The Texas Challenge is intended to be a friendly competition between the regions of Texas with geocachers of all skill and athletic levels participating. The Texas Geocaching Association facilitates the the Texas Challenge, while, each year, a region is designated to host the Texas Challenge in their region.

All teams must name a Team Captain to be their representative in advance of the Texas Challenge weekend. Every team needs to name their team captains by January 1, 2012. If any one of the Out-of-State participants would like to volunteer for team captain of the Out-of-State team, please send us an email to tc2012@texasgeocaching.com as soon as you can.

One hour before the competition, all team captions will receive:

Team captains will be responsible for the distribution of the competition cache coordinates to their team members in the hour right before the challenge. It is highly recommend that each team bring their own laptop(s) (preferably w/ high speed USB ports) with the associated software needed to upload the GPX files into the GPS devices of each team member. Without a laptop, you will need to enter all the coordinates by hand into the GPS devices.

Before the competition begins, roll call will ensure that no participating geocacher has left the starting area. During roll call, score cards will be given to the participants.

During and after roll call, no participants may leave the general area until the competition actually begins. Once the competition begins, teams will be given four hours to search for as many caches as possible.

Each individual geocacher will have a score card that must remain with that geocacher for the entire competition. Participants will punch their scorecard with the punches found at the given cache coordinates. Score cards must be turned in by the end of the 4 hour time limit at the predetermined and labeled locations. Any late score cards will count as zero points.

Individual Scores:

Dedicated Team Caches (usually extremely evil):

The hosting region will have the option to hide dedicated team caches. These caches are usually of a very evil difficulty. Each competing team will have their own Dedicated Team Caches to find. In order for a team to receive points for finding a Dedicated Team Cache, the participant that found it must return the cache with their score card at the end of the competition.

The number of team caches will be an even multiple of the teams participating. A unique number will be assigned to each of the dedicated team caches. The night before the challenge, there will be a random drawing, assigning these numbers to a particular regional team. No one will know which regional team is going after a particular cache until this random drawing. There will be six of these evil hides per regional team.

Regional Participation:

There are six potential regional teams from Texas competing in the Texas Challenge.

Since, each year, a particular region hosts the Texas Challenge, certain individuals from the regional team will not be allowed to participate with or assist their region's competing team. These individuals include anyone with any inside knowledge that could benefit their team, especially anyone involved in the hiding of challenge geocaches or the planning of the challenge portion of the event.

Regional teams can be comprised of geocachers from across the state, not just geocachers from within a particular region. It is up to the participant, not the team, to pick the team they will be competing with. Remember, the Texas Challenge is a fun and “open” competition for geocachers of all skill levels. This rule is to prevent teams from "cherry-picking" (choosing the best) players to participate on their team.

Team Captains will have a knowledge of registrants for their teams through the Registration page. Captains may contact registrants for team-specific strategy. If you feel a Team Captain has contacted you in an inappropriate or harassing way, email us at tc2012@texasgeocaching.com.

Out-of-State Participation:

Anyone from outside the State of Texas is welcome to attend and participate in the Texas Challenge. If more than ten Out-of-State participants are from a specific geographical location, they are welcome to participate as a designated team representing their geographical location. For example, the Oklahoma geocachers could form an Oklahoma team, if there are 10 or more participants from Oklahoma. Remember, teams must accept any geocacher that chooses to play for them.

If there is not a minimum of ten Out-of-State participants from a specific region, but there are more than ten Out-of-State participants overall, then they will participate as the Out-of-State team. If there are less than ten Out-of-State participants total, then the Out-of-State participants will either join a Texas regional team or just compete as individuals.

In the event that anyone participates as an individual, they will not be considered in the scoring as a team. Therefore, individuals will not qualify to win the Golden Ammo Can. However, individuals, on their own team, will be eligible to win prizes outlined for individuals.