Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site

You are not logged in. Log in.


GC10YN8

Unknown CacheThe Pennsylvania All Counties Challenge

A cache by PA Reviewers     Hidden: 5/12/2007

Size: Size: Regular (Regular)     Difficulty: 5 out of 5     Terrain: 2.5 out of 5 (1 is easiest, 5 is hardest)


You Are Not Logged InYou must be logged in with an account to view the detailed Location Information. It's free!

N/S ? ??.??? W/E ??? ??.??? 
In Pennsylvania, United States

Print:
 5 Logs 10 Logs | 

Download: Read About Waypoint Downloads

| | |

Warning

Please note: To use the services of geocaching.com, you must agree to the terms and conditions in our disclaimer.

As with most mystery/unknown caches, the posted coordinates are bogus. They are for "The Point" in downtown Pittsburgh, where the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers join to form the Ohio River.

The perverse Pennsylvania Cache Reviewers who brought you The Pennsylvania DeLorme Challenge invite you on another tour around the Keystone State. It's not your ordinary cache, it's...

The Pennsylvania All Counties Challenge



Cachers who have completed the
Pennsylvania All Counties Challenge:

Cacher Page Completion Date Cache Logged Date
carels May 20, 2007 May 25, 2007
CCCooperAgency July 6, 2007 July 6, 2007
geofun2007 August 10, 2007 August 22, 2007
captainmath August 25, 2007 October 6, 2007
andGuest September 2, 2007 September 22, 2007
Geometeacher September 15, 2007 September 30, 2007
Angrist October 15, 2007 November 24, 2007
2 Guys Named Moe April 6, 2008 May 26, 2008
TEAM COPYCAT June 22, 2008 ???
Megplant August 31, 2008 October 28, 2008
Gosffo September 18, 2008 ???
Slandgsmith September 24, 2008 ???
Furious Shepherd November 1, 2008 November 14, 2008

What is the All Counties Challenge?

The Challenge is simple. The image above shows a map of all 67 counties in Pennsylvania. The final cache coordinates can be obtained by successfully finding a cache in each County. THAT is the hard part!

This cache is owned jointly by Keystone, OReviewer, skeetsurfer, Mr. Ollivander, and our special emeritus reviewer, MissPlaced. In order to claim a find, you must first let us know which caches you found to meet the requirements. See details below.

Here are some specific guidelines for this Challenge:

  1. As mentioned above, the posted coordinates are not the actual coordinates for the cache. The physical cache is in the same county, but may be quite some distance from these coordinates! It was hidden sometime in the spring of 2007 by one of the volunteer cache reviewers. The terrain rating and attributes apply to the final cache location, and more details will be provided when you become eligible to seek the final cache.

  2. Generally accepted rules, guidelines and conditions for logging a cache find apply. These must be bona fide caches listed on Geocaching.com that you have personally (physically) found and logged. You may include caches found prior to the creation of the Pennsylvania All Counties Challenge so long as they meet all other Challenge requirements. Your qualifying caches may be active, disabled or archived.

  3. [Previous guidance about initial trade item contents has now been deleted.]

  4. All cache types count as finds for the All Counties Challenge with the exception of events (CITO included) and locationless caches. Also, temporary event caches and grandfathered "moving caches" are not eligible.

  5. When you log your find in Allegheny County, you must leave a live hamster as a trade item. If you mentioned a hamster in your prior log, you are all set. If you did not trade a hamster, you will need to return to this county to log a find with the correct trade item. Please do not do this if the air temperature is below 32°, or if you are logging a microcache.

  6. We will go off of the posted coordinates for a cache (including multicaches and puzzles) when determining in which County a given cache falls. So, for example, if stage one of a multicache is in Ohio and the final cache is in Pennsylvania, it's not eligible, or if the bogus coordinates for a puzzle cache are on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River but the true solution coordinates are in Pennsylvania, it's not eligible.

  7. If you have found or are working on the Pennsylvania DeLorme Challenge, you may not use any of the same caches to qualify for the All Counties Challenge. You must have at least one other reported find in a County in addition to the one you claimed to meet the requirements for the DeLorme Challenge. And, if you've completed the Pennsylvania DeLorme Challenge, you cannot use that cache to fulfill the requirement for the County where the random posted coordinates are located!

  8. While you may have others with you when you find the final cache, only those who have fulfilled ALL criteria for this cache will be allowed to log it as a find. Find logs by other cachers will be deleted.

  9. The final cache is located on public land where geocaching is permitted. For those who are nervous after reading the death march logs on the DeLorme Challenge, this one was designed to be easier. The cache is a half mile (as the crow flies) from parking, and is easily accessible from major north-south and east-west routes. You can find a few other caches from the same parking lot and the total elevation gain is less than 250 feet. The hike is on established trails until a bushwack/deer trail for the last few hundred feet.

  10. If a Pennsylvania Volunteer Cache Reviewer chooses to complete the Challenge under their personal account, he or she must return to the cache location and sign the logbook after meeting the same eligibility rules that apply to everyone else.

  11. When in doubt, ask — we can discuss it or even seek guidance from others, but the final decision rests with the cache owners.

  12. All but one of the PA Reviewers are "just kidding" about Rule #5. And the majority rules.

  13. Remember that this is a game and is supposed to be fun!

How can I play?

Preferred Method: Premium members are strongly encouraged to use the It's Not About the Numbers website. Until "INATN" came along, it was a very tedious process to verify the counties where a person had found caches. Now it's easy! At that site, you can upload your zipped "All Finds" pocket query file, and the site does all sorts of work for you automatically. Besides compiling various statistics for you, INATN generates really cool customized maps that show the countries, states and counties where you've found a geocache. You have a choice whether to make your stats and maps viewable by other site users, or to keep them private. Best of all, INATN is a free site, and the uploading of pocket query data is permitted under a license agreement with Groundspeak. (Remember, pocket queries cannot be shared with third parties.) So, let INATN do all the work for you, and make the verification process easier for us! Just send us an e-mail at PA.Reviewers@gmail.com to let us know that it's time to study your INATN maps and cache lists. INATN sorts your finds by county with links to each of your logs. It's so easy to verify your eligibility this way, that even a chimp can do it. The decision of the chimp shall be final.

What if I'm not able or willing to use the INATN site? An alternative is offered for geocachers who are not premium members, or for any premium members who don't wish to use the INATN site. (Under the cache listing guidelines, a cache owner cannot force a geocacher to create an account or provide personal information to another website in order to log a find.) Send us an e-mail at PA.Reviewers@gmail.com to alert us that you've completed all the counties. Either link us to a shared bookmark list containing all your claimed finds and specifying which county each cache is in, or attach a file (such as an Excel spreadsheet or Microsoft Word table) listing the following information for each of the 67 required caches: County Name, Cache Name, Cache "GC Number", and the date of your "found it" log. Do NOT send us GPX files using the proprietary Groundspeak extensions to the GPX namespace, or otherwise relying on pocket query data obtained from Geocaching.com.

Review Process: Once we hear from you by e-mail, we will review your INATN map or your submitted list of finds in order to verify compliance with the cache requirements. Please allow up to one week for the verification process -- remember we are busy reviewing all the new caches! Finds will be verified in the order received, except that preference will be given to finders using the INATN website method for verification. Once everything checks out, we will send you an e-mail with instructions, including the correct coordinates to take you to the final cache, and some background information about the cache location. The find cannot be logged until the physical container is found and the logbook inside is signed.

Those accepting the All Counties Challenge are encouraged to post notes here on the cache page to let everyone know they are working on it, and to keep us informed of their progress. GOOD LUCK, AND HAVE FUN!

 


86 user(s) watching this cache.

Inventory Inventory

There are no Travel Bugs in this cache.
See the history
What is a Travel Bug?

Additional Hints (No hints available.)

(Decrypted Hints)

Find...

Pennsylvania's Counties

Image courtesy of ItsNotAboutTheNumbers.com

Logged Visits (133 total. Visit the Gallery (34 images))

Found it22     Didn't find it1     Write note104     Publish Listing2     Needs Maintenance1     Owner Maintenance1     Update Coordinates1     Post Reviewer Note1     

Warning. Spoilers may be included in the descriptions or links.
Cache find counts are based on the last time the page generated.

 January 15 by r.e.s.t.seekers (606 found)
With the new year, will the cachers who completed the challenge and found the final in 2009 be added to the list of 'cachers who found the cache?'

View This Log
 December 30, 2009 by PA Reviewers (0 found)
As the reviewer in charge of physical maintenance for this cache, I am posting to remove the "needs maintenance" attribute.

I am also removing the text of rule three, which related to original trade items in the cache and included pleas to trade even and to take only one "keeper" geocon from the small supply included with the initial contents. As with most caches, those initial items are long gone.

Keystone
On behalf of the PA Reviewers

View This Log

 December 29, 2009 by TheRichFather (617 found)
Not so much a needs maintenance but a question for the reviewers... are there going to be more Counties Challenge Geocoins put into the cache or was that a one-shot deal? I'm noticing several finders now who were not able to get a "keeper" coin when they completed it as it appears the cache is out of coins. I'm expecting to finish sometime in the spring/summer area, I'm looking forward to getting this coin.

View This Log
 December 6, 2009 by "T" and Inga (1269 found)
Wow! We found caches in all 67 counties. We have had a blast doing this challenge. Thanks! We received the final co-ordinates on Wednesday, December 2nd and weren't sure when we could go for the final. This morning, we woke up and said "Let's go for it." We quickly packed Giovanni the Geovan and grabbed our GPS unit, Gary and headed for the final cache of the challenge. After hiking to the cache site in 28 degree weather, we reached our goal. We completed the challenge! We were disappointed however that there were none of the special geocoins in the cache. We had planned to frame it with photos of some of our favorite caches of the journey. Twelve hours, a tank of fuel and 488 miles, we are back home. A good day.

View This Log
 December 2, 2009 by alnkristy (716 found)
we're at 37 counties :D we're more than halfway there!

View This Log

There are more logs. View Them All on One Page

Current Time: 2/9/2010 10:23:41 PM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada) (6:23 AM GMT)
Last Updated: 1/15/2010 4:27:45 PM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada) (12:27 AM GMT)
Rendered: From Database
Coordinates are in the WGS84 datum


Geocaching, a Groundspeak Project.

Copyright © 2000-2010 Groundspeak, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
About Groundspeak | Contact Us
Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.
Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of the Groundspeak Terms of Use.
Read our Geocaching Logo Usage Guidelines.
Hotels | Altrec Gear | GPS Reviews