Personally, I am not 'all about the numbers' when it comes to caching. I am however always looking for a good challenge. I am happier spending a full day going after some very technical or challenging cache than getting 50 lamppost caches along a power trail.
I have found some very memorable caches over the years that stick with me to this day. Here are a few of my top extreme finds:
1. I Double Dog Dare You - GC1W8V3 5/5
This is one of my all time favorites and it was quite a journey. Funny enough, we met the owner at the cache the morning of the find. He told us he actually placed the cache without getting to ground zero himself. He threw a rope over the pillar and pulled the container to the top. Now that the cache was up there, it was someone else's problem to get to it. The cache is situated on an old railroad bridge piling about 50-60 feet off of the ground in the middle of a creek.
2. IMPOSSIBLE? - NAH! II LONELY IN THE GORGE - GC1G86E 5/5
Just like the previous, we have another old bridge pier out in a creek about 50+ feet above the creek below. The only to get the cache is up and that is exactly what we did. I went for this one as part of a much smaller crew. The team of 3, myself included, made quick work of the rigging and climb. We had this cache done in just over a hour and went on our way to get another one in a nearby park. That one was a little less extreme ranking in at a 3/5, but still worth the trip.
The owner even posted a video of the trip out to hide the cache:
3. Spooky tree - GC2DNAP 5/5 (archived)
Sadly this one is now gone, but it was quite an adventure going to find this. The cache was a plastic pipe sunk about 20 feet down in a lake. Our crew brought snorkels and kayaks to go to the middle of the lake and dive down to get this one. We had just had a local caching event when we had seen this one published so a group of us from the local caching community planned the trip to get this and several other caches in the area.
4. Red Squirrel Lost His Nutz - GC24DJ2 5/5 (archived)
In a little bit of a tongue in cheek move, one of the local cachers decided to poke a little fun at another caching friend after he had an operation. Well to cheer him up after losing something special, it was decided we needed another extreme cache. The honoree and the hider were part of the "IMPOSSIBLE? - NAH!" trip mentioned earlier. This cache was a 3 stage multi adventure in the local state game lands. We all held off on seeking the cache until the honoree had his chance... that didn't mean we didn't get to tag along for his FTF adventure.
5. Thousand Steps Cache - GC59AF 3/5
Of my list of top 5 caches, this is probably the most reasonable for the average cacher. This one does require a fairly strenuous hike up a mountain, but if you are into hiking, this is not impossible. This one will get you about 1100 feet in elevation gained and 1.5 miles each direction of hiking. I actually did this one solo as I frequently would do 10-20 mile hikes solo through the state forests on weekends so it was a nice morning stroll. As the name suggests, this is at the top of a trail called Thousand Steps. This is also one of the oldest caches I found as it was placed 05/19/2002.
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