Welcome to the FF26 Primer Series, Cowpoke!
Now listen up, this here cache is sittin’ at the posted coordinates. You’re dealin’ with a plain, ol' traditional cache, which means there's no need to wrangle that brain o’ yours and solve a riddle before you can ride out to the final hidey-hole - just got out there and ride off into the sunset!
This year, we’re rustlin’ up some caches nice and early—just like y’all asked—so you’ve got plenty of time to lasso those answers and find them hidden Easter Eggs before you mosey on over to Brant County.
You’ll find this series scattered ‘cross Brantford and Brant County, offerin’ a spread of difficulty and terrain ratings for every kind of cacher, from greenhorns to seasoned trail hands. These caches stand alone—no particular order needed—so you can ride your own trail.
Some hides’ll be quick park-and-grabs, while others might have you saddlin’ up for a longer trek or some tool-totin’ adventures (think kayaks, boots, ladders, and flashlights). Be sure to check them descriptions and attributes before you gallop in—don’t go chasin’ trouble outside your comfort zone.
The cache itself is a regular-sized peanut butter jar, with some trade items and a logbook inside. Be sure to bring your trusty writin’ iron (pen or pencil) to mark your name, then put it back just the way you found it.
Wishin' you good tidin's when searchin' here - you're gunna need it!
Cinch up your saddle and get ready, partner— FF26 is fixin’ to be one wild geocachin’ roundup!
The story of this cache... the continuation of FF25 - Pasha88 lost her GPS
Planning a Mega event does something strange to friendships. Somewhere along the way, the Chiefs of Shenanigans stopped being seven geocachers who thought it would be fun to organize an event and became what can only be described as one large, mildly dysfunctional family.
At this point, we talk to each other more than we talk to our own spouses. There are good-morning messages, late-night conversations, constant check-ins, shared calendars, disagreements about money, debates over who was supposed to do what, and the occasional "Are you mad at me?" because somebody responded to a carefully written three-paragraph message with a thumbs-up. Our significant others have basically become the other people in our relationship.
Like any good toxic relationship, we regularly threaten to leave. At least once a week, someone is quitting. Someone's refusing to come to Canada. Someone else is threatening to give up and move to the Bahamas. We're never doing this again. This is the last year. Everyone can plan their own event next time. Then, somebody has a bad day, and the rest of us immediately rally around them, solve whatever has gone wrong, make inappropriate jokes until they laugh, and carry on as though nobody announced their retirement six hours earlier.
We've survived impossible deadlines, stupid ideas, budget panic, disagreements, phone bills that prompted switching to unlimited international phone plans, changing plans, changing them back, and conversations that started with "quick question" and somehow lasted two hours. We've seen each other exhausted, overwhelmed, frustrated, discouraged and occasionally one minor inconvenience away from setting the entire planning spreadsheet on fire. We've also seen each other pull off things none of us could have ever done alone, and that's a pretty cool thing to be a part of.
And somewhere in all of that chaos, something happened that none of us really expected. This stopped being just a committee. These weirdos became our family.
We know each other's moods from a two-word text. We know when to offer advice, when to take something off someone's plate, when to make them laugh, and when the correct response is simply "We got this." We drive each other absolutely insane (some more than others...), but we'd also drop everything to offer help to whichever one of us needed it in that moment.
Someday, Fall Fest will be over. There won't be another deadline, another permit, another budget crisis or another ridiculous idea that somehow becomes everyone's problem. And as much as we'd never admit it during a particularly awful planning meeting when tempers are flaring and the to-do list is getting longer instead of shorter, none of us can really imagine what life will look like when we don't have a reason to talk to each other every single day.
Because at the end of the day, we love each other, and we love what we do. And for now, that's enough to keep us going.
With love, The COS Team
This cache was placed for GCB7799 – Fall Fest 2026 by a proud member of:
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