Geocaching Update: Double FTF

In my last geocaching update, I talked about enjoying seeing particular statistics change. Here are a couple of statistics I just got to change:

I described the "First to Find" (FTF) side game in a post from last June on the occasion of my third FTF. (It's an unofficial statistic about who finds a cache first after it's been published.) The other day, I received an alert a few miles away from where I was, so I drove over there. It required clambering down a hill and jumping over a small stream.

Once I was there, however, the cache wasn't too hard to find. It's actually in this picture.

It looks like the second finder showed up 25 minutes later. On my way there, however, I got an alert for a second hide less than a mile away. This was not a coincidence -- they were both hidden by the same user. It would have been unlikely for it to be otherwise -- these were only the 4th and 5th caches hidden in the DC area in 2017.

So I rushed off to the next cache. It was a little trickier, but I persisted. The guy 25 minutes behind me on the first walked to the second, and failed to find it an hour after I claimed the FTF. I didn't think to take a picture there.

So, two FTFs in one day, and my fifth and sixth overall.

What other statistics have I updated since my last post?

• I am up to 227 caches found overall.
• 2016 was my most productive caching year, with 134 total finds.
• I have now found caches hidden in 125 months, which keeps pace, as the total number of months geocaching has been around ticks up to 201.