Calling Thirsty Equines

The days leading into summer bode not well. Austin weather trends suggest it’s going to be a brutal summer. Last year, 2024, was considered mild in that there were only thirty-two days over one hundred degrees all year, while 2023 had eighty days. Projections for this year aren’t looking great, but nobody is forecasting any numbers quite yet. I have the feeling this summer will be a time for simple caches and staying in air conditioning (or traveling to more northern climes, one can hope). However, that raises an annoying and developing problem we’re starting to run into: a lack of simple caches. To some extent, this is to be expected for me; I’m over 2,500 days on a streak, so I’ve gotten much of the low-hanging fruit around here. But this problem is more pervasive, has been noticed by other cachers besides me, and can be traced back to one specific hider.

There are some prolific hiders around here, but one stands out from the rest in the sheer number of hides he’s made. He’s pretty high in the world rankings for number of hides. He’s also a little crotchety and irascible, which can be a little annoying. More importantly, he can be a little … problematic when it comes to his hides. He delights in confounding cachers with especially difficult hides. Consequently, there are a lot of high-Difficulty caches around the area because of him. It also means that his lower-Difficulty caches tend to be a little harder than advertised. I consider myself a fairly experienced cacher, and he has D2 caches I haven’t found after multiple attempts. I assume that for any cache he hides, I might as well add one (if not more) to the Difficulty rating. I have the option of avoiding his caches, and I often do. I literally have to decide whether I have the energy to face whatever fresh heck will come from hunting one of his caches. Overall, this is not great for the community, but I wouldn’t classify it on its own as a problem.

The problem is that other cachers are trying to emulate him. For a while, one group of cachers has been attempting to outdo his evil hides. I have featured them before because of the difficulty of their hides. This means that our area has been picking up more, sometimes more difficult hides for a while. Not great. But the real kicker is that a couple of new cachers have recently started coming into the fold. Much of their experience with finding caches has been with these crazy hard caches. As a result, as they’ve begun to make hides themselves, they are making similar hides to all the others because that’s what they think caches are like.

Of course, Austin and the surrounding areas have a good number of low-level beginner caches. But these super difficult ones are making up an increasing percentage of the available caches. Sure, they challenge (and frustrate) seasoned cachers, but they risk turning off newer cachers. Newbies without Premium can only see caches D1.5/T2 or lower in the app, which is increasingly how people are doing their caching. The only thing worse than having fewer simple caches for them to start with (and hopefully start the addiction) is having so-called starter caches that are actually a couple steps in difficulty beyond anything they’re prepared for. Too many disappointments like that can demoralize someone, turning them completely off caching.

What can we as a community do about it? Not a lot, unfortunately. You can’t really tell someone how to make their hides, can you? Except, of course, for the new caches that will be hidden in and around Texas Challenge 2025. (Note the cool and completely subtle plug there?) Otherwise, people can do what they want. You can talk to them and try to convince them of your point of view, but, as the homespun axiom states, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.