What is the most exciting part of surveying?

Lunch

LUNCH! Ha! That was me when I was 10! That's funny! Thanks!

Nate

I like looking at the raw data and seeing how it fits with the deeds too. I like digging deep back to original land grants. Once found one that was owned by George Washington. I was surveying a much smaller piece, 300 Acres, that came out of land he was awarded through the military. Kept digging and found a map of it from 1771. Surveyor....Nope not Mr. Washington. Some other guy. Oh well.

I enjoy finding monuments that the previous surveyor didn't find or ones that haven't been uncovered in 50 or more years.I also like to see how the land have been divided up over the last 250 years from a Spanish Land Grant to now a strip mall.

I love that just when I get tired of being in the field/office that is when it is time to return to the office/field.

When I was a young indentured servant and didn't care about what was going on, my favorite part of "surveying" was when we put the transit in the box and got out the level. That meant no more cutting line, chaining or pounding hubs...just easy money walking around with a wore out Philly rod. Then I could play mumbly-peg while the PC figured grades, we'd mark numbers on the stakes with Kiel...and we'd get to go home.

Now that I'm oh so much older my favorite part of surveying is opening the envelope from the client with a check inside...just like Christmas morning. It never gets old.

Exciting ? As in adrenaline raising?

That's easy - working in traffic

I love hearing about every blown budget from the bosses. Several per day.

Finding that old axle under a 6" tree root, or just a simple "That's exactly where I remember it being" after 3 days of unbillable time on the lot job from hell.

My biggest excitement comes when I am doing a retracement, and the surveys that have been used for years just don't line up like the original patent or senior FN say they should, and the original MARKED monument has been somehow lost in time, and with careful retracement, ignoring what the last survey said, I find the original, MARKED monument. It's usually not very far from where the present day monument is located, a couple hundred feet or so. (Some sections in my areas of work were originally laid out slightly excessive across the block)

Being somewhere you know nobody has visited for a long time and hoping to find original evidence.

All the wine, women and song...............................
Oh, wait...................................
What was I thinking of...........................
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Solving the mystery no one else had been able to solve. Sometimes by finding the document that had not been found or had not been searched for. Sometimes by actually taking the time that should have been taken in the first attempt. Sometimes by just being too stubborn to go with the flow.
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That, and what Paden said about opening the envelope with the big ol' check in it with my name on it.

When hunting bench marks, finding one is great. Finding one that others didn't is better. Finding something blundered and getting NGS to fix it is best. That's happened a couple times, like when the adjusted coordinates were 0.6 mile from the disk (they entered the wrong point from a USGS traverse) or two data sheets for the same disk that had GPS data 1.000 meter apart. Plus the set of three RESET disks that had NGS data sheets with most of 100 ft wrong elevation, because somebody reset them from disks that weren't originally in the data base and submitted them, so they were calculated from disks with the same designations elsewhere.

When I'm playing with my own measurements, getting things to fit to a high precision.

Having a rattlesnake start buzzing immediately underfoot but not seeing it and not knowing which way to step.
Wondering what all the buzzards are into down in a gully then sauntering down there only to discover that the source 5 yards ahead behind a bush is a rather large bear having lunch.
Then there is being picked up off a remote ridge top by a crazed helicopter pilot who introduces you to how a Bell Jet Ranger can commence a dive downhill towards the canyon bottom..... going backwards.

Oooooooooooooooooh, that does sound exciting. Sign me up for a helicopter ride like that. It must take your breath away for a bit.

What Nate and JBN Ark said.
Probably being only the second surveyor to pass by, the other being the one who did the original survey.

And the satisfaction of a clients problems resolved or their desires achieved, a card of appreciation along with the cheque, or like last Christmas a whole bucket of strawberries dropped off on Christmas day.

Looking for stone mounds around a 17 acre parcel from 1840. The parcel is tied to a town lot corner that differs by 1700 feet east/west and 850 north/south depending on which way you come from, and there are surveys supporting each solution. This is rugged country and i think they did alot of slope chaining back then. That's what's exciting me today...

Filling out the Company check deposit slips, (I'm in construction surveying so nothing exciting ever happens) and RPLS Today. 😎

Pushing 'enter' and watching your carefully prepared contours appear on a plot (in the right places with no strange loops!).

The rain clears and you get a view like this, best on the way home. I can never get in holiday mode on the way to a job.
The Cuillin mountains, Isle of Skye in Scotland. They're only 3000 feet or so but rise straight from sea level.