0001 EST SMX

The 0001 EST SMX geocache (GC5X5T5) was placed on 28 February 2015 by sherpahebbes in the hedgerow country east of Saint-Maixent-l'École, in the Deux-Sèvres, France. It is a small box at the foot of a hedge, nothing spectacular - except its number: 0001 opened a series that would end up counting 6,400. The geocoin takes up the profile picture of sherpahebbes and works into it dots standing for the thousands of geocaches on a map.

Its author, a soldier who came to geocaching in 2012, turned this corner of Poitou into a geocaching playground all by himself. Episode I in 2015, Episode II in 2016, plus the trails laid around them since 2012: about 6,400 boxes within a radius of twenty-five kilometres, spaced by the regulation 161 metres along 1,200 kilometres of paths, and more than 1,300 euros of containers bought out of his own pocket, as he told France Bleu in 2019. The cache description, for that matter, has less to do with description than with logistics: IGN maps to load for offline use, GPX files sorted according to whether you travel by car, off-road vehicle, bike or on foot, a recommended season from late September to April, long gloves compulsory against brambles and nettles. This "Sherpaland" drew Belgian, Czech and Scandinavian teams come to beat their twenty-four-hour record; in May 2017 the owner himself wrapped up 1,000 caches in 21 hours 5 minutes, over 255 kilometres.

The end came quickly. In September 2019 he warned on his listings that he no longer lived in Saint-Maixent, while refusing to archive them. Geocaching HQ then asked him to have his caches adopted or to take them out of the field; for want of an answer, the whole trail was archived in November 2019 and the account closed — the listing now carries nothing but a "[DELETED_USER]".