SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS said:
gollum,
"the possibility", is the hunt.
For you, maybe. To me, the possibility makes the hunt worthwhile. The hunt is the act of getting my a$$ up at three AM to start the 175 mile drive every week. 30-40 degrees when I get there at about 6AM, and 125 degrees four hours later! The hunt is seeing what looks like a monument rock 800 feet above my trail up a steep sloped ridgeline. I have to climb over boulders, cactus, loose crap slipping out from under my feet to get to it.
If I find out after an hour of climbing that the monument is man made, mark it on the GPS, take pictures, and look around for others. When I get back home, I have to start researching whether there are any written accounts about caches, mines, treasure stories in that area that would go with the monuments found.
To me, the hunt sucks (kind of). If it weren't for the possible payoff at the end, I wouldn't do it. Some people would do all that chasing around for the history alone. Not me.
To me, an adventure is in parts:
1. Initial Hunt/Story/Find
2. Research
3. Hunt
4. Payola
Don't get me wrong. If I think there is some validity to a story, and go through all the motions, and get there only to find somebody was already there before me, I wouldn't be disappointed. If I find a monument, and research shows that somebody already picked the cache clean, I would stop there and move on to the next one.
That's my two cents-Mike