Within a day after it was placed, a note appeared in the cache log. "Wow! You've really raised the bar on this one Marty," it said. Soon there were several notes from geocachers who indicated that they were interested in tackling Melvin's Multiple Madness. Despite this, the cache sat with nary a find. What was it about this cache that was just a stones throw from the Garden State Parkway and within a 2 hour drive of some 20 million people that deterred seekers? Perhaps it was the "mud and mire" described by one geocacher who made a half-hearted attempt nine months after it was placed. Perhaps it was the desolate terrain that was in full view of travelers on the Garden State Parkway. Perhaps it was the swarms of voracious mosquitoes that can turn the sky black in an instant at the scent of human flesh. Whatever the reason, Melvin's sat there unfound for 11 months.
Melvin's Multiple Madness is a multi-stage cache situated in a broad tidal flat. Melvin's Creek, deep and dark, runs right down the middle of the flat. Melvin's Creek is not the kind of place you would go for a swim, or picnic, or even to fish. It's the domain of a handful of intrepid duck hunters and maybe the occasional crabber. A sea of thick phragmites besieges Melvin's creek and the area is crisscrossed with numerous mud-filled drainage ditches. If that isn't bad enough, much of the flat is submerged at high tide.
To find Melvin's Multiple Madness you have to begin by studying tide charts. You want to time your hunt on the outgoing tide, lest you find yourself racing the water to get to higher ground. Waders and hip boots are the favored attire of most who attempt the cache, as the mud can suck you in up to your waist if you aren't careful.
The first real attempt at Melvin's Multiple Madness was made by Joelsd, followed a few months later by Mxyzptlk and Etoast66, former co-workers of mine. The latter pair was turned back by a missing first stage. The stages are tied down so they don't float away, but this one was no match for the power of the tides.
Undaunted, Mxyzptlk and Etoast66 decided to try again a week later. The Artful Dodger and I joined them for their second attempt, which was planned for the 7:30 a.m. low tide. Arriving bleary-eyed at the site, we forced our way through the thick phragmites to the first stage and found it - and two sets of coordinates. Apparently Marty decided to toss in fake coordinates for each stage to make things a bit more difficult, as if it needed that.
We chose to split up to track down each stage and we used walkie-talkies to keep in touch. If one pair found a dead end, they would join the other in their search. Soon our GPSrs were pointing to the other side of Melvin's Creek. Marty wouldn't make us cross that, would he? Well he did.
We quickly ruled out wading the creek and after a quick groupthink, we decided to cross on the Garden State Parkway bridge, half-mile distance. After a brief encounter with a state trooper we were back in the muck finding the third stage.
Stage 3 pointed our GPSrs to a hill in the distance. As we approached, we noticed a lonely figure standing on it watching our progress. He introduced himself as Marty, the mad genius behind the cache. He looked on as we searched for the final stage, which took us quite a while thanks to the dense thorn bushes dotting ground zero. We were thankful that it was January and we weren't wearing shorts.
Eventually we had the cache in hand. Melvin's Multiple Madness was ours! We celebrated, signed in, made our trades and posed for photos. Marty was kind enough to give us a ride back to our cars, so we forgave him for this cache.
In the two years since our FTF Melvin's has been found by a handful of groups. It's considered by many locals the ultimate test of their mettle. It's often said that you can tell a lot about the quality of a cache by the length of the logs. Judging from the logs for this cache, this is one heck of a cache hunt. Marty621 certainly did raise the bar with Melvin's Multiple Madness and local geocachers have been trying to reach it ever since.