Recently I’ve been listening to the Geocaching podcasts “The Geocaching Podcast” and “Podcacher”. These are American podcasts where the presenters debate caching issues, chat about their adventures, take calls from listeners, review hardware, etc. quite often a magic little word is mentioned “Powertrail”…
A “Powertrail” is a trail of caches that are separated on, or just over 528m (The minimum distance between two caches) so the idea is that it’s all about the numbers and by doing these trails you can rack up a massive find count. They are frowned upon by some cachers though as just a way of boosting numbers. Quite often the hides are not very exciting and the containers get boring after a while. The current record stands at just over 600 finds in one day!
Although I enjoy the walks and exercise that Geocaching provides, I was intregued by the concept. I tried googling for UK powertrails but didn’t find anything. However whilst looking for some good locations to go camping (Where there are lots of caches around) I stumbled on the closest thing I’ve found so far….
It’s near Kings Heanton and the Trails called “Way down West”. It consists of 109 trails along a 20mile walk. That’s about 0.18miles between caches. And to make it even better there are two other big trails ‘Below the Belt’ (29 caches) and ‘The Landkey Loop’ (28 caches) very close by. Like I said it’s not about the numbers, but could you resist an area with nearly 170 caches right next to each other! Now that I’ve got the tent I can go anywhere (Well, within reason! 
)
I’ll post them here if I stumble across anymore nearly-powertrails!
Temptation!
September 30, 2010 at 10:37 am
I’m not into caching for the numbers either but here are a couple of ‘near’ power trails that I think are welll worth doing:
The Chiltern Hundred by drsolly – 109 caches plus a very good bonus (you need to find at least 100 caches to get the bonus). Its an excellent hike through the beautiful Chiltern Hills. There are three separate loops which can be done individually or in one go if you feel energetic! I did it with Kevanjue and Geotrowel in 2 visits.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=7c2b85fb-072b-4d3e-aa80-32225a9592a6
The UK Mega Series 1 and 2 by Lord of the Cachers – 150 odd caches in two trails. I did Series 2 (57 caches – again with Kevanjue and Geotrowel in one go) We found this was a bit more of a slog than drsollys series and the scenery wasn’t quite as good but still well worth the effort. I’ve not done series 1 so I can’t comment on that.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=04f35d5a-067f-4762-9b23-e2612f94640a
Andy
PS Cass, I told you the chance to delve further into your site at work today would be too much of a temptation to resist!!
December 5, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Hi Cass. A great site you have. I really enjoy reading your adventures. Impressed about your achievements. I think the minimum distance between caches on a Powertrail is 0.1 US mile, 528 feet, which is about 161 m. This makes Powercaching even more effective. Me, Im a cosy-cacher, taking it easy and enjoying the surroundings and the adventure, so I havn´t tried this (yet). Regards.