In my article about the cache-a-thon (July 09) I already mentioned the idea of Hammer of Doom to go out for a caching-the-night-away 'event'. It was the second challenge of his list (the one that remains is a 100 kilometer cyclo-caching). The general idea was to start at 10pm and to stop at about 6am. That way it would be dark enough all the time for the genuine nightcaches.

Friend Hammer of Doom took care of all the preparations this time. He searched for all the nightcaches in Belgium and in the south of the Netherlands and made a selection of caches that weren't too far away one from the other. At the end he came up with a list of 6 nightcaches in the neighborhood of Antwerp with a maximum of 35km in between two caches. He also found two caches that could be used to fill up the time in case this would be necessary. Both were caches that could be run at night, but that weren't indicated as real nightcaches.

So things started to add up and a date was put on this challenge : the night from last Friday on Saturday. That would give us the needed rest in the weekend :-).

The first thing to do was to spread the news that the 'event' was going to take place. It's always more fun to go out caching with a group, but for nightcaching it's more like a must. You never know what's going to happen and just the idea that someone could break his leg in the middle of an unknown wood.. So we hoped we could form a group of three or more for security. As it turned out, we were four : Hammer of Doom, Freggie, Searchjaunt and myself. So that was great.

I picked up Freggie, Searchjaunt and Hammer of Doom and we were gone to count the stars with a GPS in our hands. Hammer of Doom had added another cache to his list and we decided to tackle that one first : “GC1RTT2 My Haunted Castle...”. It isn't a real night cache, but the title suggested it could bring us in the right mood :-).

It was a fun cache to do and the castle itself turned out to deliver its promises.

When we arrived back at the car, we had learned something though : this was a 3km cache and it had taken us an hour and a half to complete. We spend a lot of time searching for the metal tags and it wasn't always that easy to find the small paths between the waypoints.

So already a first learned lesson if you want to go out caching at night : look out for the genuine nightcaches. They are made to find at night and that way you don't spend 15 minutes searching for a tag in the darkest spot of the wood or near the water.

We don't regret having chosen this multi though, because the castle really was worth the visit !

The next cache on our list would be ”GC12G4G Tussen de Huisjes”. Now if you're in Belgium and you want to go out nightcaching.. this one is a must. The owner put lots of effort in it and the result is phenomenal. It was in my opinion the best one of the lot.

The other caches we did were “GC12MJP Prunie & K3D Wet Night Schot”, “GC1XZJ5 DVD's in de nachtelijke voorkempen” and “GCYXXK Blackmail”.

All these caches make use of little reflectors along the way, so the search in the dark remains limited.

I'm not going to tell you much about the caches themselves. You have to do them to know what they are like. The group was unanimous though : GC12G4G was the best one.

The quest stopped at 6am, after having found the blackmail cache, so we followed our planning.

Now what were the lessons learned from this night event?

Well the most important one has already been mentioned : go for those caches that state that they are nightcaches. It really makes things a lot easier and more fun.

We also noticed that, if possible, it's better to choose caches that aren't situated near houses. We became really embarrassed when we passed a house and the two guards started to bark.. at 3 am.. and when the loop of the multi was finished, we had to pass the same house again.. so another serenade at 4:30..

Since we went out for a whole night, there were some things we really had to think about : take enough (warm) drinks and food with you. Hammer of Doom had a thermos of coffee with him and that was well appreciated by the group :-). Also think about taking enough spare batteries for the flashlights, GPS, camera...

A good flashlight also helps a lot. We were equipped with those handy lights you can wear on your head. That way your hands are always free to carry the cache description and the GPS or to search if needed. Searchjaunt had a special flashlight with him that was many times more powerful than ours. It was a small light to keep in your hands, but it shined like the main lights of a car !! That really helped us a lot, since the reflecting items we had to search for, shined up really nice that way.

Another lesson learned is that, even if you're walking in the woods, it's best to wear some reflecting clothes. If someone looses the grip of the group, you just have to shine around with your torch to know where he or she is. Freggie wore a reflecting jacket (easy to find him on the picture :-)) and that really was a good idea.

To stay with the clothes : everybody knows it can cool off at night, so take warm clothes with you. Another thing is to wear good shoes. Since you don't always see where you put your feet in the dark, it's best to wear some boots that protect your feet. A little poop-check before stepping into the car again can always be handy too :-D.

I might add a personal note as well : my garmin automatically changed to nightview and I really didn't like the colours. I had some trouble finding the paths. So I changed the view to dayview again. It's something you'ld better test out beforehand.

So that was a small story about our caching-the-night-away. I hope you enjoyed it and if you're planning a similar quest :  Hammer of Doom treated us in the morning with a breakfast you couldn't even find in the best hotel. So a last tip is to find somebody who wants to do the same for you :-).

A last thing to mention though : whilst stepping one of the caches, Hammer of Doom launched a question into the group : “what would be the best time to start if one would like to plan for a 24-hour caching trip??” I think he might have some new plans for next summer :-).

Some more pictures and the impressions of Searchjaunt about the caching-the-night-away can be found in his blog http://searchjaunt.idizaai.be/nighthawks/#more-635

By il imperiestro

Hi,
  I'm "il imperiestro". I'm 42 years old, divorced, with three children. Since my kids stay with me half of the school holidays, my colleague and friend "Hammer of Doom" introduced me exactly one year ago in the wonderful world of geocaching. One year later now, I've got about 550 founds on my counter and what started off as an innocent pastime for the kids has become an bit of a healthy addiction :-).