Red w/Frustration

There are a small handful of geocaches that can only be done at night. The use of flashlights and little reflectors stuck to trees are what help guide you to the location of the cache.

Yesterday, Angie & Celeste asked if I wanted to try a really difficult one in the woods near Medford called Red w/Frustration. This particular geocache was rated a 5/5, meaning that the terrain and overall difficulty levels were as high as it gets. Absolutely! Later they got in touch with Ron and he was all for it too. So around 10pm last night, off we went into the deep dark woods, armed with our GPS units, flashlights, tick repellent (which I forgot to use...), bottled water, work gloves, and a naive expectation of what was to come.

We trekked nearly a half mile into the forest; we went through thorn bushes, saplings, weeds, over and under various bushes, and forced our way through literal walls of vegitation. Eventually we reached our first destination, and at once understood the name of this geocache.

Tied to several of the trees were 35mm film canisters, each one between 30 and 80 feet off the ground. They had little pieces of red reflective tape on the bottles to make them easier to see. Needless to say, we were immediately shocked and wondering how we were going to get to all of them. We knew that one of these 17 containers held the coordinates to the final location of the cache.

We had no choice but to start climbing! Ron went up first and found notes in two of the containers that said things like, "Keep climbing" or "Try again".

Having no climbing gear, we could only shimmy up as far as possible, hoping to reach some sturdy branches that would support our weight. None of us has climbed a tree in years! When you're not a kid anymore, it's exhausting work! Plus, making it down again was another challenge.

We realized that without proper tree-climbing gear, there was no way we'd be able to reach the last few containers, which all looked to be upwards of 60-70 feet high. Ron was retreiving a note from one of the last 2 reachable canisters when we were all ready to give up. The last one we could get was not too much higher in the same tree, but another 10 foot climb was pretty daunting. But, Ron was determined to get to it. After several minutes of rest, contemplation, and route planning, he made his way higher into the tree and got the canister.

None of us expected the coordinates to be in that canister. We were ecstatic when he told us they were there! Jackpot! Ron's determination saved the day (night)! After making his way down, it was only another short trek through the forest to the final location of the cache container.
We found it relatively quickly once we arrived, and signed the log book. Then it was just a matter of making our way back through the woods to our cars - another half mile trek back the way we came. In the end we were exhausted, scratched, bruised, and bitten. But successful!

Visit my new track Medford Night Geocaching started in United States, New Jersey, Lindenwold.