The cache has been archived.

Archiving at the request of the c/o

Did this with some other cachers. Really took a lot of walking but we got there in the end and my feet have now almost forgiven me. Thanks

I had originally found this on 7th April 2009 after being part of the team that tried to get the FTF on this cache a few days previously (an expedition that took quite a few hours and ended up with me visiting A&E to have my head glued back together after an encounter with the Fence of Doom.

Back in those days I didn't bother with Opencaches, but that has now changed. Didn't like the idea of retrospective logging here until I had revisited, so thought it was time to return. A visit a few months ago failed to find it back I came back today and had more success.

TFTC 

With the resurrection of the opencaching page I was looking for cross-listed caches I hadn't logged here yet. This is one of them.

Done it with a large crowd of people and had to come back to finish it off. TFTC

I've maintained the cache - added more glowsticks - and replaced markers on about 1/3 of the route, this being the section where losses had been reported. In the event, only one was missing, but some were much harder to find than previously due to new growth.  I'm reasonably confident that the cache can now be completed, though I intend to replace the remaining 2/3 of the markers very soon as they have definitely degraded and are less visible than they used to be.

Found with the EA GeoMob over a night and a day in order to find the associated TC (which proved easy to find, though not in the way it should have been).

I arrived late, due to work commitments and by the time I met up with the other Mobbers they had been wandering in circles for a good hour or so. Luckily their circles had either taken them not far from where they parked, or all the way round and back again. Either way, by the time I parked up, they were all of 600 metres away from me.

It felt to be good to be part of a Mob again - it has been some time since I have been caching in a Mob - and soon I was wandering around in circles too. By the time I joined, one missing tag had already been missed, and another picked up with the possibility of another missing inbetween also (which was later worked out to have been the case). We carried on until we reached another missing tag. At this point there was no further tag in evidence to carry on, so we stopped for a very tasty beer break.

It was such a mild night, that stopping in the middle of the woods at this time of year was not at all chilly. I think the beer dulled our brains, because we stopped to PAF at this stage. As Rachael later commented, when you have a F to PA it is too easy to do so. The answer to the puzzle was so evident, and had we stopped to think about where we had been, where to go was staring us in the face. But rather than plotting where we had been, we were plotting to kill Roderick for his not answering our text.

We decided that we would leave the cache until the next day, and went off for a quick trip to Heaven instead. (Satan would have to wait for tomorrow...)

Despite the saying, tomorrow did come (and at the time of writing is aka yesterday) and emboldened by reading previous logs we felt we should be able to finish in the daylight. Back at the same parking spot as the night before, we were receiving texts from Roderick for the tags we had missed. It would be true to say we were ambivalent about this, as we had already worked out roughly what they must have been, and also roughly what we had yet to find. Indeed we had plotted every single tag we felt the Agent of Darkness...Satan himself had planted - and confirmed what we had suspected the night before (if only the plot had thickened).

We could now see how others may well have abbreviated their trek, and could see that had we not been "cache-blind" we could have easily done similarly. Then again, it would not have been anywhere near as fun or memorable experience! We wouldn't have been able to enjoy the Ditches of Death, the Rhododendra of Ruination, and the Fearsome Fence of Finality. We didn't really to find any of these, but I would urge any other cacher to seek them out. Pain is so close to pleasure, and all that...

I am really glad we found this cache at both night and in daylight. The woods are completely different beasts, and the beauty of them is not realised until visited in daylight. In fact, they are surprisingly open, and it becomes clear just how foolish some route choices were the night before. As such, we enjoyed a nice and easy stroll to a location which we believed was the only place the cache could be.

It wasn't.

We ought to know, because we spent a good hour searching there. Just as we were beginning to doubt ourselves, we stopped for lunch/afternoon tea. This was clearly a big mistake - just as stopping for beer the night before. Once stopped, the urge to PAF is hard to resist. Stupidly, the solution to our problem was mentioned only moments before Mark was phoning Roderick. So once again something we had worked out for ourselves was confirmed by the cache owner, and literally within seconds we had what he had not been looking for, which lead us to what we were looking for - and somewhat unsurprisingly, had us walking around in circles again.

At GZ, we found ourselves at yet another tag - but this time could see where we needed to be looking, and Shirley soon had a nice big ammo can in her hands. 

We thoroughly enjoyed these caches (OC and TC) in both the moonlight and the daylight, and were all in awe of how much thought and effort must have gone into the planning and execution. 

Thanks for an incredibly entertaining time.  I LOVED your cache! TFTC!!

Logging this on 25/08/2009 after having found it on 05/04/2009, soon after it was published on Groundspeak.

Our team of 3 (agrajag, Mr. Dewdrop and myself) set off at 21:15 on a cold but clear and dry night. The forest was bathed in moonlight, but even so it was very dark indeed among the trees. We found the first waypoint and started on our quest.

As much as practical we tried to use the map to minimise the bush-whacking required. To a considerable extent we were successful, though it didn't prevent some very intimate acquaintance with the undergrowth on one extremely difficult section .

And then we had a "eureka" moment that enabled us to find a short cut. However, though we had more or less correctly worked out what to expect, and it was a necessary precursor to solving the puzzle, it was incomplete and we fell short of the full and final solution.

We sat down with our backs to a tree and tried to work it out. We had only one idea, but we were far from sure about it, and if it was wrong it would have involved more walking and left us as baffled as before.

So we sent a text message to the cache owner. Notwithstanding that it was now 02:00, the response came back as quick as a flash. Our one idea was wrong, but Roderick nudged us in the right direction and we already had the necessary numbers to back this up. One more trek across the forest brought us to what we believed to be ground zero, and we started searching. And after 4 or 5 minutes, with much relief, we had the cache in our hands - it would have been a long trek for a DNF.

While we were reasonably pleased with what we had managed to work out for ourselves, I think it is safe to say that without the "nudge" from Roderick we would not have made that final leap of imagination.

Since we found the cache it has been slightly reworked, and the clues have been "beefed up" - hopefully the balance between difficulty and impossibility is now just right .

So many thanks for a very ingeniously worked out cache, and for being on hand at that unsociable hour .

Rgds, Andy

Logging find co-listed with gc.com.

Organiser of a team of 7 who made the FTF.  Only 5 members of the team made it out unscathed with one being hospitalised with a cut to the head obtained from "the fence of doom".  Walked for six hours and found all of the waypoints before giving up and having to ask the owner for a hint the next day.  Armed with the additional information that had been given to the foolhardy team, the find turned out to be easier than the trek.  An enjoyable night cache which involved walking 12 miles.  I understand that the solution has been enhanced subsequently.

 Tips for searchers:

1. Don't attempt it alone

2. Be prepared for a long walk

3. Watch out for ditches, rotten trees and other hazards

4. Be careful at the fence of doom

5. Bring a powerful torch and lots of batteries

6. Accept defeat and phone the owner

TFTC