This Month:

• Garden State Dark Way:Cachers Experience "Night Sweats" By Mark Clemens aka avroair
• Hunting the Urban Micro: The Misadventures of Billy Bob in the City By Aaron Grimes aka kingcach
• My Grand Discovery: By Mike Landis, aka victorymike

While attending the Heal the Hilltop CITO event on May 1st, 2004 with Bldebabe and Serg312, we discussed rugged caches we crack together as a group. I brought up Night Sweats , a cache designed specifically for finding at night, that was tops on my to-do list. This puzzle cache appeared in late November 2003 and intrigued me enough to try it solo in early December. "While it can be a wet area, this cache can be found without getting your sneakers wet (so if you're swimming or using a canoe - you're in the wrong spot!)." I arrived totally unprepared and failed miserably to reach even the starting point. The cache was rated a difficulty 1 1/2, 2 terrain; not too hard, I reasoned, but that was a big mistake to make.

To grasp the cache, you have to know the owner, Hartclimbs, whom I have now met on a couple of occasions. He is one of those dauntless and experienced cachers who loves the outdoors and rarely considers going after caches below a 3 in difficulty. A HartClimbs cache appears easy, but the evil genius places it with a twist that snares suspecting newcomers like I was back in December. None are placed in a mean way, but rather they are well thought out and require thinking outside the box to solve.

The decision was made that Night Sweats would be the cache we would do together. That evening I posted a feeler in the Northeast forums, looking for other conscripts to draft into our group. The post was well received, and in a flurry of e-mail, two dates were chosen: Wednesday, May 12th, or Thursday, May 13th. The weather would be the determining factor. I think the idea appealed to many cachers who would pass on a solo night cache but would be up to completing it as a group. With the date approaching, Wednesday was chosen and a meeting time of 8 p.m. selected.

Night Sweats is situated next to busy Route 24 in Chatham. The area is an abandoned freeway overpass with unfinished dirt off-ramps. Now considered a watershed area, the site is undeveloped and left for hiking, off-roading and the I got worried and thought to myself, "What if it takes five minutes to find? I hope people have fun. I dragged them all out here. Maybe this will be too easy and lame." odd dumping of cars. HartClimbs proclaims, "This place can be creepy in the daytime. At night ... well, you be the judge." On a dry day, the area is muddy. After a shower, it is a floodplain.

Wednesday, May 12th, I left work a little early and drove home to gather my supplies for the evening: two flashlights, GPSr, topographic maps, protein bars, bug repellant, spare batteries, sunglasses (what was I thinking?), canteen, water bottle, printout of cache page with decrypted hint, pens, spare GPSr, cap, poncho, boots, walking stick and other unnecessary accessories. If we didn't find it, it wouldn't be because I came unprepared.

I drove onto the Garden State Parkway to stop-and-go traffic, pulled off and made my way the 15 miles through the back streets of East Orange and Irvington to the parking coordinates. The parking area is at the end of a cul-de-sac of a quiet residential neighborhood, and I could already see four figures clad in standard cache attire. The early crew, dhenning25, Quoddy, TeamDEMP, and The Frantic Cachers were here to grab the nearby multistage cache, Unfinished Business (also a well-placed HartClimbs product). Each sported mud and water telltale signs they had visited the final cache.

We waited for darkness, and one by one other cachers showed up: newcomers Batonka and ergo46, the legendary StayFloopy, with over 2,500 finds, haggaeus, who uses New Jersey's mass transit only to cache, and the accomplished Kar of Team Shibby. They're a group with nearly 4,000 finds between them. Cache owner and onlooker HartClimbs appeared in shorts and T-shirt and instructed us to saddle up and move to the highway overpass, where hopefully the bugs were fewer. I dumped everything out of my backpack except my flashlight and headed into the woods.

It was now dark, and the trail was muddy and waterlogged in some places. We waited on the bridge and then at the starting coordinates for a couple of latecomers: Bldebabe, Lunaruby, friend Kathy and Serg312. Fifteen cachers in all! I got worried and thought to myself, "What if it takes five minutes to find? I hope people have fun. I dragged them all out here. Maybe this will be too easy and lame." I needn't have worried.

At the starting location, we shined our flashlights in a 360-degree sweep (blinding each other) and spotted four I was too tired to really check for ticks. Lucky for me, not even they dared to venture into that forsaken place. reflectorized trails heading off in various directions. I picked one and led the charge and was soon rewarded with a second reflector and a third. Then the trail vanished. Nothing. No reflectors. I swept the area, and the two cachers who had been following me fled to another trail. Determined, I continued to sweep the area. Nothing. I returned to the starting location, where HartClimbs was grinning: "Did I mention I laid some decoy markers?" I set off on another path.

After chasing a couple more decoys, I followed a promising trail of reflectors to a log and began to thoroughly search the area with Kar of Team Shibby. I was leaning against a tree when Kar warned me that poison ivy covered the trunks here. Jumping back, I continued with a more subdued search and settled in for a long night. This wasn't going to be a quick grab after all.

Note: When I arrive at a daytime cache site during the day, I can usually scan the area and identify probable hiding spots. My "cache sense" kicks in and a pile of rocks or logs becomes suspicious. During a night cache such as this, everywhere is a potential spot until you have shined your flashlight directly at it. This makes the cache both harder to find and more rewarding.

I re-read the cache page (and the hints), and, armed with dhenning on my left flank and StayFloopy on my right, I I then managed to lose my left boot in a mudhole and my right boot into another pool of water. tried a reflector trail that everyone else seemed to have abandoned. We had found four consecutive reflectors (a good sign), but were missing the next. I decided on a different route and then got blinded by StayFloopy's million-bulb flashlight. My night vision was gone, and, for something like 163 seconds, I stood still, dazed. As I regained my senses, I noticed Quoddy suspiciously crouched by a tree root! Ha! He must have found it! My heart raced, but as I bounded over to greet him, my left foot went straight into a pool of water.

So much for the cache page that read "This cache can be found without getting your sneakers wet (so if you're swimming or using a canoe - you're in the wrong spot!)." Quoddy looked up and shook his head, saying, "No luck, but dhenning and a couple of others have already found it." What? I was with dhenning only a couple of minutes before. How could he have found it, signed the log and left it in such short order?!? I retraced my steps, going around the pool with my bootprint in the middle, and continued my search for reflectors the wrong way of this treacherous terrain.

After a minute, I made my way over to Serg312 and Quoddy, who muttered something about how they may never complete the cache. They were not very good liars; the cache was close! I then managed to lose my left boot in a mudhole and my right boot into another pool of water. Serg312 laughed and said, "If it is any consolation, everyone who has signed the log looks like that." I didn't believe him, but thanked him for the words of encouragement as he left this vile place.

I placed my flashlight on the ground and retrieved my boot. There it was! My flashlight was shining directly at what the cache page described: "the three closely spaced reflectors and the cache hidden within a foot." The cache page was right after all. I made my way over with Kar and we found the hidden ammo can. We signed I was leaning against a tree when Kar warned me that poison ivy covered the trunks here. Jumping back, I continued with a more subdued search and settled in for a long night. the log in the dark to keep our position secret, rehid the can, and headed triumphantly out of this wicked area. I was 11th of 15 to find the cache.

Back at the starting location, a circle had formed. HartClimbs congratulated me and said, "See, it wasn't all that bad. A relatively easy find." "Yeah," I lied. "Easy, relative to what?" I thought. As I joined the victory circle, I could see from the light thrown by StayFloopy's flashlight that my right boot was caked with mud and my left leg was wet to the knee. But, I was happy to complete the cache.

By 9:50 p.m., everyone had found the cache, so we made our way back to the parking area. Some of the group left for the comforts of home, while the rest of us retired to a pub in Clifton, N.J., for beer and wings. We discussed the night, and all agreed that it was an awesome experience and wished it had been a "real" event. As we ate, we discovered that Haggaeus had disappeared, and I found out later he had misinterpreted the waitress's directions to the nearest ATM, "Turn left and walk one block." In fact, he had turned right and hiked a mile to one! He returned an hour later just as we were about to leave.

I arrived home at 3:38 a.m. and logged my find at 4:02 a.m. I was too tired to really check for ticks. Lucky for me, not even they dared to venture into that forsaken place. Despite the repellant, I found about a dozen mosquito bites on my arms and back, but it was a small price to pay for such a fun and eventful evening.