Geocaching by the Numbers - 11/4/10

My geocaching obsession should be obvious by now. One of the things that I find interesting to look at is some of the statistical tracking that can be done in conjunction with the geocaching website and related support sites. I use a program called Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (GSAK) to track what I have done. Since these numbers change every time you find a new cache, I have decided to periodically take a snapshot of some of the more interesting bits and post them here, just so I can go back and look at them later if I want to.

As my geocaching mentor and I repeatedly tell each other, "it's not about the numbers"... and then we laugh ourselves silly. It may not be entirely about the numbers, but it is a hobby for which some degree of stats watching is almost unavoidable. Completely unavoidable in my particular case.

"Personal Best" type stats. A miscellaneous bunch of numbers where the goal is to better your previous accomplishments. More finds in a day than you have ever done before, or a week, or a month. More states in a day, or counties, or different types of caches. Farthest from home. Furthest north/south/east/west.

Difficulty/Terrain combinations and the Calendar. The long term goal is to find a cache in every combination, and on every calendar date. My current "consecutive days with a find" streak of 72 days is filling up the back half of the year nicely.

States in which I have found caches. The goal here, obviously, is to find a cache in every state in the country. Business travel can help immensely with this. When on a business trip to Utah earlier this year, I took a rental car an hour out of my way on some down time just to get some caches in the corner of Wyoming. Chances like that to get states far from home don't come along every day, and I now find myself looking at all of my occasional business trips in light of "do I have that state yet, and are there any other states right nearby?"

Pennsylvania counties - Much like the US state map, the goal here is to find a cache in every county in my home state. Living way down in the corner and not in the middle of the state makes this a bit harder, but I'm working on it. Some day I am going to sucker Dave into a 2-3 day barnstorming tour of the state, out to Erie and back, to bag as many of these as possible. In the meantime, wherever possible, I like to see if family day trips or hiking days can be in nice places where I also don't happen to have a cache find yet. My family is... mostly understanding.

So is it entirely about the numbers? Of course not, but they do play a part in it. Geocaching is a "collecting" sport in a way, and the numbers reflect how many different kinds of things you were able to accomplish. Ultimately though, the numbers are just an abstract way of capturing all the great little adventures and experiences along the way.

At the moment, the main thing I am concentrating on is trying to get my consecutive days streak to 100. One of the only nice things about a one hour commute to work is that it gives me many options of which roads to take so that I can find simple "park and grabs" on the way to work with only slight detours, and get the daily find out of the way. If I can complete my streak, then I'll figure out if there is something else I want to concentrate on next. I'm sure there will be.