|
GC5GFA7
Moose's Challenge: 5 Borders One Day ChallengeType: Mystery | Size: Micro 
| Difficulty: 
| Terrain:  By: MooseTag @ | Hide Date: 11/13/2014 | Status: Available Country: United States | State: Colorado Coordinates: N40° 27.718 W105° 04.818 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0 
This is a challenge cache. Therefore you must meet qualifications to claim this as "found" so please read below to see if you qualify. Congrats barasaur, I verified his FTF and he made it with 6 states! The cache IS located at the coordinates, however to log this cache as found you must meet the qualifications listed below. Keep reading to see if you qualify. On a recent trip, I realized I could complete a fun feat- caching in 5 different states in one day! Here in Colorado we have a large state and it takes time to reach some of the borders, however if you do it just right you can hit many states in one day. For those who have gone geocaching along the East Coast you may have done this challenge without realizing it, seeing as there are many smaller states squished together, making this challenge very easy. This challenge is called the "5 Border" Challenge because I'm only requiring that you cache in 5 different areas. For example, you can count Mexcio, Canda, or different countries in Europe as a "Border" as long as it is 5 different ones in the same day. You can also count 4 states and 1 other country, or just simply do this challenge all within 5 different states. It doesn't matter to me where you complete it, only that you find a different cache in 5 different states or countries, all on the SAME calendar day! To log this cache as found, you must post GC codes for the caches you found, the state/country it was found in, and obviously the date you found them all in. Make sure that you either make your profile public so I can verify that you qualify, or post a screen-shot of some other form of proof. Make sure the screenshot shows all the required information, but I don't care how you present the information otherwise. This should be a fun challenge for you to plan around, and I'd love to hear the stories of your travels and the way you achieved this amazing feat! If you think about it this way; there is only one place in the United States where 4 states meet, and that's right here in the South West tip of Colorado, so therefore at best you can do 4 states at once, and then you must still drive or fly to a 5th area, making this once hefty challenge! As such, the difficulty and terrain ratings are no joke, you will either have to spend a lot of money (or own a private jet) on planes, gas for your car, and of course any food and lodging on the way, so this challenge is not for everybody. It is meant to be a reward for those of you who have completed this journey at some point, or for those of you who, like me, enjoy challenges and will build a day around them! For my example, I knew I wanted to visit some other states before Winter hit. Thankfully I left at the perfect time, because as I'm writing this up not even 2 weeks later, it is freezing outside with snow and ice all over! I started out driving south along I-25, caching my way to where I stayed the first night, in Trinidad. I like to take my time while driving, so instead of rushing to another state like I had originally planned, I opted for sight-seeing and caching along the way, which I'm glad I did because I found plenty of fun caches and wonderful historical places I wouldn't have found otherwise! I'll give you a brief version of my 5-state day but there was plenty of fun in-between, including a wonderfully amazing hike around Capulin Volcano in New Mexico, which I completely recommend to anyone who goes around that area. The views were amazing, the trail is paved so even I didn't struggle with it, and of course there are 4 caches located there! There was a nice Letterbox at the visitor's center, an Earth Cache at the visitor's center, and after paying the $5 to drive to the top, I got 2 more virtual caches along the trail around the rim of the crater! It was my favorite stop along my 3-day trip and I can't wait to go back again! As for the 2nd day of my trip, I started out in Trinidad. There weren't that many caches in the town, and since it was cold and extremely windy, I didn't feel like caching at night so I had caches to do the next day. I woke up, and the first cache of my day was the "Santa Fe Trail Ranch" GC2Z895 while heading south on I-25 to New Mexico. It was an easy grab, and while its not part of the SFGT (Santa Fe Geo-Trail series) I did get plenty of them along the way too! After getting into New Mexico I stopped in Raton to get several caches, including another great Letterbox at the State Information and Visitor's Center, simply called "Welcome To Raton" GC155CH. I stamped a little pad of paper from my hotel that I stayed in the night before, and used the same piece of paper for the other 3 LBH caches I found along the way. I headed down the highway towards Texas, getting many caches along the way, including an FTF on an LBH that I realized no one had gone for in over 3 weeks! I took about a 45 minute detour, more if you count I had already passed it and could have made it there sooner if I had planned on going that way in the first place, and got my first out-of-state FTF, as well as my first FTF for an LBH cache! That one unfortunately didn't have any kind of puzzle or hidden steps associated with it, but it had a stamp, so I signed my name, stamped my pad, and moved on! This one is called "TMH- Brandon 11" GC5EQPZ for those who like collecting letterbox caches. Then after a wonderful time at Capulin Volcano and caching all along New Mexico I finally made it to Texas, where I grabbed one cache in Texline, and met a groundskeeper who worked where that one cache in the town was. I talked with him for a bit, he apparently just started geocaching after not realizing what people were doing there, and he had found the container on the ground one day, left it in his little golf cart that he drove around the grounds in, and people were marking DNFs! Finally someone told him about geocaching, he replaced the cache, and started becoming a geocacher himself! His main problem (and mine at the time) was that the one I found in Texline ("Texline City" GC51D3Z) was the only cache for many miles until you got deeper into Texas. So, I gave him a handful of containers that I had in my car, told him I have more containers than time or spots to place them, and then I expected him to hide some for my next trip out there! He is now on my friends list, and I will keep an eye on his progress and look forward to meeting up with him again sometime next year when I head back to do more caches in Texas, and I hope he's still around and there are more caches to find! After he and I parted ways, I had to drive west back into New Mexcio to catch a different highway North East to Oklahoma. Along the way, there is actually a stretch of highway with a benchmark on it, that is actually part of Texas (although there are no signs) so I parked on the side of the road and grabbed a cache that had been placed on the Texas side for another Texas-based cache, and kept on going. Of course, I had to stop for the Texas-Oklahoma-New Mexico border cache! It actually counts as an Oklahoma cache, and since I simply had to post a photo of myself in front of the marker, I did so and uploaded it for my first Oklahoma cache! "Texhomex" GC9374 is a great little virtual and just like our 4-corners its great to visit a spot where you can be in many states at once! I kept going through Oklahoma, getting many caches on my way back up to Colorado, and it was dark before I even got close to where I was staying the 2nd night (Lamar, CO) so I still stopped and got a bunch of caches, including an Earth Cache and several Virtual caches, all in the dark! I noticed I wasn't far from the Kansas border, so even in the dark I headed over to get my 5th state for the day, and grabbed a quick little traditional in a very very small town, the cache was called "In Memory of Grandma Wedel" GC2X756 and that didn't end my night, but did end the number of states I was able to get that night! I finished up the caches along the highway on the way back to Lamar, including another virtual, several spooky Colorado Spirit Quest caches at night, and a few SFGT caches too. The next day I woke up early, went to the highest point in Kansas so I could get another quick Kansas cache and eventually count that towards other challenges I know exist, and then headed west along different highways and interstates and back up north here to Fort Collins. Overall it was a wonderful trip and after being laid up with a broken or healing back for almost 3 years I definitely needed it! So there you go, that was my 5-state day, lots of travel, lots of caches, lots of memories, and one huge accomplishment for me personally after everything I've been through! I would be happy to go over exact routes and highways to anyone wondering which route I took and I can recommend some caches to get and some to skip so you don't necessarily have to cache in the dark, but I would love to hear about other experiences people have had geocaching across many borders in one day! Remember this cache is OPTIONAL!! You do not have to do this challenge, it is meant to be fun and a new way to adventure while caching, but please don't feel obligated to do so. I have placed it in view of a UPS building to honor those men and women who drive across state lines and travel many miles in different vehicles to deliver all of us mail, sometimes the next day! The difficulty and terrain rating are based on the pre-planning involved, different terrains covered, distance traveled, and of course finding 5 caches in different states/countries within the same day. I hope you enjoy this challenge, good luck, and I look forward to hearing stories about how others have done challenges such as this! Additional Waypoints FN5GFA7 - Final LocationN 40° 27.718 W 105° 04.818 Final
Add cache to watch list Log your visit Picture Gallery
Cache: Box a few feet back from the sidewalk in the bushes, magnetic
GC7W6MA 2018 NoCo Geo-Night Out #11 (7.26 kms SE) GCAEP7J Monday Morning Meetup 311 ? (8.42 kms NE) GC37N4H Watch Out #2 (9.12 kms SE) GC6WZ9J What the Frack #19 (12.43 kms E) GC6WZ97 What the Frack #18 (12.51 kms SE) |
Driving Directions
10 Logs:
|
7 
3 
We went through the city of Denver instead and stopped in Fort Collins for the night.