caches are very popular.  Some of the most popular varieties include Blackout Caches (find all the caches in a city or region), DeLorme challenges (find a cache on every page in a state's DeLorme atlas), or the aforementioned challenge of finding every Difficulty/Terrain combination (known in Washington and other states as the Fizzy Challenge).  Incidentally, challenges are usually broken up by state/province, if only because it wouldn't be fair to have someone in Florida have to find the final container for your popular challenge cache in Enumclaw.

I, being geeky and obsessive-compulsive, have taken up a few of these challenges.  Some, like the Cache by Numbers challenge I already completed without knowing it (well, completed it except for getting the cache in Lynnwood).  Others, like the Puzzler's Puzzle Challenge or Washington State Top 10 Cache Challenge, I'm partly through and happy to complete (the latter means a trip to Orcas Island!).  Others are on my radar but far from completion (like the Fizzy Challenge) or I doubt I will ever complete (Washington State History Challenge, consisting of the oldest active caches in the state, many of which are high in the mountains).  At the very least, though, this allows a geocacher to focus on something other than finding the next magnetic key holder under a bench.

Lamoracke maintains a good Bookmark list of Washington State challenge caches.

Mmmm.  Corn Maze.

Upcoming

(italics = new since last time)

• San Juan Island Quest - September 22.  12 or 24 hour adventure race.  Mountain biking, foot and (quelle surprise!) kayaking will be involved.
• Choose Your Own Adventure Alleycat - September 22.  Bike racing as a fundraiser for more bike racing!  I can get behind that.
• Fremont Oktoberfest Street Scramble - September 23.  Course design by yours truly. It's awesome.
• Three15er Rogaine - September 29-30, Naches. 4 hours, 9 hours, or 24 hours in the forests of the Cascades.  Note that the 24-hour race is the actual, honest to goodness North American Rogaining Championships.  Probably won't show up on Wide World of Sports, though.
• First Thursday Adventure Run - October 4, Green Lake.  Last time, I actually won something!  But the $1 beers would probably keep me coming anyway.
• Lake Sammamish Orienteering - October 7, Lake Sammamish State Park.  No, you don't actually go running in the lake, silly.
• Sunset Hill Hood Hunt - October 13.  Just call it Ballard if you like.  Start at 10:15, end at 11:30, find checkpoints in a 1 square mile area.  Free, {but/because there are} no prizes and you have to print your own map.
• Choose Your Corn Maze Adventure - October 14, Bob's Corn Maze, Snohomish.  Orienteering in a corn maze.  This should be interesting.  Starts early, before the maze opens to the general public, who would probably be confused by strangely-attired folks running through the maze.  I don't know, though, maybe next time they should just issue the orienteers Halloween costumes and have them scare the other folks.  Haunted Corn Maze!
• Art Dash for Ca$h - October 20.  12 hour (10am-10pm) Bike Scavenger Hunt for public art.  Teams of two or more required.  Cash prizes of some sort.  I am definitely intrigued.

Photo Credits

Stinkoman by HomestarRunner.com

Lists by Amy T Schubert via photo pin cc
Corn maze by Art Institute of Portland via photo pin cc