7 REALMS OF DARKNESS!
My favorite geocache

With over 2,600 found caches to-date this one leaped into first place on my personal favorites list Just a few weeks ago.  That's my partner Skagway071 (Sue Brooks) front left above with GOC+me (Leslie Cornett being the '+me' of that duo) front center and Mrs. Lighthouse Nut (Diane Niehoff) front right.  Back, from left are GOC (Greg Cornett) and yours truly, Skagway330.

Real names are in parentheses and the funny sounding thingys like "Skagway" are the names we are known by in geocaching circles.  Bill Niehoff, the other half of the Lighhouse Nuts, took the picture.

You notice, of course, the absolute blackness surrounding us.  That's because this was taken well after dark, deep in the woods, illuminated only by our personal flashlights at the site of this geocache.  The cache container was an ammo can lurking behind the large, fallen tree trunk we are sitting upon and standing behind.

Here's how I described our experience in my log on this cache site:

"WOW! My first night caching experience and it was a dandy. It is hard to imagine the work it took to create and install this masterpiece. Thanks also to GOC+me and Mr. Lighthouse Nut for lending their experience to our expedition of six. Without them I would not have even considered attempting this hide. Did I say WOW! Two hours and 33 minutes of stumbling through the woods as darkness smothered us, of great relief when that next little reflector revealed itself, of great disappointment when wandering into a very diabolical dead end.

Up hills and down hills and over logs and tip-toeing, amazingly, with dry feet across small streams or wondering if this was doable, the subconscious wondering if we could beat the park closure deadline and the conscious wondering what would happen if we didn't, and finally, WOW, that marvelous, funny, and oh so deeply appreciated smiley on the log. Hallelujah!

As the tingles of victory wore off, now what? Ahhhh, there's the first orange reflector, an essential find to lead us out. And then the second, and third, then--nothing. Flashlights blazed through the woods like spotlights on a Hollywood opening night. We knew there was a problem with disappearing orange reflectors. I stood there silently regarding that as a felony of the first degree. Thankfully, a combination of GOC+me and Lighthouse Nuts' experience, and tracking technology, saved the day. WOW!

I hoped my partner Skagway071 really did sign the log as I sagged against a tree fearing my body might choose at that minute to discover how old it was. Bouquets Kelinore! Bushels of them."

In that final sentence I threw a bouquet to Kelinore, the cache creator.

For our 2 hours and 33 minutes of hiking in the dark over 2 and a half miles of sometimes trail and sometimes not we must sign the container's log and our reward is simply a tiny smiley face in our on-line record of caches found plus, of course, a huge sense of accomplishment. 

The "smiley on the log" which evoked my "Hallelujah" above was, in fact, a human-sized smiley shaped face on the downed log created with the same reflectors which guided us to it's location.  When Greg's powerful flashlight beam struck the "Smiley" in the coal-dark woods, we newbies collectively gasped that prayer of relief.

Greg, Leslie and Bill had experienced this exulted punishment before.  Sue, Diane and I were undergoing that night's initiation.