There are moments in geocaching that stick with me. I remember the moment that my family and I made our first find. I remember the really beautiful places that I have been and things that I have seen. Unique containers that I have come across every now and then stay in my mind. I remember the history behind many of the areas that I have been to – places that I would probably have never known about had I not learned about geocaching. Many of these moments started as a spur of the moment, many were caches we just came upon because they were in the area, and a good portion of these were planned because of an upcoming milestone. I will never forget the first night cache that my wife and I did. Because it was our first night cache, it was a planned cache (well, planned as well as I tend to plan these things).

 It was mid November when I decided that I wanted to go for a night cache. The cache was one that I had come across when I was searching through caches in the area. It seemed like the right time of year for a night cache. It was the time of the year where it is cold enough that the bugs wouldn’t be bad, but not so cold that we would freeze while doing the cache. Additionally, since the leaves had fallen from most of the trees, I thought that it would provide a better view of the night sky – enhancing the experience. Yes, I know, I tend to over think things sometimes.

 I am still fairly green on the experience scale when it comes to geocaching. I know enough to make the find, but sometimes I get myself into a situation where I realize that I didn’t know enough to do this or to do that. I even made it a point before doing this night cache to research it and go prepared. My wife and I decided to make this a date night, so we enlisted a babysitter and headed for the cache.

 The cache that we went for was “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. This is a premium member only cache listed on geocaching.com and the GC number is GC17K8M. Being a 3 ½ star difficulty, I knew that it was going to be a challenge, but I was prepared! Based on the name of the cache, you can probably tell that this was a cache based on the story by William Shakespeare. Although I never have read the story nor saw the play, there was enough information in the cache description that I knew what we would be looking for; faeries in the woods!

 The description gave enough information that we knew how many faeries that we needed to keep an eye out for. The description said that the faeries would be located within 30’ of the trail and there would be a tag near the fairies that would give us a portion of the final coordinates. There were also coordinates listed that marked where the hidden faeries would end, so we would not go past our destination. Find all of the faeries and you get the coordinates for the final - all sounded simple before we headed out.

 Neither one of us had been to the area where this night cache was located, but we had a mobile GPSr that provided excellent directions. We drove up a highway, turned on a backroad, and before we knew it we were at the area where the cache was supposed to start. We got out of the car and started looking for a faerie that would point us in the direction to go. I realized at this very moment that I wasn’t ready. There were 2 trails here, heading in an opposite direction from one another. We spent a good 15 minutes looking for a faerie before I decided that I would pretend to know what to do and said. “Lets take this trail – I am sure that we are going to come across faeries along the way”. I could tell by the look that my wife gave me that she was less than convinced, but based on the “no faeries beyond this point” coordinates, this had to be the direction to go. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before our flashlights were lighting up a marker.

 We searched the area where the marker was, but were not able to find a tag nor a faerie, so we decided that maybe this wasn’t a marker for the night cache, rather it was a marker for either horseback riders, snowmobiles, or someone that had a reason to have to watch out for the structure that this marker was attached to. Deciding that this was a maybe waypoint, but probably wasn’t, we moved on.

 By now I was starting to have real doubts about my night cache preparation and research. I didn’t want to say anything to my wife, but she knows how ill prepared I can be when bringing her out for a cache, so I was sure that she already knew that I had dropped the ball again. I wasn’t deterred. Keeping a positive attitude, we moved forward and it wasn’t long before we saw them – 3 bright sparkling items about 20 feet on our left. I had no doubts this time – we found a grouping of faeries. We headed off the trail and to the location where the faeries were located and within moments, we had our 1^st clue.

 The 1^st find was the best part because we now knew what to look for. I think we both had expected some form of a faerie, but now we realized that the faeries were actually the firetacks that were marking the waypoints. For those that are not aware, firetacks are tacks that have a reflective material attached to them. They come in different colors and are used by hunters, geocachers, and anyone else that have a need to navigate through an area in the nighttime.

 With new found motivation (heck – we were only about 500 feet down the trail) we struck forward. The trail that this night cache is on is an old railroad bed that was converted to a trail. There were an occasional pile of horse leavings here in there. I used my deductive skills to take a guess and say that this was because the trail was used for horseback riding. Well, that and the fact that there is a good sized horse ranch to the right of the trail. Also along the trail was an occasional tree stump or roots that were growing above ground and across the trail. For a guy that is clumsy in normal situations, it wasn’t long before I was tripping over tree parts and step in the horse…well….you know. :-P

 If you have been night caching before, then you know that a good majority of your time is spent looking up and looking around for those fire tacks. My wife and I ended up splitting up the task – one would watch our footing while the other would watch for the tacks. This was a system that worked well for us. Yes, I was tripping over things, but I would have done that in the daytime, so I am not blaming our foolproof system for that.

 Farther down the trail we saw another set of tacks – they were a good 20 – 30 feet away, but there were two of them and they were side by side. Heading off the trail and toward the tacks, I blinked and they were gone…they were not tacks at all, but the reflective glow of an animals eyes. Oh Great! Now the animals are checking us out. We were doing so well up until this point. Tripping, dodging horse poop, and now wary of animals – this kept getting better.

 My wife mentioned that she was a little spooked. The funny thing was by then I was past spooked. I had been hoping that she would be the brave one but I realized that I had to pretend to be brave – whoever invented chivalry was never on this trail, I can tell you that much!

 Animal eyes, horse bombs, tree parts and missing faeries – we were having some fun now…but at least this was it – the weather was nice, the night was calm, so onward we headed. We found the next set 3 sets of tacks and the clues that went with each and I started thinking that we might actually finish this cache. All of the sudden – we were at the no faeries beyond this point…point.

 Well, that’s just great, I thought. We were at the final point of the trail and still needed 2 waypoints in order to get the final hints that would give us the coordinates to the cache. We stood there for a while trying multiple variations of codes to see if we would get lucky and figure out where the cache was. But it was not meant to be. There were just too many combinations of numbers, giving us a couple of dozen possible locations for the final.

 We made our way back toward the parking lot. Looking for those waypoints that we had missed, but we didn’t find them. By the time we reached the car, we were both very hungry and decided that we would have to give it a go another night. We enjoyed the trip very much, had a great dinner, and headed home.

 I spent the majority of the following week reading former logs and reading the cache description over and over. We decided to invite another caching couple out with us and they accepted. The date was set for one week from the night that we had originally gone out.

 We met the other couple, who had their older kids with them. I just knew with all of the extra sets of eyes we would have no problem finding the cache this time. My wife and his wife teamed up and led the pack. I and the other gentleman cacher were in the middle, and the younger set of cachers took up the rear. We all divided sections of the trail to be on the look out for and headed out. I am not sure how, but we all bypassed the area where I thought the first waypoint should have been. The rest of the waypoints that we had found the week before were found again and the other caching team located one of the caches that we had missed the previous week. We hit the no faeries beyond point and still were short a waypoint.

 We decided that we would go back to the area where we had seen what we thought to be a waypoint to see if there were any tags or clues that could be located. With 6 of us hunting in that immediate area, I knew that if it were truly a waypoint then we would locate the tag…we didn’t. We then decided that we should take a look at the coordinates that we did have and see if we could figure out where the cache might be. After a few minutes, we determined that the cache had to be in one of two places. Since one of the locations was past the no faeries beyond point, the other had to be the location.

 It was getting colder by now, so ¾ of the other caching team decided they were done and were going to sit in the car. My wife, myself, and the gentlemen cacher decided that it was only about ½ mile and would be worth going for the final – I mean, come on…we are this close. So, off the three of us went. I don’t recall the reason, but we decided that I would be the navigator. So I plugged the final coordinates in my trusty GPSr and off we went. We had a mission by golly, so we were making good time. We didn’t need no stinkin numbers and I was feeling good that I had only tripped on tree parts a couple of times this evening. The trail ahead had a fork and I led the group on the left fork. We walked for a few hundred feet and I knew that it was time for the bushwhack to the cache. It was about a 300 foot bushwhack, which I thought was kind of mean for a night cache, but at this point I didn’t care – we were there!

 About halfway through the bushwhack, we ran into a stone wall. At this point, my buddy and I decided to continue over the wall while my wife decided she would wait for us there. We walked the length of the wall until we reached a level portion of ground. It was at this point we realized that we had water all around us. Only 90 feet away from the area that my GPSr was telling us was ground zero, we trudged on. We got to GZ and looked around. It was pitch black out and I no longer could see the light where we had left my wife standing. We looked for a few minutes and I knew in my gut that something was wrong, although we did find some clever hiding spots. Not wanting to leave my wife standing along too long, we headed back. Yes, it was another DNF night for us.

 By the time that we got home, I was re-energized and I went over the cache description again. I read and re-read and I knew that we had to have the correct coordinates. A few hours passed and I decided to take a break and check my email - sure enough, my caching buddy had gone home and done the same thing. He mentioned in the email that he sent to me that we had the right numbers, but when he plugged the numbers into google earth, the spot for GZ was a little up the road on the other fork opposite of the fork that I had led the group to. I opened google earth and could see that he was right - but I have never had a bad reading with my GPSr, so how could it have been so far off? I had to look, so I booted the GPSr to check what I had put in as the final coordinates and sure enough! Where I was supposed to put in a 5, I had put in a 6! No wonder we could not find it.

 I sent my buddy an email to see if he wanted to meet up the next evening to try it again, and then I went to bed. I didnt sleep well that night...I was wanting to go out to see if I could find the final. It was bugging me. By the time morning came, I had nothing else on my mind but making it out to this area. I thought about going to the final during the day, but when I saw that my buddy had confirmed we would meet, I had to wait until evening to go out. I was also happy to see an email from the owner of the cache with a few words of encouragement for the next time out. I emailed him back, letting him know what I thought I had done, and sent him the coordinates that we knew should be the final. he confirmed they were! I was happy now! I knew that we would make this one final trip out and would be able to find the cache!

 My wife and I brought our youngest daughter with us this time. Our daughter has some of the best geosense that I have seen in anyone. Any time I have a hard time locating a cache, my wife or our youngest usually can find it. We grabbed a few other caches along the way and we met up with my buddy at the posted time and place. I was so prepared this time. I even knew where all of the tree parts and horse poop would be, so I didnt have to worry about stepping in or tripping on any of it. I was no longer nervous about the creepy crawlies any longer, for I felt that I earned the right to OWN this trail on that night!

 Without hesitation, we set off. It was about a half mile to the cache and we made a beeline to it. Instead of taking the left in the fork, we took the right and shortly made the 10'bushwhack from the trail to the cache (and yes, our youngest found the cache). What a great feeling that was! I was elated! We signed the log, took a picture, and then headed out toward the parking area. On the way out, we decided to take one more look in the area where we were not able to locate the faerie tag. Within 5 minutes, our youngest found the tag - in a place that I had looked at least 2 times previous! I guess my eyesight is getting worse than I want to admit. It took 3 tries and a few hours of research, but we found the cache!

 If you have never done a night cache, you need to do so - it’s a different experience and it is a lot of fun. Do it in a group, though....you may need help!

By Jim Edwards (caching as EyeD10T)

My name is Jim Edwards (caching as EyeD10T)

I started geocaching in August of 2010.  I mainly started as a way to get some excercise and I fell in love with geocaching right away.  I have designed a couple of geocoins and have a small online shop (more of a hobby than a business).  I have 5 kids, 3 of them are grown and the other 2 are caching kids.  I also have a grand-daughter.  I usually go caching by myself, but my wife and younger daughters come with me when they are able.  I have hidden a couple of caches in the area - my first was a multicache that has gotten a few favorite points.  I am spending my time this winter working on my blog, my website, and planning a couple of good multicaches to hide when the snow melts.