The iconic village of Pella, Iowa in the United States boasts a quaint downtown, a working wind mill and the geocache with the most Favorite Points in the entire state. ’49 and Holding the Cache – A Gold Miner’s Delight’ (GC202RG) has more than 100 Favorite Points. jstrout & cjandbj created and placed the cache in 2009. The special instructions on the difficulty 2.5, terrain 1 geocache page are written as a poem:
A GOLD MINER’S DELIGHT
NO NEED FOR A SHOVEL
NO NEED FOR A MULE
NO NEED FOR ANY SPECIAL TOOL
A NICE ALL WEATHER PARK AND GRAB
The creative cache draws adventure seekers from around the region. Geocachers often choose ’49 and Hold the Cache’ to celebrate milestone finds. Cachers log about the challenge of the hide and the unique cache container.
Celebrating milestones at the geocache
A geocacher who logged this cache writes, “To say this is the best geocache I’ve ever seen would be an understatement. This is mind-bogglingly fantastic! The creativity, work, money, craftsmanship, and awesomeness that has been put into this cache is just plain amazing… I’ve seen and made a few pretty darn cool caches, but this one takes the cake.”
Check out this Geocaching.com Presents video to see inside the cache. The video was shot with cache owner permission. You can see the “49 and Holding Cache” at 1:00 into the video.
Continue your exploration of some of the most engaging geocaches from around the globe. Explore all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com. If you’ d like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, send an email with your name, comments, the name of the geocache and the GC code to pr@groundspeak.com.
The nominees for the December featured “Geocacher of the Month” hail from three different countries. But they collectively represent the best of the geocaching community: being helpful, innovative, and creative. Now it’s your turn to help select one of them as December’s “Geocacher of the Month.”
Rokman4
Write a comment on this blog post about which of these three geocachers you feel should be the “Geocacher of the Month.” Those whose nominees were not recognized here are encouraged to submit their nominations again next month.
Last month, Rokman4 was chosen as the November Featured Geocacher of the Month. Rokman4 is well known for helping to create the first ever geocaching training ground and for going out of his way to help geocachers in need. Congratulations again to Rokman4 and all those nominated in November.
Nominated by Cashub, “AbbeyAckbar have gathered people for such events as: WWFM VIII – Dublin, Ireland and a mega huge International Geocaching Day (IGD)01: CITO Burrow Beach, Dublin, Ireland and later that day another event: IGD01: Dublin, Ireland and recently 11.11.11 – It’s all about the numbers They are great planners, everything is always under control with them. It’s AbbeyAckbar who organizes the best events in Dublin, who are always willing to help any newbies, and who make things happen in Ireland. Their caches have the most amazing containers, and are very tricky, making another cache find an unbelievably fun experience!”
Nominated by geocite and PTBL, “He is always happy to lend a helping hand when you have a hard cache that you haven’t found. ElectroQTed takes his time to walk around the room to meet fellow cachers old and new and have a talk. He has been to a lot of events where he does speeches on geocaching. He is also at all of the CITOs that we have in the Waterloo Region of Canada and has helped plant many trees. Ted has helped organize numerous of the events that have occurred in southern Ontario. Ted has been caching well before a lot of people probably even knew what geocaching was. He has been caching since June 15, 2003 and has over 7400 finds. Ted is one of the first geocachers in the Waterloo Region and this past summer was in our local paper talking about the sport of geocaching. ElectroQTed is a good roll model for the geocaching community.”
Nominated by LoudmouthLee, “Jeremy is responsible for the vast majority of caches in the Queens borough of New York City. As well, he has taken time out of his busy schedule to help a lowly geo-newbie like me to get involved in the caching community, giving me great advice when I need it, and offering to help always. I know for sure that I’m not the only newbie who Jeremy has helped. I just know his kindness is peerless and he is a fantastic representation to what geocaching is all about.”
Comment below to tell us who you think should be the featured December “Geocacher of the Month.” A panel of Lackeys will use your comments to help decide which geocacher is awarded the honor. Each featured “Geocacher of the Month” will receive an exclusive special edition featured ”Geocacher of the Month” Geocoin along with a Geocacher of the Month hat and a certificate acknowledging their contributions signed by two of the founders of Geocaching.com. We will be accepting comments for December’s award through Monday the 26th.
If you know an outstanding geocacher who should be the Featured Geocacher of the Month, send an email to geocacherofthemonth@groundspeak.com.
Every nomination must meet the following requirements:
Please include your name, the name of your nominee, their username, at least one picture of the nominee and a description (500 or fewer words) explaining why he or she deserves to be the Geocacher of the Month. Please inform your nominee that you’ve submitted them for the award. Nominations for the January Geocacher of the Month must be received by January 3rd.
Once we have received all of the nominations, we will choose the top candidates and post them on the blog. You will then get a chance to champion your favorite. Our goal is to involve the entire geocaching community in this process so we might learn from each other.
Unwrap the thrill of geocaching this holiday season. While you can’t log a “Found it,” finding a present from Geocaching.com might be just as thrilling as finding a cache (and there’s no need to worry about insects). Here are some of the most exciting gift ideas from Shop Geocaching.
The Limited Edition Glass Holiday Ornament showcases the unity of the worldwide geocaching community. The phrase “Found It” is translated into multiple languages and printed on the ornament in 22 karat gold.
The geocache “Para Emmy-n-Sapphie” (GC19941) sits just outside one of the most recognizable vistas in the South American country of Peru. According to the cache page, the micro-cache is “hidden along a path on the outlying edges of Machu Picchu.”
The fascinating history of the site and the breath taking views reward geocachers for their find. Many tourists hike a substantial portion of the 2,450 meters (8,040 ft) trek up the mountain.
The difficultly three, terrain 3.5 geocache was hidden in 2008 by GiGi and JoJo. It’s maintained by a local friend of the cachers. The cache received more than 20 Favorite Points. Its been logged by 281 geocachers so far.
Geocachers who visited the tourist destination and logged “Para Emmy-n-Sapphie” write, “A perfect day for Machu Picchu. Coming here with heavy rain, fog, clouds and not so much tourists. And during noon the sun was coming out. The cache I found quickly.”
Para Emmy-n-SapphieCaption on the cache page photo reads, "Cache guardians..."
Continue your exploration of some of the most engaging geocaches from around the globe. Explore all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com. If you’ d like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, send an email with your name, comments, the name of the geocache and the GC code to pr@groundspeak.com.
WINNING CAPTION: "Tfth. Left bug, wallet, car keys, flashlight, prescription eyeglasses, hat, and pride." Mentor19
The search for a geocache often takes us to unusual places and sometimes bends us into unusual shapes. Share your gift for witty captions in the 29th installment of our Geocaching.com Caption Contest. You could earn a barely coveted prize. What caption would you write for the picture above? It was originally posted on our Geocaching.com Facebook page by teamoggy.
Submit your caption by clicking on “Comments” below. Please include your geocaching username in all entries. Then, explore the captions other geocachers have posted.
Coveted Prive - Size Medium
You’re encouraged to ‘influence’ the voting process (nudgenudge). “Like” the caption that you think should win. If you think your caption should win, convince your fellow geocachers, your friends, and family to “like” your caption. Lackeys vote from the top finalists to decide the winner of the contest.
The winner receives the ‘barely coveted prize’ you see to the left, which may actually be quite coveted. It’s is a sample product submitted to Shop Geocaching – a size medium orange hooded sweatshirt. No other sizes are available to the winner.
Click on the image to see the winning caption for this contest
More than a dozen Lackeys voted to award the winner of the 28th Geocaching.com Caption Contest a barely coveted prize. Click on the image at right to discover the winning caption from the last Geocaching.com Caption Contest.
Explore all the past winning captions by checking out all the Geocaching.com Caption Contests. If you have suggestions for Geocaching.com Caption Contest photos, send a message and the image to pr@groundspeak.com.
