Day 202: 5/5

Having attended a recent geocaching event to meet up with local cachers, we gathered some information to get our first 5/5 cache (GC47ENM).

This probably means nothing to most readers, so here’s an explanation. Each cache is rated from 1 to 5 for its difficulty and the terrain it is located within to give a finder an idea of what they can expect. A 1/5 would be very easy to find but probably quite hard to get to (difficulty comes first, terrain second) – a 5/1 would be easy to get to but hard to find. It is possible to have half ratings too; 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5 are the possibilities. This leads to a grid of 81 combinations that are possible to achieve.

Today, we set out for that hardest of caches, a 5/5. The one we’d learnt about was across a weir and up a banking. Now, given the lovely warm weather, we thought this one should be relatively easy as the river would be quite slow flowing and not very high. Our journey to the cache over near Burnley was littered with examples of low reservoirs, furthering our belief.

Once we arrived, we decide it was best that just one of us try to get the cache so that the other could stand safely in case anything went wrong. We weren’t exactly in the middle of nowhere, but also we were fairly alone – roughly 10 people passed us either on a walk or out with their dogs. Had things gone completely wrong, there were a few houses within 300 metres too. Thankfully, though, no such issues arose. Mrs Pitts carefully made her way into the water, which never got higher than her wellies, and to the cache. There were a few moments where a sharp intake of breath was required, but nothing too hairy. The cache was found, signed and replaced well.

As well as this, July is now full on the calendar – which is 59.8% full too.

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