In caching there is a Jasmer Challenge where one is to find a geocache placed in every month since May 2000.
The Jasmer Challenge gets it’s name after a cacher by the name of jasmerb. He came up with the idea in December 2008 and created the first Jasmer challenge
Many cachers have looked at this challenge and tried to complete with many finding problems along the way.
Every year I try and challenge myself with what I want to accomplish for the next year as far as geocaching goes. I decided last December I would try and complete the Jasmer Challenge. What I didn’t know is what lengths I would I have to go to find a cache in verey month for 15+ years. The big problem is the first 20 months of caching. Many of the original caches are no longer around and one has to travel great distances to find a cache placed in the needed moth.
If you live in North America you don’t have to travel that far compared to elsewhere in the world as they have to come to North America to complete the challenge.
Out of the 20 months I needed 10 months. I found a great list of the oldest caches and used it to help me along the way.
What I didn’t know is exactly how far I would have to drive this year. My first trip of the challenge took me to Alberta where I would get Alberta’s first geocache Strathcona Wilderness 1. I would also get one other cache in Alberta before returning back home.
The net trip would require a trip to Nephi, Utah to get Potters Pond. This required a drive to almost 10,000 feet then a hike up a mountain that took 40 minutes. Getting this cache was very rewarding as ALL 5 log books were in the cache and one could look back for 15 years. The area the cache was in was amazing as well.
There was the trip in September a few weeks back that had me visit the Portland Area to get GC16, GC17 and GC142. GC16 and GC17 that required good hikes to get these.
After this I returned home and I was left with 2 to get and the closest ones to me were in Northern California.
I left for northern California on October 1st headed for Klamath Falls and stayed the night. That night I did several Virtual caches in the area.
In the morning I headed south into California and a cache called Vitreous. The drive in was something else as my OSM maps was lacking a forestry road I needed and had me do a 36 km detour. Looking at my GPS and coming upon a road that looked like it might take me directly there I decided to try it. Sure enough it was only a few kilometers to the cache along this road.
Getting to this cache and the short walk in is why I love doing this. It was an amazing area. I located the cache and it was placed in December 2000 and there was only 1 logbook and it was the original one. Not many people (140) have been here since it was placed.
From here it was off to Gilroy California where I would visit friends for the weekend.
Leaving Gilroy I head up and over to Yuba City and get GC5F which is just a plain old stop sign cache, nothing special about it other than it fills a spot in my calendar for the month.
From here is was point the car north and head home.
I had completed what I set out to do this trip.
Upon arriving home I had one more cache to get to complete this challenge. While I had now found the oldest caches I needed I had to find a cache that was placed in October 2015.
That was soon done.
Along the way I have traveled (cruised) around the world and visited some amazing places. I have met some amazing people. I have set a record that I am certain that I share with no other cacher and that is finding a cache on the road as far as you can drive in Canada outside of Inuvik NWT and the farthest you can drive in South America in Ushuaia Argentina a distance of 14,847 km apart.