MD Chocolate Trail

[BettyBronco]

Hello everyone, my husband and I started the sport about 2 weeks ago. We found the Maryland Chocolate Trail (MDCT) but its from 2019. Does anyone know if the trail is still active in 2021? Thanks.

[bneeriemer]

I found a post about it being active in 2020. Can't hurt to do the trail and submit the passport.
Worse case, they've issued all of the prize path tags. If so, you still had fun.

[Suttymonks]

I typically don't comment or get involved with the forums but after reading this post, I wanted to save you some time and give you info so you can decide for yourselves whether or not to take this on as a project to work on.
We were the ones that had posted most recently in the Original Chocolate Trail Thread here on the forums. https://www.mdgps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9995
We too had questions back in March of last year... We were working on this during our 2020 (Washed-Out) CAM run.

One of the forum postings stated that this was"15 caches spread through the state but mostly centralized it requires finding all 15 caches to qualify for a uniquely designed pathtag." There are 16 caches listed on the passport. There are 15 caches on the top 3 bookmark lists...
4 have been archived (which leaves only 12):
1.GC86CNG -- Archived 02/21/20
2. GC82PBO -- Archived and then Replaced with GC8CYHB -- 07/10/20 and Archived
3. GC82PBR -- Archived 06/13/20
4. GC82PAT -- Archived 08/24/20

Now that some time has passed, if WE were to start again (which would be great), our questions would be:
1. If you find all the remaining hides, you only have 12. I don't know that will qualify as finishing but it's been a while since some were taken down (and the world went a little crazy) so fairly, I don't know if they will go back up.
2. The hide in Fells Point was originally a multi and the GC code on the passport does not match the one online but we found the cache and have the code word -- are we "good to go" for this one (will the "re-hide" substitution count)? And the re-hide is now also archived...
3. Lastly, are there any pathtags even left? We were trying to count how many usernames had signed the logbooks (about 70 logs on each cache page currently) as we went but we weren't sure how many tags were ordered...

I did try to get some answers by posting to the forum as well as messaging and emailing the MDCT profile through geocaching.com but got no replies. I know that everyone did the best job they could for the last year or so given limitations and understand completely that we were all trying hard. There is zero ill-will here. I would love some guidance going forward so we can decide to treat these hides are regular geocaches or as an actual trail. I am also willing to put out there that I am willing to help if that's what's needed.

Hope this gives you some insight about where to set your geo-goals next. We did have a lovely time on the trail with the plan on each of us buying ONE piece at each store and comparing as we went. Yeah, that lasted all of ONE STORE. LOL. Groundspeak needs a new cache attribute: "Not Diabetic Friendly". Have a great rest of your week.

[hopupoffme]

Hey guys! I have some answers to the MDCT questions on this thread!
Thanks for being the kick in the butt I needed to update things.

1) Are there any pathtags left? YES, YES, YES!! Get out there and find them!!
2) How many active MDCT caches are there? 11 (as of 4/15/21)
3) How many do I have to find to earn the pathtag? 10 (as of 4/15/21)

Links:
Welcome to the Maryland Chocolate Trail: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pJM ... sp=sharing
List of all MDCT Caches: https://coord.info/BM6E7KG
Passport (as of 4/15/21): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DlJ1KN ... sp=sharing

[Suttymonks]

Wow! That was super fast and extremely clear and helpful! Thank you so much for responding with kindness. We need a lot of that -- always.
Expect a completed passport coming your way very shortly!
Hope to run into you soon -- Suttymonks

[BettyBronco]

Thanks everyone, we are looking forward to starting the trail next weekend.