On Target!

For many years now, I have made a collection of targets for my geocaching year ahead. Things to achieve, totals to reach, challenges to meet. As the end of each year approaches, I open up a new tab on my spreadsheet before looking back at my progress over the previous 12 months. Nothing I saw there would come as a surprise, however, as I often glanced at the list during the year, checking my progress and assess how likely I was to achieve each target.

Some of my targets are easily achieved, and deliberately so. As a matter of policy, every ‘to do’ list I write includes at least one thing that I’ve already completed, or which is almost finished! Others are more challenging; tasks that might take serious application, several visits to an area, long evenings making plans or solving puzzles. Some of my current targets have remained incomplete for several years, either through lack of opportunity, competing demands on my time, or, more recently, because of the pandemic. A current example of that is the Little Quest or LQ, a series which involves finding a particular cache in every English County. Despite having cached in each county already, I was a late starter to LQ, and still have only completed nine of them. These truncated odysseys are carried forward to the next sheet, and the next, and so on.

Numbers

The targets I pick vary in type. Some are purely numerical. I always, for example, earmark a certain total number of finds to reach before the year is out. That might be a nice round number- a milestone to reach, such as my recently reaching 11,000 finds just before Christmas. I’ve used repetitive numbers such as 3333 as something to reach for. Sometimes I just pick a random number which might require some effort to reach, but is not significant in itself. I’ve picked prime numbers, previous year totals to try and beat and other totally arbitrary aggregates.

I’ve aimed for a total number of a certain cache type, such as EarthCaches or Wherigos, or the total number in a particular geographical area. My favourite such example was when I aimed to find every cache within the triangle formed by the A46, A17 and A15 to the south and west of Lincoln. I did this twice, but sadly it’s moved beyond my reach, now that there are high terrain caches which are outside my comfort zone. A certain number of FTFs has also featured in some years’ list of targets.

Specific Caches

In some years, I’ve included a particular single cache as one of my targets. Finding one of the UK’s oldest remaining caches, ‘Scotland’s First’ has been on my list now for several years. Maybe 2022 is the year I’ll finally get up there and claim it! It forms part of a larger challenge for me, the ‘Jasmer’ challenge, that is to find a cache that was placed in each month since geocaching began, back in 2000. Scotland’s First is the last remaining Jasmer cache in the UK for me. To complete other months I’ll have to travel further afield. However, completing the UK Jasmer would be an extremely satisfying achievement for me.

Another single-cache target was the UK EarthCache – Challenge cache. There are 21 different classifications of Earthcache- igneous, coastal features, river features, fossil site and many others. This challenge required me to find at least one of each type. For over three years I built this challenge into my road trips, camping expeditions and holidays, until finally, in the summer of 2016, I signed my name in the log of the challenge cache itself, and then later, added that date to my spreadsheet of targets.

In recent years, I’ve added event-related items to my list. Hosting a Community Celebration Event, for example, which has also been delayed because of Covid, now has to be a target for 2022, before the right to host such an event is taken from me. Three megas in a year- that might not sound much of a challenge to you, but there aren’t always three in the UK some years.

The ‘Fizzy’ Challenge

Other ongoing targets include completing further loops of the ‘Fizzy’ grid, or the 360 Challenge. I like these kinds of target because they keep old challenges alive, and because they retain sub elements which are both simple and more complex- D1 or D5, a Saturday in July or a Tuesday in December.

Geocaching provides a rich playground from which to select challenges. Some are arbitrary, others self-evident and some imposed, or suggested, by others. Here’s a quick look at what I’m planning for 2022:

• Complete the UK Jasmer Challenge (1 to go)
• Reach the 12,000 finds milestone (983 to go)
• Complete my 4th Fizzy Challenge (D/T) Loop (9 to go)
• Host a Community Celebration Event
• Attend three Mega events
• Reach 150 FTFs in total (12 to go)
• Find my fastest 1000 caches (currently 200 days)
• Have my best monthly total of finds (currently 346)
• Have my best caching day (currently 107)

Wish me luck!

Tentmantent 02/1/2022