I need statistics, stat!

Geocaching is a great hobby/sport/game that people get involved in for many reasons. I love doing it because it gets me out of the house (away from tv and addictive computer games, such as Civilization or Simcity). Plus, I've seen lots of great new places and met a whole new group of people who are interested in getting out.

Keeping that in mind, many people like to keep track of the statistics involved. Why? "It's not about the numbers," some will say. It's not. I don't go geocaching to get more numbers, necessarily- although the number of finds you have is somewhat of an accomplishment. I think in that sense, many people like keeping track of what they've managed to achieve. It's a lot of fun, but there can be quite a bit of investment. Geocaching can take up a lot of time and energy. Keeping track of the statistics, in this sense, I think is somewhat like hanging an award on a wall. The stats are really only useful at the personal level (except maybe first-to-finds). It is kind of interesting, however, to look at maps to see where a geocacher stays... or even to see the terrain ratings to find out what type of caches they do.

I think it's also neat to look at the terrain/difficulty combinations. Going back on the idea of achievement, trying to fill out that entire chart sets a very ambitious goal- physically (for the 5-star terrain) and mentally (oy vey- the puzzles).

As you can see from my stats on the left, I cache mostly in southern New Mexico. I'd like to expand this area to include all 33 counties in the state, primarily because of the 2007 New Mexico Challenge (and the upcoming 2008 NM Challenge, where there will be a new cache at each state park).

I know not everyone is interested in statistics. I can see. I try not spend too much time looking over them. It's a lot more fun to be out there hiking up a mountain and getting scratched up by vegetation (keeping in mind I live in New Mexico, where almost every cache has the "thorns" attribute), but sometimes it's nice just to take a break and see what all I've done so I can plan ahead for what I'll do in the future.